COLOMBIAN GOVERNORS SLAM U.S. DRUG-OFFENSIVE

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Governors from key cocaine-producing regions
in Colombia on Monday condemned a U.S.-backed plan for aerial spraying of
drug crops, saying the operation would imperil the livelihood of thousands
of poor peasants.

With U.S. funding, the Colombian army is set to launch a massive military
push in the country's south to combat the Andean nation's booming drug
industry.

The almost $1 billion in mostly military aid for President Andres
Pastrana's "Plan Colombia," approved by the U.S. Congress last July, is
aimed at eradicating illicit fields of coca and cutting the funding of
leftist guerrillas who protect and profit from the trade.

But a group of governors on the frontline on the war against drugs said
they would present in an upcoming meeting an alternative plan urging
Pastrana's government to stop aerial spraying of herbicides and instead
fund crop-substitution programs to wean peasants from their dependence on
drug crops.

"The real problem is the terrible situation in which thousands of peasants
live in Colombia," said Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, governor of the
southwestern province of Huila. "We can't run over their livelihoods
without giving them opportunities to grow other crops," he told Reuters.

Human Rights Groups Say Block Aid

On Friday, major human rights groups called on President Clinton to block
what remained of the Washington aid package, accusing Colombia's army of
not severing ties with right-wing death squads.

Right-wing paramilitaries, who often target civilians suspected of
collaborating with leftist rebels, were blamed for the execution-style
killings of at least 20 peasants in separate attacks throughout Colombia
over the weekend, police and local media said.

The governor's plan, which is to be made public at a national meeting of
governors scheduled for Feb. 15-16, is backed by at least six governors,
including the governor of Putumayo, which grows 50 percent of the country's
coca leaf -- the raw material for cocaine.

On the lawless southern border with Ecuador, jungle-covered Putumayo is
seen as ground zero for the offensive, which would employ Black Hawk
helicopters to transport anti-narcotics battalions.

Colombia, the world's No. 1 producer of cocaine, is in the grip of a
four-decade conflict that has left 35,000 civilians dead in the last 10
years. The war pits leftist guerrillas against right-wing paramilitaries
and the armed forces.

U.S. and Colombia drug officials say the country's main guerrilla force,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), takes in millions of
dollars a year from the drug trade.

The United States has insisted it wants to target drug traffickers and not
be drawn into an expeditionary guerrilla war.

In neighboring Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez on Monday urged Clinton's
successor, President-elect George W. Bush , to think again about supporting
Plan Colombia. "I hope that the new (U.S.) government will reconsider Plan
Colombia," Chavez said in a televised address to Congress.