In Micay Canyon, a lush mountain-fringed valley in southwest Colombia, Drug-running guerrillas have repelled military efforts to retake a slice of southwest of the country. Locals quietly express unease about both the government and the rebels. "Don't let the president say he's going to recover a region that has never belonged to him [...] no one has invested anything here," says an Afro-Colombian woman, widowed after her husband's murder. "What's the point if the army enters and other [guerrilla] groups follow? The only thing left for us is death," she adds. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES