GETTING TO ROOT OF DRUG PROBLEM

Colombia Farmers May Pull Coca Crop

LA ESPERANZA, Colombia -- Marco Julio Herrera, a 75-year-old
grandfather, clasped the stem of a 3-foot-tall coca plant and tugged
with all his might.

The bush, thick with shiny green leaves that contain the raw material
for cocaine, resisted for a moment, then popped out of the soil.

"You have to pull it out, roots and all," Herrera explained.
"Otherwise, it will just grow back."

Despite a litany of crackdowns over the years, Colombia has never
managed to keep its coca crop from growing back. Now, however, coca
farmers like Herrera are offering to do the job themselves.

Over the past two months, hundreds of coca growers in southern
Putumayo state -- home to about 40 percent of Colombia's estimated
300,000-acre coca crop -- have agreed, in principle, to destroy their
plants in exchange for government aid to help them join the legal economy.

The initiative is being touted as a kinder, gentler alternative to
raids by Colombian crop-dusters, which spray with herbicides.

Aerial fumigation has long been a cornerstone of the war on drugs in
Colombia, which produces up to 90 percent of the cocaine sold on U.S.
streets.

But the spraying program has sparked violent demonstrations by coca
farmers, who contend that the crop-dusters have mistakenly destroyed
food crops and have left their families destitute. What's more, they
say, the eradication effort has lacked an effective follow-up program
to help farmers switch to alternative crops.

Some analysts, however, view voluntary eradication as a well-meaning
but ill-fated sideshow in a state now on a front line of Colombia's
36-year civil war.

The state is the main target of a U.S.-backed counteroffensive that
will include massive aerial spraying and army attacks on Marxist
guerrillas who are deeply involved in the drug trade.

Because large areas of Putumayo are controlled by guerrillas or the
right-wing paramilitaries who battle them, the Colombian government
has been virtually unable to spray the state's drug crops in the past.

Still, a handful of community activists has convinced the Colombian
government that, at least in some areas of Putumayo, voluntary
eradication may be a more effective way to wipe out coca and win over
hardscrabble peasants.

"Aerial spraying has been a huge failure. Colombia is the most
fumigated country in the world, but the coca crop keeps getting
bigger," said Manuel Alzate, mayor of the Putumayo town of Puerto Asis
who is organizing the voluntary effort. "We want to prove that if the
farmers eradicate coca by themselves, we can get rid of it forever."

The voluntary program would provide assistance to peasants who grow
less than 7.4 acres of coca, an amount that provides them with little
more than a subsistence income. Families would have a one-year grace
period to uproot their coca plants and receive government help in
switching to legal jobs, such as cattle ranching, chicken raising,
fish farming or growing food crops.

Farmers would also receive temporary food aid, since it may take
months or years to earn profits from their new ventures.

In addition, the Colombian government has pledged to invest in roads
as well as health and education programs in Putumayo.

"People like the idea of leading a more dignified life," said Jorge
Chamorro, a community leader and teacher in La Esperanza, a tiny
hamlet where dozens of farmers have agreed to rip up their coca fields.

For the next three months, the Colombian government has earmarked
about $5 million for the eradication program, according to Gonzalo de
Francisco, a special adviser to President Andres Pastrana for the
Putumayo region.

More funding could come from an $862 million U.S. aid package for
Colombia that was approved last summer, de Francisco said. Most of the
U.S. money is for training and hardware for the Colombian army and
police, but about $81 million has been set aside for programs to wean
farmers off coca crops.

"The pace of implementation for these projects will depend heavily on
the local farmers and their willingness to participate and comply with
verifiable benchmarks," Rand Beers, the U.S. assistant secretary of
state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said in
congressional testimony last month.

At the same time, Colombian and U.S. authorities plan to step up
police and army anti-drug operations in Putumayo. Aerial fumigation of
industrial-sized coca plantations run by seasoned drug traffickers
will start in December, Beers said.

So far, coca growers in 45 communities near Puerto Asis have agreed to
take part in the voluntary eradication program. But experts say they
will face enormous difficulties.

For one thing, many of the farms are located in war
zones.

This month, heavy fighting involving army troops, rebels and
paramilitaries forced the government to postpone a ceremony in which
it was to sign a letter of intent to formalize the manual eradication
program.

What's more, there appears to be deep distrust between many peasants
in Putumayo and government officials.

Col. Gabriel Diaz, commander of the army's 24th brigade in Putumayo,
calls the manual eradication program a stalling tactic by coca farmers
and guerrillas to keep out the crop-dusters.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, the
nation's largest guerrilla group,earns millions of dollars annually
from the drug trade.

"The FARC is just buying time," Diaz said in an interview.

Others believe that if the program starts to work, the FARC will try
to sabotage it.

Some farmers accuse the government of ignoring past pacts with coca
growers. They fear that once they rip out their plants, the government
will cancel the aid programs, leaving them without a livelihood.

"The day that they give me some money, I will gladly start pulling out
my plants," said Alina Lopez, who has grown coca for the past 10 years
and uses the money to buy school uniforms and textbooks for her
children. "But I doubt that there is going to be any aid. Politicians
always trick you."

De Francisco claims that won't happen.

"We are in this to make good on our promises," he said.
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