COLOMBIAN FARMERS CULTIVATING MORE COCA CROPS THAN EVER

Low Tech Peasants Push Deeper Into The Jungle To Elude U.S.-Backed Raids

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia -- As he stripped shiny green leaves from the
branches of waist-high coca shrubs, Pedro Aldemar hardly broke a sweat. He
could afford to relax: There were no police crop-dusters in sight.

Here in southern Putumayo state near the Ecuadorean border, vast swaths of
coca -- the raw material for cocaine -- are beyond the reach of government
spray planes that target coca and opium poppies. The state is a virtual
free zone for coca growers, and it attracts thousands of migrant farmers.

"Farmers will go wherever they are not fumigating," said Aldemar, who grows
about three acres of coca on the outskirts of Puerto Asis, a bustling
center of the cocaine trade 335 miles southwest of Bogota.

The police aerial eradication program is the largest in the world and the
centerpiece of U.S.-sponsored anti-drug operations in Colombia. Since the
program began in 1994, pilots have destroyed an increasing amount of coca
each year.

Yet these high-flying aces, including some retired U.S. military pilots,
can't keep up with low-tech peasants. To avoid the air raids, farmers have
pushed deeper into the jungle -- planting more coca than ever.

In 1997, the country's farmers cultivated nearly 200,000 acres of coca,
double the amount of four years earlier. About 78,000 Colombian families
earn a living from coca, according to U.N. statistics.

U.S. officials predict that the spraying will eventually pay off by making
the crop too risky for farmers.

But critics say that forced eradication won't work unless peasants at the
bottom rung of the drug trade receive technical support to help them plant
something else. The fumigation program, they say, has turned many farmers
against the government and pushed them farther into areas controlled by
leftist guerrillas.

"I don't think you can spray your way out of this mess," said Klaus Nyholm,
head of the U.N. Drug Control Program in Colombia.

"We can't be permanently fumigating the countryside," Colombian
Environmental Minister Juan Mayr told the Bogota daily El Tiempo.

Mayr said coca cultivation has increased, "which shows that fumigation
hasn't worked."

The spraying has sparked violent peasant protests as well as attacks by
guerrillas, who have been waging war against Colombia's government for 34
years. Earlier this month, about 800 rebels overran a key police
anti-narcotics base in southern Guaviare state, killing, wounding or
capturing nearly all of the base's 190 defenders.

Another casualty of the fumigation program, critics say, is the
environment. Peasants fleeing police planes often move into virgin areas,
chopping down tracts of rain forest. The soil is thin, and planters use
large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides to assure high yields.

The clouds of herbicide dropped by crop-dusters pollute groundwater and
kill legal crops, critics of the program complain.

Because of a shortage of police spray planes and support helicopters, 15
percent to 25 percent of Colombia's coca crop currently sits outside the
program's flying radius, according to a senior U.S. State Department official.

For now, that leaves Putumayo state in a de facto no-fly zone.

Coca growers have taken advantage of the situation. The amount of land
devoted to coca cultivation in Putumayo has increased from 47,000 acres to
98,000 acres in the past year, according to Gov. Jorge Devia.

"Just over that hill there is coca," said Lt. Luis Benavides, an
anti-narcotics police agent, as he stared out the window of his office in
Puerto Asis.

"The cultivation and sale of coca is viewed as a normal thing here," said a
Roman Catholic priest, who did now want his name to be used. "Coca has
created towns. Towns have risen out of nothing."

Drug money, residents say, fuels business in Puerto Asis.

There are dozens of raucous cantinas and seedy houses of prostitution to
relieve farmers of their coca profits. The main hotel was once owned by the
late Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, an infamous cocaine baron who often flew in
on a chartered plane, bringing along his own orchestra for fiestas.

During a brief regional oil boom in the 1970s, the Colombian government
invested heavily in Putumayo. But when the wells began to run dry, so did
state coffers. Today, there are no paved highways in the entire state, much
of which is controlled by guerrillas.

Getting legal crops to market can take days. By contrast, drug dealers go
door to door, buying tons of coca paste that farmers cook in rustic jungle
kitchens from a mix of coca leaves, cement, gasoline and chemicals.

In parts of Putumayo, coca has replaced rice, yucca and plantains, which
are now imported from Ecuador, as crops. A state-owned rice warehouse in
Puerto Asis sits empty.

"It's become so extreme that people have to bring plantains from the city
to the countryside," said Diego Orozco, director of a federal program that
encourages farmers to grow food instead of coca.

Corruption and poor management have plagued many alternative crop projects.

For example, the government persuaded about 120 Putumayo farmers to grow
hearts of palm for export to Europe. But the canning plant in Puerto Asis
is only half-built, and few Colombians eat hearts of palm. Farmers were
stuck with a worthless crop, and several went back to coca.

The United States is providing more than $100 million to Colombia's police
and military for anti-drug operations this year. But the U.S. government
has shunned crop-substitution programs, in part, to avoid showering money
on areas under heavy guerrilla influence.

That policy could change. Colombian President Andres Pastrana, who was
sworn in on Aug. 7, has called for a "Marshall Plan" to wean farmers off
coca. When Pastrana visited the White House last month, Clinton
administration officials agreed to back alternative farm programs on a
case-by-case basis.

"The U.S. has not been opposed to alternative development," said the senior
State Department official. But such programs only work, the official said,
"if the government has control of the area and if the peasants believe
there is a penalty for continuing to grow coca."

Colombia's largest guerrilla group -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC -- is especially strong in the coca-growing zones of
southern Colombia. Both the FARC and the National Liberation Army, or ELN,
earn millions of dollars annually by protecting drug traffickers.

Both rebel groups have shot down low-flying crop-dusters and support
helicopters, killing dozens of Colombian pilots as well as three U.S. fliers.

Still, the State Department official insisted that the drug war requires a
big-stick approach.

Each year, the United States requires Colombia and other countries to show
progress in the war against drugs in order to avert economic sanctions.
Colombia was blacklisted as an unreliable partner in the drug war in 1996
and 1997, but the Clinton administration waived sanctions against the
country this year.

The State Department official said the drug war in South America has been a
modest success, with coca cultivation in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia
dropping from 528,000 acres in 1995 to 479,000 acres last year.

Farmers in Peru, he said, began to replace coca with other crops only after
U.S. electronic surveillance and Peruvian air force patrols disrupted drug
flights, making coca less profitable.

In Colombia, however, farmers continue to harvest bumper coca crops. Most
analysts say that long-term progress in the drug war is impossible here
unless the government and the rebels sign a peace treaty.

Meanwhile, the crop-dusters keep flying.

Colombian police have already destroyed more than 100,000 acres of coca
this year. According to Lt. Benavides, authorities hope that spray planes
will be swooping over coca fields in Putumayo within the year.

"As long as you don't control the territory, there are not many other
things you can do," said Nyholm, the U.N. representative.

"The only option is to come in with your airplanes, drop your poison and
get out again."

Checked-by: Richard Lake