BOLIVIA DRUG FARMERS DEMAND END TO CROP ERADICATION

LA PAZ, Bolivia, - Bolivia's drug producers on
Sunday implored the government to stop wiping out their crop -- the
raw material used for cocaine production -- within 30 days or face a
strike.

Bolivia is the world's third largest producer of coca after Colombia
and Peru. Destruction of the crop with the backing of the United
States has been a major priority for the government of Hugo Banzer in
its fight against the drug trade.

``The abuse of the military crop eradicators is intolerable and
because of it we have decided to give the government 30 days to stop
the destruction process and develop an alternative with farmer
participation,'' Evo Morales, a leader of the coca producers, told
radio station Panamericana.

Morales said if the government does not overhaul its anti-drug
campaign, coca farmers will begin tough protests with the backing of
the Bolivian Workers Centre union, the country's largest.

``We are going to block roads until the government understands this
noisy request,'' said Morales, who is also a leftist
congressman.

In the central region of Chapare, there are some 22,238 acres (9,000
hectares) of coca, a fifth of what existed a decade ago. The
government has proposed eliminating the remainder by 2001.

Morales said the official policy does not comply with the mandate of
substituting illegal coca with alternative crops on which the farmers
can subsist.

``The decision of thousands of farm families has been very clear: the
government must paralyse the eradication of the coca fields and come
up with a true alternative, or else violent confrontations may occur
because we are ready to die rather than surrender,'' he said.

The sub-tropical Yungas region north of the capital city of La Paz is
the only place where coca leaf cultivation is presently legal, but the
government announced in 1999 that production exceeds the 29,640 acres
(12,000 hectares) allowed by law. President Hugo Banzer plans to
eradicate the surplus by year's end.

Coca farmers blocked a key highway in the area in mid-April, demanding
the government promise not to eradicate any more of their fields.