COLOMBIA ANTI-DRUG EFFORT FALTERS

U.S. Budget Trouble Takes Toll

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A U.S. counter-drug program in Colombia faces a sudden
and unexpected budget crisis that is giving coca farmers a chance to expand
their crops nearly unimpeded.

Since early this month, the U.S. Embassy has reduced aerial fumigation of
coca crops to half-strength and laid off 17 pilots and more than 40
instructors and other counter-drug employees, U.S. officials say.

Further severe cutbacks may be in the works, all because of a State
Department budget shortfall that has been exacerbated by delays in passage
of a $1.3 billion emergency aid package that is stalled on Capitol Hill.

"We probably have two planes spraying this week, when normally we would
have five," an American official responsible for eradication said.

The State Department never expected Congress to take so long to approve the
huge aid request, U.S. officials said.

As a result, the department's air wing took something of a gamble late last
year and forwarded funds from other programs, calculating that the proposed
supplemental aid would replenish the coffers.

When that did not happen, a cutback in spending ensued and grew acute this
month when U.S. officials reduced aerial spraying of coca fields.

"The consequence is that we have had to reduce some of our activities and
stretch out other activities," said U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman. "And it
is also impeding some effort to take on new areas of spraying both in
southern Colombia and new coca areas in the north."

PROGRAMS SLASHED

The crisis, which comes amid an aggressive expansion of the cocaine trade,
has left U.S. diplomats in the embarrassing position of reducing
counter-drug programs even as they promise President Andres Pastrana that
Congress may soon approve the $1.3 billion aid package.

Colombian officials voice alarm at the slowdown, noting the explosive
growth of coca cultivation. They say coca farmers are returning to areas of
eastern Meta and Guaviare states due to the lack of "maintenance spraying."

"The numbers at the end of the year are going to be really bad," said an
intelligence officer, who requested anonymity.

Colombia's drug czar, Gabriel Merchan, said high-potency coca crops now
yield four harvests a year, and that a delay of several months in
aggressive spraying would inevitably lead to greater cocaine production.

The budget crisis has had other unintended consequences. A full five months
after it was declared battle-ready, a U.S.-trained 950-soldier
counter-narcotics battalion is still confined largely to a military base,
Tres Esquinas, in the jungles of southern Colombia.

TOUTED BATTALION

Washington had brought a fleet of 18 UH-1N helicopters to Colombia so the
much-touted battalion could strike at jungle cocaine laboratories and
protect fumigation planes. But the 18 helicopters are at another Colombian
army base, Tolemaida, and the U.S. Embassy has no money to put them in the air.

The training of two more counter-drug battalions by U.S. soldiers is now on
hold.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph
Biden, D-Del., returned to Washington from a trip to Colombia last week
dismayed by what he said were the drastic effects of delaying passage of
the huge U.S. aid package.

Biden said he was told the slowdown of fumigation flights will grow worse.

"They are going to slow down to 20 percent [of normal activity]," he said
in a telephone interview. "Every day we are delaying, there's a whole lot
more coca plants grown, and drugs shipped."

PROGRAM REVIVED

Biden said he is looking for outside funds to revive the aerial spraying
program quickly, but fears that the huge aid package for Colombia may
remain stalled in Congress.

"The earliest it could happen is around mid-July, and I'm not optimistic
about that," he said. "The Republican leaders have to get this to the floor
and move on it."

Normally, the U.S.-financed aerial eradication program costs $180,000 to
$200,000 a day to operate. It has now been whittled to $100,000 a day,
another U.S. official said.

He said coca growers may soon notice the falloff in spraying and "plant
like hell" to take advantage of the lack of pressure.