TREE PLANTING SYMBOLIZES ATTEMPT TO HALT COCA CROP

BOGOTA, Colombia - Yanking a coca bush from the ground and planting a
magnolia tree in its place, officials kicked off an ambitious program
to eradicate drug crops in the heart of Colombia's cocaine-producing
region.

During the weekend ceremony in southern Colombia's Putumayo province
- -- home of nearly half the world's cocaine-yielding acreage -- about
700 peasant farmers agreed to destroy their coca plots in return for
government aid to adopt alternative, and legal, livelihoods.

The crop-substitution program is the "soft side" of a U.S.-backed
military push into the region, in which remaining coca fields will be
seized by government troops and destroyed by aerial fumigation.