COLOMBIAN COCA, POPPY CULTIVATION EXPANDS DESPITE ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS

BOGOTA -- Coca and poppy cultivation is expanding in Colombia despite
government efforts against illegal drugs, according to a published
report.

The news magazine Cambio, quoting Colombian and United Nations
anti-drugs officials, said on Sunday that coca and poppy plantations
had expanded from a total of 103,000 hectares at the end of 1999 to
162,000 hectares 12 months later, for an annual gain of 60 per cent.

The findings, the magazine said, were based on satellite photos. It
said the findings were likely to intensify the growing public
dissatisfaction with the government of President Andres Pastrana.

Under the government's anti-drugs plan, the United States is to
provide 1.3 billion dollars, mainly in military spending, to
Colombia's 7.5-billion-dollar campaign. European countries, according
to Pastrana, also are to provide significant funding to the plans.

The plans call for the destruction of coca and poppy crops as well as
compensation to peasants who lose their livelihoods as a result.

A government official, who requested anonymity, told the magazine that
government-sponsored aerial herbicide spraying of plantations had
proved to be a "disaster".

And General Gustavo Socha, the chief of Colombia's anti-drugs police,
blamed the failure of the herbicide spraying programme on the failure
to offer any alternative crop choices to peasant farmers. Meanwhile,
the fields that had been sprayed were soon abloom with new illegal
crops, he said.

The magazine quoted Francisco Thoumi, a narcotics trade expert, as
saying the decline in demand for cocaine and heroin in the United
States and some European countries and the increased production of
coca and poppies used in making the drugs could lead to a market collapse.

The strong expansion in the crops in Colombia was mostly a response to
their increased production in neighbouring Peru and Bolivia, Thoumi
was quoted as saying.

Conditions for crop production are better in areas of Colombia
controlled either by leftist rebel groups or right-wing
paramilitaries, both of which are paid by drug producers for their
protective services.

The rebels have rejected Pastrana's anti-drugs campaign, calling it a
prelude to direct intervention by the United States.