E/CN.4/2005/88/Add.2 page 13 42. In some areas it is reported that the armed groups block access to indigenous communities and seize their food and other supplies, which causes families great hardship. Several such blockades were reported to the Special Rapporteur in the Sierra Nevada and Amazon regions and elsewhere. Humanitarian aid and an end to blockades are urgently needed if these families are to survive with a minimum of food security and basic necessities, despite the armed conflict. However, the lack of security makes it difficult to get essential humanitarian aid to these communities, and to their worst affected members, the women and children. 43. There are many reports of cases of forced recruitment of indigenous youths, and even children, by the armed groups. Although under Colombian law members of indigenous communities are exempt from compulsory military service, the army has nonetheless recruited indigenous youths, who allegedly volunteered, to peasant soldier units; and there are reports of cases of indigenous people enlisting, for a variety of reasons, in one of the rival armed factions. Such actions provoke reprisals against the families or the community as a whole, creating even greater insecurity and bringing further abuses and violations. 44. Colombia’s indigenous movement, in its various forms, has made repeated public demands for indigenous reserves and territories to be respected as neutral peace zones by the warring parties. They maintain that the indigenous peoples as such are not involved in the armed conflict or in the drug economy. As the Sierra Nevada Arhuaco put it, “We want them to leave us alone, to stop attacking us and stop evicting us; we want them to leave us out of the armed conflict.” Some pilot projects aimed at achieving this have been carried out with international assistance, and in some cases the indigenous communities have managed to get the armed groups to undertake to respect their neutrality. Generally speaking, however, their request has not met the response it deserves. 45. The Government has prepared a national strategy for the protection of the human and collective rights of ethnic groups, and of the indigenous peoples in particular. The overall aim is to safeguard and protect the human rights of the indigenous communities during the armed conflict, make special provision for indigenous peoples, reduce forced displacement, establish a nationwide system of care and introduce the ethnic factor into statistics on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government publish regular reports on the progress of this strategy. B. Violence, drug trafficking and human rights 46. For some 20 years now, there have been close links between the armed conflict and associated violations of the human rights of the indigenous peoples and drug cultivation in indigenous areas. Despite the Government’s determination to combat drug trafficking, in compliance with its domestic and international obligations, there seems to have been no overall reduction in the hectarage of illicit crops sown and harvested. The President described the so-called “balloon effect” to the Special Rapporteur - a situation in which a fall in production in one area is offset by expansion in new areas, which makes it difficult to eradicate such crops completely.