A RIOT BY COCA FARMERS POSES A DILEMMA FOR THE GOVERNMENT

The American-backed offensive against drug crops, launched last December
under the rubric of "Plan Colombia", involves a carrot-and-stick approach.
The carrot is money for alternative economic activities. The stick is
widespread aerial eradication of coca fields. Now the government of
President Andres Pastrana is facing pressure to halt the spraying. This
month police crop-dusters have been spraying weedkiller in Norte de
Santander, over about 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of coca. But last
weekend several thousand coca farmers and labourers descended from their
hillside fields and took over Tibu, a town near Colombia's border with
Venezuela. They looted local businesses, and set fire to tanks of
weedkiller stored at the town's airstrip. The farmers are refusing to leave
the town until the government stops spraying.

This was the first big protest against Plan Colombia's spraying campaign,
but it came as American officials were already casting doubt on the
commitment of Mr Pastrana's government to forced eradication. Between
December and mid-February, about 25,000 hectares of coca were sprayed in
Putumayo, home to around half of the total crop (estimated at 136,000
hectares by the United States). The government then halted spraying there
and instead employed 29,000 coca farmers to undertake the manual
eradication of their plants. It has ordered no spraying in neighbouring
Caqueta, a stronghold of the FARC guerrillas, with whom it is holding
desultory peace talks. But in February and March it did spray 5,600
hectares of coca in the south of Bolivar department.

The FARC is bitterly opposed to aerial spraying. But so, too, are the
right-wing paramilitaries of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia
(AUC). Both groups make money from drugs. Gonzalo de Francisco, the
government official in charge of Plan Colombia, cites police reports that
the AUC, which controls much of Norte de Santander, was behind the taking
of Tibu. He insists that Plan Colombia will go ahead in the area, but that
manual eradication is a possibility. Officials were due to visit Tibu this
week to discuss alternative development.

The ferocity of the protests recalls those in 1996, when seven people were
killed as 60,000 coca farmers and labourers clashed with the security
forces in Putumayo, Caqueta and Guaviare departments. Those protests were
said to have been organised by the FARC.

The new revolt poses a dilemma for Mr Pastrana. He wants to keep American
support-and he wants to weaken both the FARC and the AUC by cutting their
drug income. On the other hand, for many farmers coca is the only reliable
source of income. Forced eradication is unpopular, and there is an election
next year.