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Sparsely populated by isolated indigenous communities and the descendants of escaped African slaves, the eastern third of Panama - some 19,000 square kilometres - is perhaps the last great untamed wilderness of Central America, the beginning of an immense forest that continues almost unbroken across the border into Colombia and down the Pacific coast to Ecuador. This was the first region on the American mainland to be settled by the Spanish, but though they extracted great wealth from gold-mines deep in the forest, they were never able to establish effective control, hampered by the almost impassable terrain and by the fierce resistance put up by its inhabitants, and harassed at every turn by European pirates and bands of renegade African slaves known as cimarrones . Though historically the whole of eastern Panama was referred to as Darien, today it is divided into two distinct regions, separated by a low chain of forested mountains that runs the length of the Atlantic coast. The Atlantic side of these mountains is Kuna Yala , the autonomous comarca (territory) of the Kuna people, one of the most wildly beautiful and culturally fascinating regions of Panama. Here some forty thousand Kuna live in isolation on the idyllic offshore islands of the San Blas Archipelago , connected to the rest of the country only by boat or plane. The rest of eastern Panama is Darien , the almost impenetrable wilderness frontier between Central and South America and the largest and most isolated province in Panama. Only one road penetrates Darien: known as the Darien Highway , it is an extension of the Carretera Interamericana, intended to connect the road systems of North and South America. But for the moment the 106km gap between the two - the Darien Gap - remains unbridged. Here the vast forests remain largely undisturbed, one of the most pristine and biologically diverse ecosystems in the world and home to the semi-nomadic Embera-Wounaan. Along the border with Colombia huge areas of these forests are protected by Parque Nacional Darien , the largest and most important protected area in Panama. Eastern Panama has always been a wild frontier, a haven for rebels and renegades that defies effective government control, and today the cimarrones , pirates and insubmissive indigenous tribes of the colonial era have been replaced by drug traffickers, bandits and guerrillas. In recent years the situation has got markedly worse, with the vicious, decades-long Colombian civil war spilling over into Panama. The Marxist guerrillas of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) have long maintained bases in Darien, but now right-wing paramilitary groups backed by powerful landowners and drug traffickers have begun pursuing them, terrorizing isolated Panamanian communities they accuse of harbouring the guerrillas. The paramilitaries have also been waging a brutal campaign against poor peasants in Colombia, driving floods of refugees across the border, and unidentified armed groups have begun attacking Panamanian police outposts. Thus a climate of fear and suspicion reigns in Darien and the eastern extreme of Kuna Yala: remote villages have been abandoned, locals fear to travel by river, and thousands of extra police have been rushed in. While large areas of the region can still be visited safely, including almost all of Kuna Yala and parts of the Parque Nacional Darien, crossing the frontier by land, always a risky adventure, would now be crazy.
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