BILLIONS SPENT, BUT DRUG TRADE GROWS

Critics And Farmers Say Old Approaches Aren't Working In Colombia.

TENCHE, Colombia -- Numar Tirado used to make money on the side
growing coca bushes, the notorious plant whose leaves make cocaine.

But the dairy farmer stopped two years ago after a U.S.-financed
aerial spraying campaign reached this remote corner of the Andean
foothills, turning hillsides into withered gray-brown dead zones.

Tirado went back to legal, but less profitable, farming. He invested
in some more cattle and planted new pasture.

But then the spray planes came again last month. In seconds his best
grazing land was wiped out. With not enough left to graze on, he sold
half his herd of 72 cattle before they starved.

"The planes came over the hill and shot a spurt over there, and then
came back and did another over there," he said pointing to two gray
patches of dead grassland. "It doesn't make any sense. Do you see any
coca here?"

Despite its apparent lack of precision, U.S. and Colombian officials
defend the spray program as the most efficient means of eliminating
coca production in Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine.

But critics of antinarcotics policy in Colombia say the latest data
shows that eight years of intense spraying of coca crops, at a cost of
billions in U.S. taxpayers' money, have failed to make a dent in the
illegal drug market.

The latest U.S. government estimate puts the amount of coca in
Colombia at 385, 500 acres in 2006 -- 27 percent more than in 1999
when "Plan Colombia" was enacted. It was the third straight year of
increases.

More coca has meant more cocaine. A recent dip in the street price of
cocaine and a rise in purity points to an abundant supply.

Democrats in Congress, concerned over the disappointing results of the
drug war, want to slash funding for the spray program. Instead, they
propose spending more on social and economic projects, including
funding for alternative crops to replace coca.

But U.S. and Colombian officials warn that funding cuts in the
spraying program could flood the United States in even more cocaine.
Colombia says it cannot afford to run the spray program on its own.

"Initial estimates indicate we would have to reduce eradication by
one-third," Colombia Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters.

The picture is especially grim in Antioquia, a mountainous state in
Colombia's northwest where coca production has been growing steadily
in recent years. The state capital, Medellin, is the former turf of
the late drug lord Pablo Escobar. Ironically, in Escobar's day coca
was barely grown there and was instead concentrated in the jungles
hundreds of miles to the south.

Cultivation in Antioquia leapt 20 percent last year, up from 12,850
acres to 15,570, according to U.S. estimates. It's rise is emblematic
of a problem drug war policymakers have puzzled over for years.
Experts call it the "mercury effect." Despite increased spraying of
crops, the coca reappears in smaller forms elsewhere and the overall
amount never changes.

"The reality is that the spray program in the south has displaced coca
to new areas of smaller crops," said the University of Miami's Bruce
Bagley, one of the top U.S. drug policy experts. "Rather than going
out of business, it's expanded. It's all over the country."

In the coca-producing hamlets of Anori, a rural municipality of 17,000
residents, local campesinos said they are willing to give up their
small plots of coca, but complain the government has failed to provide
any practical alternatives.

"By all means, take the coca away, but give us something else to live
on," said Leofanor Mosquera, 42, president of Tenche, a hamlet of
about 38 families on the banks of a river about six hours ride by mule
from the nearest dirt road.

"The only thing coca has brought us is sadness, pain and suffering,"
he added, naming the local campesinos murdered by paramilitaries.

Coca was introduced to this former gold mining region in 1998 by local
paramilitary warlords in an effort to stamp out a long-standing
guerrilla presence. They justified the coca-financed war by pointing
to the failure of government forces to protect local ranchers and
merchants from the guerrillas who routinely stole cattle, demanded war
"taxes" and kidnapped those who didn't pay.

But the mix of coca and paramilitarism quickly evolved into an even
worse scourge. Anyone who opposed the paramilitaries, or sought a
higher price for their coca paste elsewhere, was labeled a guerrilla
and executed.

"The dead fell right there," said Orlando Granda, head of a local
group of growers of cacao, an ingredient in chocolate, as he pointed
to the main plaza in Anori. "This cruel and absurd war has taken at
least a thousand lives around here."

Coca production soared, filling the coffers of the paramilitary
commanders, led by Ramiro "Cuco" Vanoy, head of the Miners Bloc of the
self-proclaimed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. Vanoy is under
indictment in South Florida for his role in a drug smuggling ring
accused of importing 30 tons of cocaine a month. He is being sought
for extradition.

Coca isn't the only thing that's grown in these hills. Most land is
devoted to traditional crops such as corn, cassava and plantains.

But due to the distance from the road, and the cost of transporting
their produce by mule, farmers cannot afford to get their legal
produce to market. So many grow a little coca as well, which is much
easier to transport and fetches a far better price.

