COLOMBIA COCA FARMING SAID RISING

WASHINGTON (AP) Colombian coca farming increased 28 percent in 1998, making
it the source for more than half of the world's crop, U.S. officials said
Wednesday.

An analysis of data illicit crops found coca cultivation in Colombia
reaching 251,446 acres last year, with almost all of the new growth
occurring in areas under guerrilla or paramilitary control, the officials
said.

"The dramatic production growth both this year and last means that we will
need an increasingly far-reaching effort in Colombia," said White House
National Drug Policy Director Barry McCaffrey.

Just a few months ago, the drug policy office celebrated a significant drop
in coca farming in two other South American countries: Peru and Bolivia.

Land devoted to coca growth in Peruvian dropped by half from 1996 to 1998.
And with fewer plants, the amount of cocaine Peruvian plants could produce
fell by 48 percent to 240 metric tons between 1995 and 1998, CIA analysts
concluded.

Bolivia eradicated a record 28,660 acres of coca fields last year, or almost
a quarter of the acreage in that country devoted to the crop.

With these two countries stepping up their counterdrug efforts, traffickers
moved their operations to Colombia, one major factor in the increase in
Colombian coca cultivation, said McCaffrey.

Coca plants must be chemically processed to become the powdered or
crystallized cocaine typically sold in the United States.

Colombian National Police were able to reduce the amount of coca farming in
some areas through extensive spraying. But on land under the control of
paramilitary and guerilla groups where spraying did not occur officials
reported an "explosion of new plantings."

Two new coca farming areas were discovered, which "means that Colombia's
potential cocaine production is likely to skyrocket over the next year or
so, offsetting the gains achieved in Peru and Bolivia," McCaffrey said.