TIBÚ, Colombia: Coca growers in Colombia on Thursday (Friday in Manila) freed 180 soldiers they had taken hostage during an anti-narcotics operation earlier this week, the government's human rights ombudsman announced, after President Iván Duque made a plea for their release. The troops were taken on Tuesday while destroying plantations of the cocaine-yielding plant near the Venezuelan border. Gen. Omar Sepulveda told reporters that six platoons under his command were 'kidnapped' in the municipality of Tibu in the northeast by farmers resisting the destruction of the illegal plantations they rely on to make a living. A spokesman for the coca growers, who identified himself as 'Junior,' told W Radio the soldiers were taken in protest as farmers felt the government had not fulfilled a promise to help them replace coca leaf plantations with legal crops.
