Finally, the relationship between drug traffickers and guerrillas changed. While insurgents initially provided protection for cocaine laboratories, drug traffickers developed virulently anti-communist positions. Drug traffickers such as Rodríguez Gacha and Fidel Castaño created paramilitary armies that attacked both armed insurgents and their peasant base. The fact that Colombian security forces were accused of tolerating the creation and operations of paramilitary groups funded by drug trafficking helped neutralize the "narcoguerrilla" argument that was taking shape in the wake of then-US Ambassador in Bogotá Lewis Tambs' statements charging collusion between guerrillas and drug traffickers.