COCA FARMERS' RIOTS FUEL U.S.-COLOMBIA SPRAYING DISPUTE

Three days of rioting incited by coca farmers angry over the aerial
spraying of their fields with herbicides are casting fresh attention
on a dispute between Colombia and Washington over a key part of the
U.S. counter-narcotics strategy in Colombia.

The rioters want to suspend a 3-week-old spraying campaign in this
part of northeastern Colombia, a move that U.S. officials would
consider a setback in the nationwide campaign to eradicate the coca
plants.

President Andres Pastrana has yet to respond to the protests, but any
deal to curtail the spraying here could sharpen U.S. frustrations over
his decision earlier this spring to cancel a much larger sprraying
offensive in the southern state of Putumayo.

``Unless there is a Colombian political will to keep the pressure up
on eradication in Putumayo, we are in danger of losing the initiative
there,'' said a U.S. government official in Washington with firsthand
knowledge of the dispute.

The farmers in Tib=FA, in the northeastern Catatumbo region of
Colombia, promise to uproot their coca bushes if the fumigation is
halted, but they are demanding government aid to raise alternative
crops. U.S. officials are skeptical.

``This is crazy. So, if every coca farmer in Colombia makes a
warm-and-fuzzy promise to destroy his own crops, Pastrana won't spray
at all?'' said a U.S. military officer who monitors the fumigation
efforts in this country.

To press their case, the farmers sent 3,000 of their field workers
into Tib=FA, the region's main town with 13,000 people. They rioted
Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday and torched the small refueling base
at the airstrip used by the crop dusters.

Pastrana talked Thursday with Luis Alcides, governor of Norte de
Santander state, to discuss the farmers' demands for manual
eradication agreements with the government and complaints that the
herbicide is making people and farm animals sick.

But U.S. officials are already dissatisfied with Pastrana's decision
to call off the earlier round of spraying Putumayo, a move his aides
portrayed as an effort to give a similar voluntary eradication program
time to work.

On the record, Colombian officials deny any friction over the
spraying. ``We have the option of spraying anywhere we believe it's
necessary,'' said Gonzalo de Francisco, Pastrana's chief national
security advisor.

The State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs Bureau (INL), which finances and operates the spraying
campaign in cooperation with the Colombian National Police, has also
denied any dispute.

About $115 million of the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package approved last
year was for fumigation -- including the purchase of 10 crop dusters,
which would double the current number, and tons of the herbicide glyphosate.

``When we have all the pieces in place we will be able to spray in
four parts of the country simultaneously, and this will be a
full-court press that has never been seen before,'' said a Bush
administration official in Washington.

The $115 million was first put to use in a major campaign launched
Dec. 19 in western Putumayo's Guamuez Valley, which holds an estimated
one-quarter of Colombia's coca acreage.

It had covered 74,000 acres when it ended in early
February.

U.S. officials say the plan was to hit Guamuez again no more than 90
days later, to spray fields missed in the first sweep and reinforce
the psychological message that coca farming would not be tolerated.

`Again and Again'

``For any hope of an eradication to work you have to convince the
farmer that you will be back, again and again, to hit his fields,''
said a senior Republican congressional aide who monitors Colombia's
spray efforts.

But Pastrana blocked the second round of spraying, U.S. officials
said, even though smaller fumigation campaigns have hit other parts of
Putumayo, Catatumbo, Bolivar, Guaviare, Huila and Tolima.

``Pastrana has been much more reluctant to spray than the United
States wants him to be,'' said Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami
expert on Colombia who serves as a consultant to the U.S. government
on Colombian issues.

Pastrana's defenders say spraying is only the ``stick'' part of a
``carrot and stick'' policy that he hopes will lead more farmers to
join the voluntary eradication program, first launched in Putumayo in
December.

Under the agreement, some 21,000 farmers who have 40,000 acres of coca
promised to uproot their coca fields within a year after receiving
$1,000 per family in seeds, farm animals and implements. The
government at the same time promised to launch multimillion dollar
development projects such as roads, bridges, schools and clinics.

``That's what we want too in Catatumbo, an alternative to coca, a
plague on our society but the only crop that allows us to eat,'' said
Alfonso Florez, who farms 15 acres of coca in La Gabarra, 40 miles
north of Tib=FA.

U.S. Skepticism:

But U.S. officials are more than skeptical of the social pacts,
especially after a $1 million on-the-ground ``truth proofing'' of the
results of the Guamuez campaign conducted by U.S. and Colombian
experts in April.

The survey found many area farmers have already planted again, U.S.
officials said, and the large numbers of coca nurseries spotted
indicate an intention to plant even more.