BOLIVIA MAY END WAR ON COCA

Challenged President Considers Letting Farmers Grow Cocaine Precursor

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivia's government may be preparing to abandon its
unpopular effort to eradicate coca and allow farmers to grow the raw
material from which cocaine is made.

The move, which could come within a week, would be a sharp reversal of
Washington's only success in curbing drug production in South America's
Andean region. U.S. officials fear any increase in legal coca production
would also be an opening to greater illicit sales. The United States has
given Bolivia more than $1.3 billion in counternarcotics and development
aid since 1993.

Still, embattled Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada promised as a
campaigner to review the coca-eradication policy, and his leading opponents
are pro-coca.

Government negotiators and coca growers came to a tentative agreement on
coca growing last week in Cochabamba, even as violent demonstrations
nationwide killed more than two dozen and destroyed a number of government
buildings.

The proposed coca deal, which Sanchez de Lozada is reviewing, would allow
roughly 15,000 Bolivian farmers in Bolivia's tropical Chapare region to
grow a "catu" of coca -- about a fifth of an acre -- during a six-month
period equal to two harvests, said Bolivian antidrug czar Ernesto
Justiniano. During the six-month period, a study would be undertaken to
determine how much demand there is for legal uses of coca.

Many Bolivians chew coca legally as a stimulant, as an appetite suppressant
or to cope with exertion at high altitudes. Bolivia currently allows about
30,000 acres of legal coca in the Yungas region outside La Paz to meet this
need.

Coca farmers argue that there is an underserved market for legal uses of
coca. Antidrug czar Justiniano contends that if farmers agree to grow
limited quantities of legal coca, they'll be less likely to grow coca for
illegal sale. "Eradication is not an end in itself but a tactic in the
fight against drug trafficking," he said.

The United States insists that no more coca growing can be justified.

"A pause in eradication is a pause in development," U.S. Ambassador David
Greenlee has warned repeatedly in the Bolivian media. He reminds Bolivians
that U.S. aid remains tied to "zero coca" in the tropical Chapare region
east of Cochabamba where most coca is grown and clandestine cocaine
laboratories are found.

Justiniano estimated that 15,000 farmers in the Chapare would participate
if coca growing were permitted.

Bolivia is the only South American success story in the U.S.-led war on
drugs. Since 1998, Bolivia has eradicated more than 148,000 acres of coca,
reducing illicit cocaine production from 234 tons a year to less than 8
tons annually.