In many parts of Colombia, most notably the areas near the Amazon, the FARC almost functions as the government. The inhabitants of these areas have no other option but to rely on the FARC and to continue supporting its operations. Many of these areas have been forgotten by the central government and have low population densities. It has become extremely difficult for the Colombian government to assert its leverage in some of these remote places on a government-to-government basis because the locals here have developed a working alliance with the FARC. Any social benefits that these people receive are from the FARC, rather than a state institution. Oftentimes, the only state presence available is a small local police force that is powerless compared to the FARC’s much stronger local installation. In Cartagena del Chairá, a village in Caquetá in southern Colombia, a peasant came forth with the revealing observation: “everybody has grown up with the idea of the authority of the guerrillas. Another generation that recognizes the authority of the Army has yet to come.” In various parts of the country, it is a fact of life that the government has yet to definitively break the allegiance between the FARC and the local communities.