BOLIVIAN COCA GROWERS MARCH TO SAVE THEIR CROP

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - About 500 Bolivian coca leaf growers marched
toward the capital, La Paz under a grueling sun Tuesday to protest a
government campaign to eradicate coca crops.

Under U.S. pressure, the Bolivian government is targeting the coca leaf
because it is the prime raw material to make cocaine.

Poor farmers have few alternatives to make money, so the government is
paying them as an incentive to stop growing coca. The official goal in 1998
is to eliminate some 17,300 acres with $17.5 million in paid compensation.

The government has paid out $85 million over 10 years, but the money will
dry up by the end of the year.

Peasant farmers on a 300-mile march that began Monday are demanding a more
comprehensive plan to provide economic alternatives. They also want an end
to eradication efforts.

Their lead banner calls their trek the ``March for Life, Sovereignty, Coca
and Land.''

March organizer Evo Morales, who represents Chapare in the lower house of
Congress, also called for a reduction of the military presence in the main
eastern growing region, Chapare.

In April, seven people died when coca leaf farmers and security forces
clashed in Chapare.

The Bolivian government hopes to wipe out 74,100 acres

of coca in Chapare by 2002.

Interior Minister Guido Nayar has accused the marchers of being funded by
drug traffickers.

But long before becoming part of a multibillion-dollar illegal drug
industry, coca leaves were part of Bolivian culture, often chewed to stave
off hunger or thirst and to give laborers energy. Coca leaf for traditional
uses is still legal in limited growing areas.

The United States bankrolled $47 million of Bolivia's anti-drug fight in
1997, but that figure was expected to fall in 1998.

The march on La Paz is the third such protest by coca growers in the past
four years. The previous two failed to produce an agreement with the
government over coca farmers' rights to grow their crop.

^REUTERS@

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski