COCA LAND DIMINISHING, U.S. SAYS

The Land Used to Cultivate Coca in Colombia Dropped 21 Percent In
2003, a State Department Report Says.

BOGOTA - The amount of Colombian land used to cultivate coca dropped
another 21 percent last year, a figure U.S. officials call "stunning."

But the dramatic decline in the plant from which cocaine is made had
no impact where it counts most: on the streets of America.

The State Department annual report on coca cultivation, issued Monday,
showed there were some 280,542 acres of coca plants through 2003, down
from 356,791 the year before.

Including other coca-producing nations like Bolivia and Peru, the
decline was 15 percent, according to the Department's Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The latest Colombian figures show that in this country alone the coca
acreage dropped by a third since 2001, after Washington had begun
delivering some $2 billion in counter narcotics aid as part of Plan
Colombia.

"A big decline a second year in a row is excellent news," said Deborah
McCarthy, the bureau's deputy assistant secretary for narcotics. "The
squeeze is being put on."

The latest crop figures were announced as the Bush administration
works on a proposal to double the legal limit of military personnel
and contractors permitted to work in Colombia.

Congress capped the number of American personnel that can be in
Colombia at any given time at 400 military and 400 contractors, but
Bush wants it raised to 800 military and 600 contractors, a State
Department official confirmed. Among other duties, they train
Colombian soldiers and police and run the program that uses crop
dusters to spray herbicides on coca fields.

Critics warn that raising the cap would be further proof of
Washington's increasingly murky role in Colombia's drug-fueled civil
war. Plan Colombia, some argue, has not shown progress.

"If a product becomes scarce, the price goes up," said Adam Isacson,
an analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy.
"Stable prices shows cocaine is as plentiful as ever."

Isacson argues that because the price, purity and availability of
cocaine on U.S. streets have not wavered, traffickers are winning the
drug war.

"It's been stable since the mid '90s. How can that be?" He said in a
telephone interview. "Maybe the satellite pictures are not getting the
new crops? Are growers going deeper into the Amazon region where we
aren't looking? Are they using smaller plots? Growing in the shade?
Getting higher yields?"

McCarthy said the challenge is to hit the Colombian drug trade at all
levels, such as financing and exports, which should soon translate
into lower purity.

Credit for the strides in drug eradication has been largely given to
President Alvaro Uribe, who enthusiastically endorsed American
fumigation programs despite protests from farmers and
environmentalists. Uribe is in Washington this week meeting at the
White House today.

Sandro Calvani, head of the U.N. Drug Control Program here, said the
steady declines in cultivation prove that the alternative development
programs offered to peasants to abandon coca do work.

"Narco-traffickers are going to defend this as much as they can," he
said. "But this shows it's possible to reach out to people and get
them to grow alternative crops.

"The peasants are investing in their future."