The twisting mountain paths rose sharply toward the clouds in the Paila district of south-west Colombia while roadside shrines with plastic statues of the Virgin Mary were sobering reminders of the countless drivers who failed to turn the hairpin bends in time.
This is "Smurfitland", where vast pine tree forests stretch as far as the eye can see, while workers cut and stack wood which is taken to Smurfit's paper factory in Yumbo, an industrial zone outside Cali, in south-west Colombia.
In 1986, Smurfit acquired the US multinational Container Corporation of America (CCA), a deal which included a share in Colombia's Carton de Colombia, the country's principal paper and packaging company.
In January 1988, Smurfit bought the Latin American interests outright from its partner Morgan Stanley, giving the company a 67 per cent interest in Colombia's Carton company, since renamed Smurfit Carton de Colombia (SCC).
The Irish company acquired several farms in the remote Paila district and inherited a bitter land dispute with 90 Paez Indian families. They refused to abandon Smurfit-owned farms, claiming ancestral land rights.
The conflict intensified in 1989 when Smurfit's Colombian lawyers enforced a court order giving them the go-ahead to destroy Paez community crops, enlisting police and troops to maintain order.
In July 1990 a new national constitution was approved in Colombia, radically altering the legal status of the indigenous peoples. The country's first constitution of 1886 described the Indians as "savages" - to be civilised by the Catholic church. They actually had fewer rights than certain protected birds and animals.
The revised constitution enshrined social, cultural and economic rights for the estimated one million indigenous Colombians, almost 4 per cent of the population.
The most important legal aspect of the new constitution was legislation guaranteeing indigenous people the right to establish a reservation in areas to be determined by negotiation with government land agencies.
The Indians rarely had paper titles to their lands, which had passed through several hands since the Spanish conquistadores took them by force in the 16th century, steadily displacing the native population further and further away from their original homes.
The Paez families live in extreme poverty, surviving on corn mash and yucca plants, cutting wood for fuel. The most advanced farming implement is the machete.
The Paez are now locked into a lengthy and bitter dispute over the 1,200 hectares of land which were first acquired by Smurfit in 1986 and sold on to a farmer's collective, Agroforestal, in 1991. This agro-forestry collective was made up of 80 landless peasant farmers from outside the area. They purchased the land on condition that they continue forestry work or return the land to Smurfit, which agreed to pay a monthly wage to the workers in lieu of timber revenues.
But the Agroforestal presence in the Paila has been reduced to a token operation, as most of the 80 members have left the area, tiring of the ongoing dispute with the Paez, many of them finding employment elsewhere with Smurfit.
The report (see story below) by the Smurfit shareholders' delegation calls on the company to revoke its existing forestry contracts with Agroforestal and negotiate a new contract which would give "real independence" to the farmers' group.
"Smurfit could resolve this issue immediately by handing over the land to the Indians and compensating Agroforestal," the delegation concludes.
In a written response to the Paez claims, Smurfit accused the Indians of "invading" company lands and rejected Paez claims to ancestral rights.
"No Indian reservation or major Indian settlement existed in the area," said the company, whose legal department "thoroughly revised" existing land titles. The Colombian government has consistently supported Smurfit's right to retain the farms it purchased, while an international campaign was launched last year to persuade Smurfit to hand over the three farms at the heart of the dispute, one of which is still owned by the company.
The Paez community sent a delegation of its own to Ireland last October, sponsored by the Irish agency AfrI, and they met Smurfit executives. The Paez delegates expressed satisfaction after their two-hour meeting, at which the company signed a statement in which it agreed to hold a meeting in Colombia with all parties to the conflict. That meeting has yet to take place.
The Smurfit shareholders' delegation visited the Paez community. The people expressed disappointment at the lack of response to the agreement to hold the meeting. "These people's way of life needs to be protected not threatened," said Ms Patricia McKenna, MEP, who believes the community has a justified claim to the disputed land.