LESS AID FOR COLOMBIAN STATES RICH IN COCA

SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- A $4 billion battle to wean
Colombian farmers off the cocaine trade through a combination of
military might and American aid is quietly being cut back in a region
where cocaine production is surging.

In an internal memo, the United States Agency for International
Development cites unacceptable security risks for its workers and a
lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta State.

Six years and more than $4 billion in American tax dollars after Plan
Colombia began in Caqueta, coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is
still the region's No. 1 cash crop. But the programs meant to provide
farmers with a profitable alternative to growing coca are vanishing.

Washington spends $70 million annually on development projects in
drug-producing areas of Colombia. But under the Agency for
International Development's new five-year, $350 million plan for
development projects, Caqueta and four other Amazonian states where
coca production is rising will not receive a penny.

"Instead of investing generously to eliminate dependency on the
illegal drug trade, we're being shunned," said Luis Fernando Almario,
a congressman from Caqueta.

An official at the United States Embassy in Bogota said resources
from Caqueta would be redirected to areas with a greater likelihood
of sustaining development.