COLOMBIA CALLS DRUG CROP ERADICATION A FAILURE

BOGOTA, (Reuters) - Colombia's new anti-drugs chief branded the
country's U.S.-backed drug crop eradication program a failure on
Wednesday, saying it had done nothing to halt a steady increase in
illicit drug plantations.

"Unfortunately, we have to recognize that crop eradication, in the
manner that it has been carried out so far has failed," said Ruben
Olarte, the newly- appointed chief of the government's anti-narcotics
office.

"There is no doubt that there will have to be a profound revision of
the crop eradication program," he said.

Olarte spoke after a ceremony at the presidential palace where he was
sworn in as director of the Colombian government's anti-narcotics
office by President Andres Pastrana, who took office last month.

Olarte noted that Colombia was estimated to have about 111,193 acres
(45,000 hectares) of coca leaf crops -- the raw material for cocaine
- -- four years ago.

But using a figure included in a U.S. embassy statement at the start
of 1998, he said the total area of coca crops had since mushroomed to
196,565 acres (79,500 hectares).

The increase came despite what the National Police called record
eradication efforts last year, in the most ambitious program of its
kind in Latin America.

The United States has strongly backed Colombia's drug crop eradication
program -- which focuses on aerial fumigation with herbicides -- by
providing the country with donated aircraft, U.S. crop duster pilots
and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) advisers.

But Olarte, alluding to recent statement by Pastrana, said the new
government would be looking to come up quickly with alternative
strategies to the fumigation program.

He did not elaborate. But Colombia's leading Marxist rebel group, has
offered to assist in crop substitution programs and manual eradication
of coca and opium poppy plantations as part of any eventual peace process.

Pastrana himself has referred on several occasions to the need for a
1990s-style "Marshall Plan" to clamp down on Colombia's booming drug
trade and offer poor peasants true inducements to turn to legal crops.
The late Secretary of State George Marshall organized and directed a
program named after him to promote recovery in Europe after the Second
World War.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry