U.S. EFFORT TO CURB COLOMBIA COCA TAGGED A FAILURE

WASHINGTON -- The State Department has concluded that its strategy to
persuade peasant farmers in Colombia to replace their coca fields
with legal crops is failing, administration officials said Friday.

The alternative development strategy, for which Congress has
allocated more than $50 million, has suffered from a lack of security
in the coca-growing regions, a lack of follow-up by the Colombian
government, and the difficulty of finding crops that can thrive in
areas with poor soil, the officials said.

The United States has invested nearly $2 billion since 2000 to
support the country's armed forces, fumigate drug crops and provide
economic options to farmers in Colombia and its neighbors. The U.S.
ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, ordered a review of the
program late last year.

"They have concluded that we need to do stuff differently," said a
senior State Department official. Asked if that meant rethinking the
entire approach, the official replied, "Absolutely."

The State Department review of the program, which was first reported
Friday in the Los Angeles Times, concluded that many farmers have no
intention of destroying their crops. The federal government estimated
this month that coca cultivation in Colombia surged by nearly 25
percent last year, to 419,000 acres, despite fumigation, new military
aid and the crop substitution campaign.

The crop substitution effort has been focused in the southern
provinces of Putumayo and Caqueta, where about 40,000 peasant growers
signed an eradication pact in return for government aid.

Under the program, Colombia is to provide seed for alternative crops
or other immediate aid, and farmers are obliged to eradicate their
coca fields by July. The U.S. Agency for International Development
has pledged to provide incentives, training and money for
infrastructure projects.

The General Accounting Office reported last month that the strategy
"faces serious obstacles." Among them, it cited a weak Colombian
development agency with uncertain funding and the lack of a mechanism
to ensure farmers' compliance.

Mark Schneider, the Clinton administration's former development
agency chief for Latin America, said the strategy was doomed unless
the Colombian government can establish a credible presence and
provide security in a region that is overrun by leftist rebels and
drug traffickers.

Karen Hasbert, the development agency's deputy assistant
administrator for Latin America, said it is too early to judge
whether the alternative development strategy has failed.