COLOMBIA TALKS FOCUS ON DRUG ALTERNATIVES AID

European Nations And Others Are Being Asked To Pay For Job Creation That
Would Draw Growers Away From Illegal Crop Cultivation.

LOS POZOS, Colombia--As Congress moved forward Thursday with a $1.3-billion
package of U.S. anti-narcotics aid for this nation, diplomats from Europe
and elsewhere met here in the jungle with Colombian officials and Marxist
guerrillas to talk about alternatives to drug production.

While the U.S. aid emphasizes military equipment and training to eradicate
heroin poppies and coca, some cultivated in areas under rebel control,
Europeans are being asked to pay for creating jobs that will voluntarily
draw growers away from profitable illegal crops.

Narcotics production is a major source of financing for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, this country's oldest and largest
guerrilla group, so it also is an important issue at ongoing peace talks
between the rebels and the government.

The conference here, which ends today, was called with the Colombian
government's cooperation as part of the peace process and drew more than 20
delegates from Europe, Canada, Japan and the United Nations. The gathering
is the first time that the subject of drug production has been broached
publicly during more than 18 months of peace talks.

FARC chief Manuel Marulanda, clad in camouflage and surrounded by heavily
armed guerrillas, was on hand and greeted each delegate to the meeting
hall. U.S. diplomats, who cut off contact with the FARC after the rebels
admitted killing three American environmentalists last year, were invited
to the gathering but did not attend.

Colombia's failure to hold such discussions prior to the creation of its
$7-billion peace and anti-narcotics blueprint known as Plan Colombia
concerns many Europeans, diplomats have said. The lack of public
consultation and Colombia's emphasis on a military approach appear likely
to cause the European Union to reject the nation's request for $1 billion
in aid, one prominent European civic leader warned Thursday.

Potential EU donors will meet with Colombian officials next Friday in
Madrid and will tell them to rethink Plan Colombia, predicted Mark Jelsma,
representative of the European Council of Drugs and Development, which
represents 20 civic organizations working in this country.

"The Europeans do not want to bring the carrot while the United States
provides the stick," he told cheering observers, including about 200 coca
farmers who also attended the conference. The farmers expressed strong
opposition to fumigation and broke into chants of "Down with Plan Colombia!"

"Europe has not made public its profound rejection of the plan in its
current form," Jelsma said in a later interview. Previously, European
diplomats had expressed concerns about the plan, which emphasizes
eradication of drug crops while offering some alternatives for small growers.

Colombian Environmental Minister Juan Mayr Maldonado said farmers with
fewer than 12 acres of coca--like most of those attending this
meeting--represent only about 6% of Colombia's drug production. He said the
government's policy for dealing with larger plantations, which represent
the bulk of Colombia's 250,000 acres of coca, calls for eradication using,
for the most part, fumigation. With the U.S. aid, which was approved by the
House on Thursday and is expected to win Senate approval today, larger
areas of the country can be fumigated.

Still, Mayr termed Thursday's meeting "historic, because it is the first
time that the guerrillas, the government and the international community
have met together to hear different points of view."

Those viewpoints included a FARC proposal to create a pilot eradication
program in the county of Cartagena del Chaira, located next to the
Switzerland-size zone that the government ceded to the rebels to create a
neutral area for peace talks.

The proposal calls for 36 experts to study the area and create a
FARC-implemented program using education and enforcement to encourage
alternatives to cultivating poppies and coca. Cost estimates were not
included. However, both the government and guerrillas are clearly counting
on international funds to carry out such programs.

Mayr said the meeting in Madrid is important for the peace process.
However, Jelsma warned that Europeans will be skeptical about contributing
if the U.S.-financed portions of Plan Colombia, from increased fumigation
to the creation of two new anti-narcotics army battalions, are carried out.