U.S. PULLS OUT OF COLOMBIAN COCA REGION

The United States Is Pulling Some of Its Resources Out of a Key
Battleground in the War Against Drugs.

BOGOTA - After several years of trying to wean farmers from the drug
trade in the conflictive southern province of Caqueta, the U.S.
government is winding down its funding of alternative development
programs in the region. The pullout comes amid a flurry of criticism
of U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate illegal drug production in
Colombia, and just before the U.S. Congress is expected to vote to
continue aid for counter-drug programs in this nation of 41 million people.

Colombia remains the largest supplier of cocaine to the U.S. market,
and recent reports have suggested that production is increasing
despite some $4 billion in U.S. aid for the military, crop
eradication and economic development programs since 2000.

The Caqueta development programs are a small part -- $9 million in
U.S. funds went to the province in five years -- of this annual aid
package, but the region carries symbolic weight as one of Colombia's
poorest and most notoriously guerrilla-ridden provinces.

For decades, the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, better known as the FARC, have dominated the area, which
has 410,000 people and is a little more than half the size of
Florida. They have used it as a training ground for new recruits and
a launching pad for attacks.

Laboratory

Given its background, Caqueta became a laboratory for the
counter-narcotics program known as Plan Colombia, designed to dry up
coca, the raw material for cocaine, and replace it with viable
alternatives. The overall plan included billions in U.S. aid for
military training, intelligence equipment and hardware like
helicopter gunships as well as money for economic projects and infrastructure.

At first, the plan seemed to be working in Caqueta. Under President
Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian military launched an unprecedented
offensive of 17,000 troops that pushed the guerrillas from their
traditional strongholds in Caqueta and elsewhere, and disrupted the
coca economy. Colombian police data shows a drop in coca farming in
the province from 59,000 acres in 1999 to 12,000 last year. U.S. and
Colombian economic programs followed, including $5.6 million from the
Agency for International Development (AID), $3.9 million of which
went to a project for rubber trees that benefited 579 families.

But now both parts of the effort seem to be in retreat. According to
politicians from the area and analysts of the military, the Colombian
army is quietly withdrawing some troops from the province. The armed
forces do not comment on troop movements.

Meanwhile, the United States has stopped funding economic development
programs in the Caqueta region.

"There are serious doubts about the impact of the program," said
Alfredo Rangel, a former consultant with the Colombian military who
now runs a think tank on security issues. "The impression is that
these programs are very inefficient." Caqueta politicians are
dismayed by the U.S. government's decision. They say the programs
helped undercut the coca economy during the military offensive, but
still need time to take root.

"When the coca left, the economy went into crisis," said Luis
Fernando Armario, a longtime congressman for Caqueta. "Now is when we
need the economic help." The U.S. pullout from Caqueta comes just
months after reports by the State Department and the United Nations
said the total coca acreage in this country is growing again. In
March, the State Department said coca acreage had increased by 26
percent; in June, a U.N. report showed an 8 percent rise. U.S.
officials say that their latest survey, done primarily through
satellite photos, covered more land than previously and say coca
acreage is down since the plan began.

Refocused Aid

One U.S. embassy official here also said the Caqueta pullout -- which
doesn't affect other much smaller programs in the region that focus
on human rights and internally displaced people -- is part of an AID
effort to refocus U.S. assistance.

"We're not pulling out of Caqueta," said the official, who wished to
remain anonymous because the official is not authorized to speak in
the name of the U.S. government. "That [alternative development]
program came to its natural close." Farmers in the area disagree.
Pablo Emilio Pineda, the head of a rubber producing cooperative, says
the project is far from finished. He worries that many of his
colleagues will now return to growing coca. "With this decision, many
of these families are in limbo," Pineda wrote The Miami Herald in an
e-mail. "They could easily return to sowing illegal crops." The U.S.
decision appears to have been based on a set of factors more complex
than officials have publicly acknowledged.

A State Department memo on the alternative development projects in
Caqueta, obtained by The Miami Herald and previously reported in
Colombian media, offers a view of some of the difficulties that U.S.
officials face. The document states U.S. government workers were
advised not to travel to one project in Caqueta because of guerrilla
activity, and one project dealing with livestock in Caqueta had to be
moved to another province because of "security concerns." The
document also outlines the economic challenges AID is facing in
places like Caqueta and argues that the same money in other provinces
could benefit more families. The U.S. embassy official said this
document was one of many that was used to analyze the situation in
Caqueta and come to the decision to leave. "Instead of saying this
didn't work, what the mission concluded, in conjunction with the
[Colombian] government, is that we can do this better," the official said.

But critics of U.S. policy in Colombia contend that the decision to
shut down development programs in Caqueta reflects a larger problem
in the overall strategy.

Adam Isaacson of the Washington-based Center for International Policy
says that close to 80 percent of U.S. funding for Colombia continues
to be for military aid, leaving little for alternative development.
Of the $700 million annual U.S. package, for instance, AID receives
around $130 million per year for projects ranging from economic
development to training for justice officials and investigators.

"When they think of Plan Colombia, they don't think of job
opportunities and strengthening of governments," Isaacson said of
rural coca farmers. "They think spray planes and helicopters, and I
think this decision to leave Caqueta reinforces that image." Local
farmers like Pineda agree. "It seems like they're betting on war, and
that's the saddest thing about all this," he said in the e-mail.