GUERRILLAS, NOT COCA FARMERS, PROFIT FROM U.S. AID, COLOMBIANS CLAIM

VILLA GARZON, Colombia -- A strange twist has developed in Plan Colombia,
the multibillion-dollar U.S.-funded program designed to weaken rebel groups
by eliminating drug crops as their primary source of financial support.

According to government sources, the nation's main guerrilla group is
making profits off Plan Colombia through protection money paid by
contractors for the right to work in areas dominated by the rebels.

The alleged extortion payments have led to the diversion of crucial
social-development funds that were to have gone for the introduction of
alternative crops, road-construction projects and other efforts to beef up
southern Colombia's long-neglected rural infrastructure.

U.S. and Colombian officials said the development projects were supposed to
have started last December but are only now getting under way, in part
because the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had threatened
to attack anyone who accepted Plan Colombia funds.

Senior officials visited Villa Garzon, in southern Putumayo province, last
month to inaugurate one of those projects, an alternative-crop program
designed to wean peasant farmers from dependence on illicit-crop cultivation.

U.S. Embassy officials in Bogota said they have no information that any of
the $1.3 billion in U.S. funding for Plan Colombia has gone to pay for
protection from the FARC or any other armed group. Any payment to the
rebels, regardless of the justification, would violate U.S. laws. The U.S.
government imposes strict auditing procedures, in part, to ensure that no
such diversion occurs.

Military And Social Aid

Most of the U.S. funding for Plan Colombia is designated for military aid
to help the armed forces combat rebel groups, such as the FARC, that profit
from the drug trade. However, more than $200 million in U.S. aid is being
devoted to social programs.

The FARC traditionally has insisted that all companies and wealthy
individuals pay a "war tax" if they have financial interests in areas where
the rebels operate. In an interview last year, FARC spokesman Andres Paris
said the payments, known as a "vaccination," do not guarantee protection,
but if companies or individuals refuse to pay, they will become targets for
attack and kidnapping.

The threat of guerrilla attack has been an ongoing source of problems for
both nations in attracting nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to bid on
millions of dollars worth of social-development projects in the south.
Individual grants by both governments for various social projects in
Putumayo range from $25,000 to $42 million, according to official figures.

In spite of the amounts available, a U.S. Embassy official said, "there
were very few NGOs who were even willing to go there" because of the FARC
threats and other dangers associated with Colombia's 35-year-old civil
conflict.

President Andres Pastrana raised the issue during a meeting last February
with FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The rebel chief agreed at least
temporarily to withdraw the threat of attack, said Gonzalo de Francisco,
the chief presidential adviser for social programs tied to Plan Colombia.

Sources in the presidential palace said some of Plan Colombia's contractors
have been visited recently by the FARC and required to pay large fees so
they could carry out their projects. If the contractors failed to pay, the
FARC allegedly threatened to sabotage the projects by attacking workers and
destroying equipment.

"It's impossible not to pay them once they've visited you," said Ivan
Gerardo Guerrero, the governor of Putumayo. "You can't carry out your
contract without their cooperation, and they don't cooperate unless you pay
up."

Jorge Rojas, the director of a nongovernmental organization in Bogota and a
critic of Plan Colombia, said the alleged rebel extortion attempts
underscore the weaknesses of a plan that mixes military funding with social
spending.

"So Plan Colombia winds up financing the guerrillas. It's a disaster," he
said. "A plan designed to stop the war ends up generating more war."

'War Tax' Payments

Among the projects now under way is the construction of a
multimillion-dollar highway linking several major towns in Putumayo.
Guerrero said the road is crucial for farmers attempting to transport legal
crops to market, so they will not have to rely so heavily on drug crops for
income. The lack of such a road infrastructure is what drove farmers to
grow coca to begin with, he added.

Government sources said, however, that the FARC refused to allow heavy
machinery and construction workers into some areas without first receiving
a "war tax" payment from the contractors.

Peasant farmers flocked to Villa Garzon recently to sign a pact with the
government, promising to manually eradicate their coca crops in exchange
for about $800 per family in government assistance over the coming year.
The aid will come in the form of chickens, pigs and food-crop seeds.

The government has promised that additional, more substantial aid will follow.

"There were lots of rumors that the guerrillas would kill us if we signed
the pact," said Wilson Ruiz, who has a three-acre coca farm near Villa Garzon.

He and other farmers said they are willing to take the risk because the
government has threatened to spray the area with herbicides if the farmers
do not eradicate manually.