QUESTIONS OF U.S. DRUG WAR PLANS

LOS POZOS, Colombia (AP) -- Washington's escalating drug war in
Colombia is expected to come under sharp attack at an international
peace conference opening Thursday in this tiny village in the
country's coca-growing south.

Hosted by leftist guerrillas as part of negotiations to end the Andean
country's 36-year conflict, the Conference on Illegal Drug Crops and
the Environment will be attended by delegates from 21 countries,
including Britain, Spain, France, Canada and Japan -- but not the
United States.

The U.S. government declined, citing a prohibition on official
contacts with Colombia's largest rebel band, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

U.S. officials would probably not have enjoyed themselves.

The rebels, who have fought the Colombian government for decades,
intend to use the two-day event to rail against U.S. policy in the
country. They also will try to cultivate resistance to a planned
military push into Amazonian jungles where peasants grow coca, the
plant used to make cocaine.

The FARC welcomes its visitors at a time when Washington is ``using
the excuse of fighting drugs to try and defeat Colombia's popular
movement and insurgents,'' rebel negotiator Carlos Lozada said in Los
Pozos.

On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers were finalizing the $1.3 billion
aid plan the rebels object to. The package aims to help Colombian
troops retake jungles near San Vicente del Caguan, where the FARC and
rival paramilitary groups guard and tax cocaine-producing plots for
huge financial payoffs.

The bulk of the funds would pay for military helicopters and Green
Beret training for Colombian army battalions. Those battalions will be
given the task of securing rebel-held areas while fumigation planes
eradicate coca from the air.

Critics of the plan abound.

Environmentalists contend fumigation is destroying the rain forest,
while rights activists worry the military push will fuel violence and
upset peace efforts in Colombia. Despite record spraying, Colombia's
coca crop has doubled since 1995 and moved deeper into the Amazon.

Some experts believe it would be more effective to attack drug demand
in the United States and Europe, while devoting more funding in
Colombia to help peasants find alternatives to the drug crops.

At this week's conference, rebels will accompany ambassadors on
flights over denuded jungles and invite them to hear shoeless coca
farmers describe how fumigation is killing their livelihood.

``This is a long-standing wish of the FARC ... to show people how the
peasants live, how they have no alternatives, how aerial fumigation
doesn't work and how the government had done next to nothing,'' said
Klaus Nyholm, director of U.N. anti-drug programs here.

But, Nyholm said, ``there's a lot of nonsense being said about
fumigation. It's not killing off people and cattle or destroying the
soil.'' He said fumigation is a reasonable strategy for killing off
about half the coca crop in Colombia, located in large commercial
plantations run by drug traffickers.

Criticism of fumigation should resonate with some countries openly
critical of the U.S.-backed approach.

``In Switzerland, we believe that the drug problem is something that
has to be attacked on the consumption front,'' said Geneva's
ambassador to Bogota, Victor Christian.

But it will be difficult for the FARC to drive a wedge between the
United States and major allies.

Diplomats going to San Vicente del Caguan say they have no intention
of becoming rebel propagandists. Some are expected to carry stern
demands for the FARC to halt kidnappings as a show of its sincerity
about peace.

And with an estimated 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine now going to
Europe instead of the United States, governments there have a
compelling reasons to support get-tough efforts.