COLOMBIA SENDS AN ANTI-DRUG BOUQUET TO U.S.

IPIALES, COLOMBIA -- With the destruction of a 12-acre opium poppy
crop in southern Narino state on Sunday, the Colombian government
declared it had rid its territory of all "industrial" plantations of
the flower used to make heroin.

Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos made the declaration during a
media trip to a mountainside poppy field 375 miles southwest of
Bogota near the Ecuadorean border, minutes before dozens of troops
destroyed the crop with machetes. It was perhaps no coincidence the
assertion came as the U.S. Congress was considering extending Plan
Colombia, the $600-million anti-drug and terrorism aid package whose
effectiveness has been called into question.

Santos described the elimination of sizable poppy fields as a "great
accomplishment in the struggle against narcotics. We're not saying
some poppies won't reappear in six months, but for now they are gone."

Santos is the Cabinet member who oversees the national police and
armed forces, which have carried the fight against Colombia's drug
traffickers. Heroin production and trafficking continues -- a
130-pound load of heroin was seized on the Colombian island of San
Andres in the Caribbean last month.

But even critics of Plan Colombia say strides have been made. Poppy
cultivation fell to less than 4,500 acres last year, or 10% of what
was farmed in the early 1990s, according to Colombian statistics.
Colombians also report that seizures of the gummy substance collected
from poppies that is the basis of heroin are up a hundredfold since
2000. U.S. drug authorities report increases in street prices in
cities such as Chicago and Boston, an indicator of diminishing supply
from Colombia and elsewhere.

But the relative success of poppy eradication only puts in bolder
relief the stubbornness of cocaine production in Colombia. After
seven years and $4 billion in U.S. aid under Plan Colombia, cocaine
continues to be nearly as plentiful as it was before 2000.

In response, there are growing calls for a change in tactics, toward
more incentives and fewer punitive measures. On Sunday, Santos told
reporters that the government would offer farmers more subsidies to
grow crops other than coca and poppies.

"Crop substitution programs have been the missing link in the
struggle against drugs," Santos said. "That's going to change."

About 300,000 acres of Colombian coca were fumigated with an
industrial herbicide last year.

A shift away from massive spraying would be in line with calls from
the United Nations, several nongovernmental agencies and Democratic
Party critics of Plan Colombia in Congress. All have long insisted
that for drug eradication to work, more farming alternatives must be
offered to peasants.

"People grow poppies because we are all poor and we have been
forgotten by the government," said farmer Alirio Quitiyan, who
happened upon the eradication scene. Quitiyan denied that he ever grew poppies.

Guerrillas in the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, offer peasants about $50 a year to use their land to grow
poppies, Santos said.

A top United Nations official here said recently that for crop
substitution programs to work in Colombia as they have in Southeast
Asia, officials must offer farmers similar incentives.

Santos said eight possible crop substitutes had been identified for
Narino state, including African palm and rubber.

Such incentives "would be the only way to make any crop reductions
sustainable," said Adam Isacson, a researcher at the Center for
International Policy in Washington, a watchdog group that monitors
Plan Colombia spending.