By Jack Kimball
PARAMILLO NATIONAL PARK, Colombia, Nov 8 (Reuters) - In the remote mountains of north Colombia, an indigenous woman stands on a bank of the Rio Verde river at sunset watching neighbors scrub clothes while pigs sleep nearby.
"Farewell!" she mouths to another high-flying helicopter combing for rebels in the hills of Cordoba province, one of the Andean nation&${esc.hash}39;s most violent regions.
Since a U.S.-backed military offensive began in 2002, the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have been beaten back into ever remoter jungle and mountain hideouts.
President Juan Manuel Santos dealt the guerrillas their biggest blow yet when troops killed FARC leader Alfonso Cano last week in a strike leading from a tipoff by an ex-rebel.
While the death of Cano raised hopes of peace after nearly five decades of conflict, the rebels are far from defeated and have vowed to continue waging war.
"A difficult security situation will remain Colombia&${esc.hash}39;s lot for the foreseeable future," said Robert Munks, an analyst for global think tank IHS Janes. >^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Full coverage of FARC leader&${esc.hash}39;s death [ID:nCOLOMBIA] Map of where Cano was killed: http://link.reuters.com/xah84s FARC leaders dead and alive: http://link.reuters.com/zah84s ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
That is borne out in northern Cordoba province: a microcosm of the security problems plaguing many of the areas of Colombia where guerrillas and powerful gangs linked to former paramilitaries fight for control over drugs and territory.
Embera Katio indigenous communities in Cordoba&${esc.hash}39;s national park -- a drug corridor -- told Reuters during a reporting trip days before Cano&${esc.hash}39;s death that they were caught in the middle.
"The guerrillas say we&${esc.hash}39;re informing for the government and the government says we&${esc.hash}39;re informing for the rebels," said Juan Domico, a human rights campaigner for the Embera.
"We&${esc.hash}39;re stuck between a rock and a hard place."
TAKING TURNS
Maria, 23, whose real name could not be given in case of reprisals, lives with her children under a borrowed black plastic sheet in a field of maize -- one of Colombia&${esc.hash}39;s nearly 3.7 million internal refugees.
She recounted being forced to flee her village home a few days earlier, along with 10 other indigenous families, after a menacing visit by armed men from one of Colombia&${esc.hash}39;s drug-linked criminal gangs.
A man in fatigues and another dressed in civilian clothes were waiting for the brother of the woman to come down from farming in the Cordoba mountains. They picked up a 9-month-old baby boy, and began to toss him back and forth.
"I thought they were going to kill the child," the woman said in stoic tones at the makeshift camp, dressed in a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt and multicolored skirt.
"We didn&${esc.hash}39;t grab anything, neither clothes, nor chickens, nor the dog," said the woman, who was homeless for the second time after a rebel attack in the late 1990s.
The conflict in the world&${esc.hash}39;s top producer of cocaine has been exacerbated by drugs, which fund guerrillas and criminal gangs. Areas with multiple armed groups and those along major drug routes are the hardest hit.
While Colombia has taken major strides to shake off an image of a nation mired in drug- and guerrilla-bloodshed, Latin America&${esc.hash}39;s No. 4 oil producer has yet to fully escape its bloody past even as output of key commodities hit historic highs.
All along the Rio Verde in Cordoba&${esc.hash}39;s Paramillo national park, indigenous communities try to eke out a living.
Residents say they can no longer hunt in the mountains, a key source of food, because of fears of clashes between the army and the FARC. Children stay close to the village.
"The guerrillas may appear here, then the army appears there," said school teacher Kisaerubi Domico.
"One feels like they&${esc.hash}39;re just taking turns." (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Cawthorne)
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