COLOMBIAN COCA GROWERS TURN OVER NEW LEAF

A promise of financial help from the government is encouraging many hundreds
of peasant families to give voluntary pledges that they will tear up their
crops in Putumayo, writes James Wilson:

Hundreds of families in Colombia's drug-producing region of Putumayo were
set yesterday to sign an agreement with the government promising to tear up
their coca crops in return for financial help.

Their pledge is the latest in a fledgling campaign to reduce Putumayo's coca
dependency through voluntary agreements with peasants growing the drug crop.

The alternative - already being carried out in other areas of the southern
department - is aerial fumigation, much criticised for its effects on
health, the environment and on legitimate crops.

Colombia's government knows it faces huge challenges in persuading
Putumayo's suspicious residents that it will offer them the necessary
support if they voluntarily opt out of the cocaine trade.

Providing security is one problem. The rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (Farc) control large areas of Putumayo, but illegal paramilitaries
are challenging them for regional control.

Rumours yesterday suggested the Farc were planning a renewed armed blockade
of Putumayo, similar to a two-month blockade last year that led to airlifts
of basic supplies and drove hundreds from their homes.

Previous efforts to wean peasants off coca have also foundered on lack of
resources and bad planning.

"The only choice we have, faced with this lack of credibility, is to
deliver," says Gonzalo de Francisco, an adviser on citizens' security for
Putumayo.

Over the last year, more coca than ever has been grown in this isolated
province, the size of the US state of Vermont.

By latest estimates, Putumayo provides more than half of Colombia's entire
coca crop.

In 1999 Putumayo had 57,000 hectares of coca fields. But Mr de Francisco
said that figure might now be "70,000 or 75,000 hectares".

"Coca is still increasing in Colombia. That is clear," he added.

Barry McCaffrey, head of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, has
also said he expects a "giant increase" in Colombia's coca production when
official figures for 2000 - based on crops detected by aerial surveys - are
released shortly.

Colombia is already the world's biggest producer of cocaine, and the
expected increase in coca cultivation is in spite of intensive aerial
fumigation in many regions.

Mr de Francisco estimated that 60,000-65,000 hectares of drug crops were
fumigated in Colombia last year, the biggest effort since 1998, when 72,000
hectares were sprayed. "Planting has been growing more quickly than
eradication. We are trying to achieve the opposite," he said.

Colombia also produces 80 per cent of the heroin found on the US east coast.
Drug crops are often in areas of rebel control, which prompted the US to
grant a huge rise in military aid to Colombia last year to help Mr
Pastrana's government take control of these regions.

However, critics of this "Plan Colombia" aid say it relies too much on
military repression and risks escalating the country's armed conflict, which
has lasted for almost four decades and has grown in recent years on the back
of drug profits.

Putumayo is the initial focus of Plan Colombia and fears being in the front
line of fighting between rebels and US-trained anti-drugs battalions.

The locally inspired voluntary eradication pacts are aimed at staving off
the threat of violent clashes over coca.

Aerial fumigation began in December in Putumayo's areas of "industrial" coca
cultivation. However, Mr de Francisco said he hoped more towns would join
the voluntary eradication pacts.

"Forced eradication will only be efficient if there is also interdiction and
voluntary eradication," he added.

The Farc strongly oppose drug fumigation, but Mr de Francisco said the
government had not encountered rebel rejection of the voluntary eradication
pacts.

"Manual eradication will be difficult but we are going to try. This is what
the president wants and what people in Putumayo want. I think we can do it."