Pubdate: Wed, 04 Apr 2001
Source: Associated Press
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/27
Author: Jared Kotler, Associated Press Writer

US SEES COSTLY COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - While a U.S.-backed offensive against drug crops 
speeds ahead, alternative development aid for farmers will take years to 
fully succeed - and will require much more money from Washington, a top 
U.S. official said.

George Wachtenheim, who heads the U.S. Agency for International Development 
in Colombia, acknowledged that the development aid was going slowly while 
crop dusters escorted by U.S.-trained troops and U.S.-provided combat 
helicopters are wiping out drug crops in Colombia at a record pace.

But he said it was "not fair" to expect instant results from the aid 
programs, which are designed to help wean farmers off profitable drug crops 
to other, legal plants.

With no economic alternative, many of the coca farmers in southern Colombia 
who have been hit by aerial fumigation earlier this year are already 
replanting the drug crops.

"Fumigation obviously is something that happens much faster than 
alternative development," Wachtenheim told foreign journalists on Tuesday.

Under a $1.3 billion aid program approved last year, nearly 100 square 
miles of coca have been fumigated since late December, mostly in Putumayo 
province. The campaign is ostensibly targeting large-scaled plantations.

However, small farmers who have also been hit are complaining that food 
crops were killed alongside the coca, and that pledged alternative 
development aid has not arrived.

Wachtenheim said several thousand small-time farmers who have signed pacts 
with the government to manually eradicate their coca crops will begin 
receiving seeds for growing subsistence food crops such as bananas and 
corn, and aid to raise livestock.

However, there is no infrastructure development for the farmers to bring 
their crops to markets.

Wachtenheim said longer-term development projects will require at least 
$220 million in additional U.S. aid over the next five years to ensure the 
farmers do not revert to growing coca.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D