The two attacks against vehicles and employees of oil and research companies in the Caqueta department this week are believed to be reprisals for failure to pay extortion, Caracol Radio reported Friday.
The attacks were supposedly motivated by the decision of multinational corporations in the area not to provide FARC guerrilla’s with extortion money.
Local authorities have reported that many international corporations had been making payments to the FARC for protection, but have since suspended their actions after President Juan Manuel Santos warned that he would ban any company from the country that made payments to the FARC.
Authorities are concerned that the FARC may be making plans for a larger attack in the region as many shipments of guerrilla explosives have been transferred to Caqueta and later confiscated.
The region is also plagued by other armed groups who seek to claim oil-rich lands through violence and then sell them to large oil corporations.
The attacks in Caqueta this week killed one oil worker, wounded five others and destroyed six vehicles.