A mule load of corn sells for about 80,000 pesos $42. But it costs
60,000 pesos ($31.50) to hire a mule for the arduous trek through
dense forest, plus another 10,000 pesos ($5.25) for the two hours by
car or bus.

One kilogram (or 2.2 pounds) of coca paste sells for about 2-million
Colombian pesos ($1,000). Farmers make about $500 profit from a kilo
after buying seedlings, fertilizer and the processor chemicals. A good
size plot can produce about 2 kilos of coca paste every two months.

"You can see for yourself none of us are wealthy traffickers," said
Mosquera, standing in a field of recently sprayed coca plants.

Government officials in Antioquia insist the aerial spray program does
more harm than good. To avoid more damage to legal crops local
officials are lobbying the central government to use more precise
manual eradication.

"We have written to the police and army. It's a very serious problem.
It's just not an effective policy," said Jorge Mejia, the deputy governor.

Mejia and others say that because the coca in Antioquia is grown in 2-
and 3-acre plots called corralitos, it's almost impossible to target
accurately.

"If we invested the same amount of money that is spent on spraying in
manual eradication projects and finding crop alternatives we would be
looking at a different panorama," Mejia said.

The Colombian government together with the U.S. Agency of
International Development operates several programs to wean campesinos
off coca. One program protects virgin forests, which farmers cut down
to create new farmland.

Another offers campesinos 600,000 pesos ($300) every two months if
they agree to manually eradicate their coca crops.

But few have signed up.

"At first people didn't believe in the program," said Rodrigo Mejia,
the mayor of Anori. "They didn't think they would come and spray here,
and they did."

The only alternative agriculture program in the region is a $1-million
project partly financed by the United Nations and the government of
Antioquia that provides technical and financial support for 100
families to grow cacao for chocolate.

A dozen participants in that project complain that their cacao crops
were destroyed last month by the spray campaign. Two withdrew from the
program.

Other potential alternatives are dredging for gold in local rivers and
rubber farming in lower-lying areas.

"We hope to return to mining, but we need investment," said Mejia. "We
were the biggest miners in the country. There's still gold here. We
just need to exploit it."

In the town of Taraza, another coca growing area in Antioquia where
Vanoy, the paramilitary boss, had his base, campesinos are having
success with rubber.

Ironically, the government has so far done little to promote it.
Instead, demobilized fighters from Vanoy's army are leading the way
together with a local cooperative.

"Rubber is very profitable, not quite the same as coca, but it's not
far off," said Yosto Climaco, president of the local rubber growers
co-op.

But Climaco says rubber needs major government investment in order to
take off. It takes five years before a rubber plant can be harvested,
making it tough for poor farmers who live on day-to-day income. But
after it starts producing, a rubber tree has a life of 35 to 50 years,
and can be tapped weekly.

"Perennial crops are the best," said Ovidio Rincon, a rubber
agronomist. "They provide a definitive change. Other crops are more
transitory so people easily regress to coca."

The former paramilitaries have already planted more than 2,500 acres
of rubber around Taraza. They sell their produce to businesses in
Medellin, about five hours away by road.

"The culture of coca is changing for rubber," said Climaco. "Now is
the time to help. We can be a model for others."

[sidebar]

FAST FACTS: Plan Colombia

Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside the Middle East
and Afghanistan, more $5.4-billion since 2000 when Plan Colombia went
into effect.

Of that money about $4.4-billion is military-related aid, while
$1-billion is social and economic funds, including alternative
agriculture and support for democratic institutions.

About three-quarters of the military aid is dedicated to supporting
the aerial crop spraying program, which uses an enhanced form of
Roundup weed killer, containing the chemical defoliant glyphosate.

What's next -- the 2008 budget

The Bush administration has asked Congress for $590-million for
Colombia in the Foreign Aid Bill. As in previous years the majority of
this money -- $450-million -- would be dedicated to military support.

Democrats in Congress this week proposed cutting the overall budget by
about 10 percent to $530.6-million, of which only $290-million would
be for military support, including deep cuts in the aerial fumigation
program. Democrats have proposed increaseing economic and social
funding by $100-million.

"This is a major step away from what's happened in the last years,"
said Adam Isacson with the Center for International Policy.

Coca To Cocaine

The process is simple, although it involves a substantial investment
in processor chemicals.

Peasants pick the bright, olive-green coca leaves every two months,
and then crush them by foot, adding gasoline, cement powder, potassium
permanganate and caustic soda.

The result is a paste, which is then sold to intermediaries who
deliver it to clandestine laboratories where it is processed into
cocaine powder.

A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine sells for $30,000 in the United
States.