$1B-A-YEAR COCA PLAN MORE MISS THAN HIT

Behind The Small Metal Desk Sits A Man Wearing A Blazer Over An
Open-Necked Shirt

He is stocky, of average height, with bronze skin and thick, lustrous
black hair brushed back. He speaks in a soft voice and he doesn't smile.

We are a small delegation of interested observers spending a week in
Putamayo, a southern "department" of Colombia traditionally central to
the drug trade. He is Diego Vallejo Espana, the Public Defender in La
Dorada, a small town near La Hormiga. We are meeting with him to get a
first-hand idea of the effects of Plan Colombia on the local
camposinos, the peasant farmers who have been growing coca (and a
number of other crops) for centuries.

The broad picture is already clear, gleaned from information that is
commonly available and which was supplemented by a number of meetings
in Bogota before we travelled south.

Colombia is a geographic jewel, with extensive coastlines on the
Pacific and the Caribbean, three parallel mountain ranges with central
highlands and grasslands to the east. It has enormous deposits of
minerals, oil and gas, coal and gemstones, as well as a superabundance
of fruit, birdlife, flora and fauna.

Unfortunately, due to the dysfunctional nature of its politics, common
to much of South America over the past two centuries, it has also been
mired in a low-level civil war for almost 50 years.

That conflict is complicated enough. There are three factions: leftist
rebels who emerged in 1964; paramilitary forces subsequently raised by
the 40 or so extremely wealthy families (who control more than 50 per
cent of the land), at first to supplement the then befuddled army in
its struggle against the rebels and, latterly, to protect the drug
trade that funds pretty much all sides of the war; and the armed
forces, who over time have formed a symbiotic relationship with the
paramilitaries.

All sides are brutal in their efforts to insure the loyalty of small
communities. On the way to meet with the Public Defender, our group
paused to view a recently uncovered mass grave of some 200 people
"disappeared" over the years. Most had been dismembered. A common
tactic in the process of intimidation and securing allegiance to one
side or the other is the public dismembering of declared "traitors" or
"spies."

Drugs were not a feature of this struggle until the 1980s, when the
affluent United States discovered cocaine which, in turn, became a
staple of all scaremongering politicians. By the turn of the
millennium, approximately 0.5 per cent of Americans were addicted to
the drug.

In any other context, that would have rated tossing a few bucks at
some health initiatives. But in the midst of a persistent, if useless,
"war on drugs" our American cousins had hit the wall. In spite of a
domestic crackdown on use, in the form of some of the most draconian
sentencing schemes ever devised, demand continued to rise. Attempts at
interdiction of supply at the borders proved just as ineffective. Huge
amounts were seized, but cocaine became more available than ever.

So it isn't surprising that someone came up with the idea of crop
eradication. It was the only card left to play.

Thus was born Plan Colombia, whereby the United States provided the
Colombian government with almost a billion dollars annually to, among
other things, carry out aerial fumigation of coca crops.

Forget the civil war the camposinos had to contend with for almost
half a century; now they had to contend with crop dusters spraying
RoundUp (glysophate) on their meagre hardscrabble plots where they
barely eked out an existence for their families.

Yes, many were growing coca? and getting a pittance for it. But many
others were growing legitimate crops, or phasing out coca in favour of
other "licit" fruits or grains at the urging of, but with only
illusory assistance from, the government in Bogota.

It didn't seem to matter to the pilots. Poor intelligence on the
ground and flying high to avoid being shot at, inevitably resulting in
wind drift, had their effect: huge swaths of land not intended for
fumigation were destroyed.

We visited a number of farms where the fumigation was clearly in
error, not the least of which was a large operation near La Hormiga
run by the government itself as part of its program to give employment
to those paramilitaries who demobilize voluntarily and are
"integrated" back into Colombian society. Their plantain, heart of
palm and any number of other crops were in the same shape as all the
others: dry, hard dirt, yellow and black growth drooping, not much
green to be seen anywhere.

The errors, in fact, are a feature of Plan Colombia; and that's where
the Public Defender comes in. His job is to field complaints from
those who have suffered unfairly from the eradication program. He is
instructed to forward the complaints to the Ministry of the Interior
in Bogota so that they may be reviewed, authenticated and reparations
made.

He told us that, since 2003, he had forwarded more than 5,000
complaints. He received 38 responses, all negative. No one has
received a peso in compensation. He now tells those who come to see
him to forget it, it would do no good for him to take their complaints.

Along with the war, that may explain the 2.5 million internally
displaced persons in Colombia, more than anywhere in the world except
Sudan. Every large city has its swarms of "refugees."

Our group was divided on our assessment of Diego Vallejo Espana: Was he a
sincere bureaucrat who had sought to help and then had been betrayed by his
superiors? Or was he part of the sham policy, the man in the front line who
takes the flak but who went there knowing that would be his job?

I thought he was sincere, but I was in the minority.

And the flow of cocaine into the United States has increased, as has
its purity, while its price has dropped. Five billion bucks and
counting.