FIGHTING OVER DRUGS

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia -- IN THE two years since President Andres
Pastrana launched his peace initiative with the FARC, Colombia's largest
guerrilla force has been rather more adept than the government at
extracting political mileage from their talks. So it was again last week.
When a score of ambassadors from the European Union countries, Canada and
Japan visited guerrilla territory to discuss drug eradication and human
rights with Manuel Marulanda, the FARC's veteran leader, and his
lieutenants, they were met by an honour guard of armed guerrillas, snapped
into formation by a rebel commander.

The two-day meeting took place in San Vicente del Caguan, in the heart of a
"demilitarised" enclave ceded by the government to get peace talks going.
For the FARC, such exercises are good propaganda-but also a way of
highlighting disagreements between the United States and Europe, both over
drugs and over how to aid Mr Pastrana.

The United States did not send anyone to the San Vicente talks. It refuses
to meet the FARC until it hands over the guerrilla soldiers who killed
three American environmentalists last year. The meeting took place as the
American Congress finally approved a much-delayed $1.3 billion package of
military aid for Colombia. Most of this will go on helicopters (18 fast
Blackhawks, and 42 elderly but revamped Hueys) whose job is to help a new
army brigade chase drug traffickers in Putumayo, a FARC stronghold in the
south.

That is part of Mr Pastrana's $7.5 billion "Plan Colombia", which also
includes economic development projects and schemes to persuade farmers to
plant alternatives to coca. European countries were to discuss possible
contributions in Madrid on July 7th.

Some Europeans are sceptical about whether Plan Colombia will be effective:
they dislike the United States' emphasis on military action against the
drug industry. They also think Mr Pastrana's people have made insufficient
effort to crack down on those army commanders who have links with
right-wing paramilitary groups. These, like the FARC, have links to drugs:
this week, police seized 1.5 tonnes of cocaine which they said was intended
to finance the paramilitaries.

But an effort has been made to reach a consensus on how best to help
Colombia. Britain organised a meeting on the issue last month, and last
week Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy representative,
paid a brief visit to Bogota.

In San Vicente, the visiting diplomats just listened as small farmers
brought in by the FARC denounced Plan Colombia. They told of police
cropdusters dousing their cassava, maize and livestock with the herbicides
used against coca, and paraded relatives said to have been made ill by the
chemicals.

The FARC has its own ideas about how to get rid of drugs. It wants the army
to withdraw from a town near San Vicente, and consumer countries to pay for
an alternative development programme and tourist centre there. Farmers who
didn't eradicate coca would be expelled by force, said Raul Reyes, the
FARC's chief peace negotiator.

Few are convinced by such proposals. In their closed meeting with the
guerrilla leaders, the ambassadors criticised them for kidnappings,
enlisting children and using landmines.

With killing and kidnapping-and massacres by the paramilitaries-all
continuing, public confidence in Mr Pastrana's peace process has fast
diminished. In what might be a last chance to revive its credibility, the
guerrillas and the government this week exchanged proposals about a
ceasefire. But nobody was holding their breath.