Pubdate: Fri, 29 Mar 2002
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2002 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times

AID DIDN'T CUT COCA FARMING, U.S. SAYS

FLORENCIA, Colombia - State Department officials have concluded that an 
alternative-development plan aimed at slashing drug crops has failed, a 
decision that raises doubts about the U.S.-backed effort to eradicate the 
primary source of narcotics on America's streets.

Farmers in southern Colombia who signed voluntary agreements to eliminate 
coca, the source of cocaine, in exchange for aid have eliminated little or 
none of their harvest and have no intention of doing so before a deadline 
later this year, according to a confidential State Department report.

As a result, U.S. Embassy officials have decided to abandon a plan to 
encourage the substitution of other crops and products for coca. Instead, 
they will concentrate on building large infrastructure projects to provide 
jobs, and improve living conditions and transportation.

And they will rely on a controversial aerial fumigation program to show 
farmers, mostly rural poor with small plots of land, that their coca will 
be wiped out if they do not stop growing it.

"There's nothing that we can offer (the farmers) as an alternative that 
comes near the value of coca," said Ken Ellis, the head of the U.S. Agency 
for International Development in Colombia.

The U.S. decision represents a radical new direction in the 
alternative-development program, long touted as the only way to ensure a 
permanent reduction in the coca crops that fill valleys and riverbanks 
throughout southern Colombia, which is the source of most of the cocaine 
that reaches the United States.

Experts on alternative development and peasant farming say the changes 
spell disaster. Small-scale farmers, who often plant coca alongside 
traditional crops like corn, will face food shortages if spraying becomes 
the primary tool to encourage eradication and kills their food crops as well.

And they say that many of the farmers, who migrated to isolated southern 
Colombia in search of work, will simply move to other areas to grow coca if 
they are not taught how to raise other crops.

"You can spray all you want, you can spend all the money in Europe and the 
United States, but the problem of coca will continue," said Jesus Bastidas, 
the director of an alternative-development program here in this crowded 
state capital.

Colombian government officials acknowledge that the alternative- 
development program has failed to produce results. But they say more time 
and money are needed. Only 96 of Colombia's 222 coca-growing counties have 
programs in place.

"We need permanent support," said Maria Ines Restrepo, the head of 
Colombia's alternative-development program. "Our conflict is not going to 
end without social investment."

There are few problems more stubborn in the fight against drugs than what 
to do about the 100,000 or so small coca farmers in Colombia, a dilemma 
involving social, political and economic issues intertwined with Colombia's 
nearly 40-year-old guerrilla war.

Most of the farmers moved to isolated corners of Colombia in the 1970s and 
'80s in search of jobs or land. Once there, they grew traditional crops on 
small, 5-acre plots along with coca. They were helped by narcotics 
traffickers and leftist guerrillas, who provided seeds, loans and technical 
advice.

Although estimates vary, such farmers account for at least 15 percent of 
the coca grown in Colombia, which last year had about 321,000 acres of 
coca, according to a State Department report. The rest is grown on huge 
plantations.

Experts say that wiping out the coca through fumigation would simply lead 
to widespread displacement, food shortages and environmental damage, as 
farmers push deeper into Colombia's rain forest.

That's why Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion U.S.-backed effort to halve drug 
production here by 2005, included a budget of more than $100 million for 
alternative development. The idea was to wean farmers off coca by providing 
new sources of income through alternative crops or jobs in industries such 
as rubber production.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager