COLOMBIA'S PEASANTS CAST A SCEPTICAL EYE AT US PLAN TO FIGHT DRUGS

The Poor Farmers Of Putumayo, In Southern Colombia, Are Not Impressed By
Attempts To Eradicate Coca, Says James Wilson:

The razed expanses of bare brown earth among the tropical forest of
Putumayo may be cause for celebration in Washington and Bogota, but
the poor farmers from La Hormiga are not so impressed.

In a six-week campaign some 29,000 hectares of coca - the raw material
for cocaine - have been sprayed, marking the successful launch of Plan
Colombia, the US-backed eradication campaign.

Many coca fields have been wiped out but - according to local
residents - the herbicides have also destroyed plots of banana and
yucca and contaminated fish ponds. Alfonso Martinez, private secretary
to the mayor in La Hormiga, says the farmers will simply sow coca
again. "It is what supports them." The government "has put no help in
place for the peasants whose crops they have sprayed".

For the farmers, who have lost their livelihood, the help available
appears to be scant. Stripped of tree cover solely to grow coca and a
few subsistence crops, Putumayo's fragile jungle soils cannot support
much alternative agriculture.

In January, Gonzalo de Francisco, a presidential adviser for Putumayo,
said each family could get 5m pesos (Dollars 2,220) of help in return
for entering into a one-year eradication scheme.

Now officials in Putumayo talk about just 2m pesos' worth of supplies
such as seed and fertiliser. One even says massive resettlement in
other areas of Colombia is the only viable solution.

In La Hormiga, Janeth Sanchez, a local farmer whose five hectare plot
has been destroyed, is selling off her stock of seedling coca plants.
Yet thousands more seedlings are being nurtured on many smallholdings,
suggesting many peasants are not about to abandon the drugs trade overnight.

Army patrols report coca is already appearing in new areas. Many areas
have also been missed by the spraying. Within a stone's throw of Ms
Sanchez's brown lands, Livardo Benavides's coca fields are untouched.
Coca stretches as far as the eye can see, covering perhaps 60 or 70
hectares and owned by many different growers.

His prize fighting cocks scratching under a mango tree, Mr Benavides
says he came to Putumayo to grow coca because he was "not prepared to
starve" in the impoverished neighbouring province of Narino.

Mr Livardo says he tried living in Putumayo growing wood, rice and
corn. "But to tell you the truth, agriculture is very bad around
here," he says. "If they fumigate here, I will go elsewhere, Ecuador
or wherever. We have to do what we can to bring our kids up."

But as well as doing little for those whose livelihood it destroys,
Plan Colombia seems to have brought the government no nearer to
controlling this violent province from the grip of leftwing Farc
guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries.

Admittedly, Colombian army units, moving rapidly through the area by
helicopter, are more visible than they once were. Later this year they
will become even more mobile when the army takes delivery of more US
helicopters, a central element of last year's Dollars 1.3bn aid package.

One high-ranking military officer says the army's sorties are
"atomising and neutralising" the Farc's forces. "But if we give them a
chance, they will regroup and attack," he says, admitting that the
army is not yet powerful enough to maintain a presence on the ground.

And General Mario Montoya says the Farc will eventually disappear if
the army and police units sustain their offensive.

There is little evidence that much progress has been made so far,
however. Just 15 minutes from Puerto Asis, the province's main town,
uniformed Farc guerrillas sit sipping juice at a small river port,
waiting to welcome new arrivals to what they describe as "our territory".

Meanwhile, at another spot 30 miles to the west, a column of more than
20 soldiers of the autodefensas, the illegal paramilitary group,
advances along the road. At a roadblock they check the papers of every
passer-by.

The ease with which the paramilitaries in particular operate - their
presence is strongest in the urban areas of Putumayo - calls into
question the government's commitment to combating them.

German Martinez, who until this month was a local ombudsman in Puerto
Asis, says the paramilitaries are being used as an "advance guard" for
Plan Colombia.