COLOMBIAN OFFICIALS COOLING ON DRUG WAR

As U.S. officials arrive in Bogota today to evaluate the war against drugs
and Marxist rebels, many prominent Colombians are voicing opposition to key
elements of the anti-narcotics campaign.

In recent weeks, Colombian governors, lawmakers, a high-ranking
administration official and the front-runner in next May's presidential
race have come out against the policy of fumigating illegal drug crops, a
cornerstone of the U.S.-backed fight against narcotics.

Some have begun questioning the very premise of the drug war and contend
that two decades of hard-line policies have failed.

Last week, Colombian Sen. Viviane Morales even introduced a bill to
legalize the production and sale of heroin and cocaine. Though the measure
has been given little chance, it sparked a nationwide debate, and several
public figures endorsed the idea.

Today through Friday, a high-ranking U.S. delegation is scheduled to visit
Colombia to discuss Washington's support for the drug war with President
Andres Pastrana. The officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the
Justice Department and other agencies also plan to visit Colombian army
bases in the southern part of the country and assess progress in the
nation's 37-year war against leftist rebels.

Despite growing criticism of his counterdrug strategy at home, analysts say
that Pastrana, who has one year remaining in his four-year term, is
unlikely to alter his policy.

That's because millions of dollars in U.S. aid is at stake. Plan Colombia,
Pastrana's anti-drug initiative, is already backed by $1.3 billion in U.S.
assistance.

Last month, Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, warned that
ending the fumigation program could jeopardize congressional support for
aid to the South American nation. The Bush administration has requested
about $731 million for anti-drug efforts in the Andean region for 2002,
about half of which would go to Colombia.

This year, U.S.-backed spraying of opium poppy and coca fields has
intensified. The strategy is also designed to undercut guerrillas who fund
their war, in part, by taxing and protecting drug farmers and traffickers.

Critics claim that fumigation damages the environment, causes health
problems and simply doesn't work.

They point out that acreage of coca and opium poppies has expanded rather
than diminished since fumigation began in earnest in the late 1990s. Drug
farmers, these critics say, have simply pressed deeper into the jungle and
mountains to plant more. Some disgruntled peasants, they add, have joined
the rebels.

According to U.S. estimates, a record 336,400 acres of coca were cultivated
in Colombia in 2000, an 11 percent increase over 1999.

Since December, crop-dusting planes, many of them provided by the State
Department and flown by American contract pilots, have sprayed 138,000
acres of coca.

U.S. officials insist that the crop-dusters target industrial-size
plantations of drug crops. But many subsistence farmers who grow small
plots of coca and opium poppies complain that they are also being hit and
that their food crops are being killed. The herbicides, they say, cause
skin rashes and diarrhea.

Such protests prompted a Bogota judge last month to order the suspension of
spraying in Indian communities in southern Colombia. A week later, a higher
court overturned the ruling.

Drug farmers are not the only ones protesting the fumigation policy.

Eduardo Cifuentes, the Colombian government's human rights ombudsman,
condemned aerial spraying in a Senate hearing last week. Lawmakers in both
houses of Congress have introduced bills to halt fumigation, and a handful
of Colombian governors have toured the United States and Europe to call
attention to the issue.

"Today, there is more cocaine being produced, more trafficking, more
traffickers and larger areas under cultivation," said Horacio Serpa, the
presidential candidate from the opposition Liberal Party who is leading in
the polls.

"We cannot ignore the fact that cracking down on small drug farmers only
makes the problem bigger," he wrote in a column in the current edition of
the news magazine Cambio. "However, we should maintain (aerial spraying)
for the big industrial-size plantations after doing environmental impact
studies."

Many Colombians have begun to openly discuss the idea of drug legalization.
Supporters of the Senate bill to legalize the production and sale of
narcotics say the measure would eliminate the outlandish profits earned by
traffickers and stop drug-related violence. Possession of small quantities
of drugs is already legal under a 1994 court ruling.

Those who have endorsed drug legalization include a leftist presidential
candidate, Luis Eduardo Garzon, and the head of Pastrana's Conservative
Party, Carlos Holguin. Last week, the country's governors issued a
declaration calling on Pastrana to lead a national debate on the issue.
Drug legalization was widely discussed by the nation's media.

"A few years from now, we will look back on the drug war as one of the
stupidest wars that humanity has ever waged," said Sen. Morales, the
sponsor of the legalization bill.