Aid Cut To Colombian Region

U.S. PULLOUT LEAVES COCA CULTIVATION THRIVING, CRITICS SAY

SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- The United States is quietly cutting
back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a
strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to
wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade.

In an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press, the U.S. Agency
for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for
its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout
from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia.

Six years and more than $4 billion in American tax dollars after Plan
Colombia was launched in Caqueta, Colombia's army is still fighting
rebels here, and coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is still the
region's No. 1 cash crop.

But the alternative development programs meant to provide farmers
with a profitable alternative to growing coca are vanishing in the
state -- a symptom, critics say, of how Plan Colombia has failed to
persuade enough coca growers to switch to legal crops even as coca
production reaches volumes unseen in years.

Short Reach

Washington spends $70 million annually on development projects in
drug-producing areas of Colombia. While such projects win praise, the
United Nations and development groups lament their limited scope.

Caqueta and neighboring Putumayo state produced 24 percent of the
356,000 acres of coca detected by the most recent U.S. survey --
contributing to a 26 percent surge last year nationwide. Yet Caqueta
has seen only a trickle of U.S. development aid -- $5.6 million since 2000.

And Now, Even That Is Drying Up.

As part of the U.S. strategy to win over coca growers, almost 20
percent of annual assistance is devoted to non-military social
programs and development projects. Managing this "soft side" of
diplomacy is USAID, whose mission in Colombia is its biggest in the hemisphere.

But under the agency's new five-year $350 million plan for
development projects, Caqueta and four other Amazonian states where
coca production is rising won't receive a penny.

"It's a complete contradiction of Plan Colombia," said Luis Fernando
Almario, a congressman from Caqueta who supports President Alvaro
Uribe Velez's aerial eradication drive. "Instead of investing
generously to eliminate dependency on the illegal drug trade, we're
being shunned."

A USAID official at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota said resources from
Caqueta would be channeled to other areas with a greater likelihood
of sustaining development in the long term. He spoke on condition of
anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly on the issue.

But critics say that by writing off the south, the U.S. and Colombian
governments are leaving the region with little alternative to coca.

Despite USAID's pessimism about the region's economic prospects, at
least some foreign investors are still committed: The multinational
Nestle SA, with aid from the United Nations, plans to double the
capacity of a dairy plant in Caqueta.

"It makes no sense for residents of a historical guerrilla stronghold
to be subjected to a strategy of all stick and no carrot -- combats,
mass arrests, searches and fumigation, but no aid," said Adam
Isacson, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy.

Lack Of Aid Decried

The drying up of development aid is in contrast with the tens of
millions spent on aerial eradication efforts that have barely
curtailed coca cultivation in the region.

Some 400 coca farmers gathered here recently for a coca-growers'
congress. In sweltering heat, normally tight-lipped peasants railed
for hours against the lack of government aid even as a U.S.-supplied
crop duster dumped clouds of the herbicide glyphosate on nearby fields.

Since June, when the latest round of spraying began, six peasants in
the area have been arrested for having coca on their land.

"All the government ever does is fumigate and fumigate -- it's their
own fault we grow coca because they never show their face to offer
alternatives," said Juan Carlos Mazabel, one of the organizers.

Instead of more spraying, Caqueta's 450,000 residents want financial
support, their representatives say.

The war on drugs was expanded in 2001 to target rebels who profit
from the cocaine trade. A legion of U.S. soldiers and contractors
have since passed through Caqueta to train and assist 20,000
counterinsurgency soldiers.

The rebels have largely retreated into the mountains, restoring a
dose of safety to cities and roads. But that hasn't led to new jobs
for impoverished residents.

The U.S. Embassy says security constraints and limited private
interest are also thwarting its work in Putumayo, at $65 million the
top recipient of Plan Colombia economic aid among Colombia's 32 states.

Some projects already have faltered. In the town of Orito, an
animal-food-concentrates plant has been idle for nearly a year, its
machinery rusting since the United States abandoned the project.