U.S. ALTERNATIVE FOR COCA FARMERS IS A FAILURE

BOGOTA, Colombia - A U.S.-funded aid program under which farmers were to
have destroyed their own cocaine-producing crops has fallen far short of
its goals, U.S. officials said. Top Stories

The bleak assessment of the results of the initiative to provide coca
farmers with an alternative to growing drug crops comes as the United
States and the Colombian government embark on an all-out effort to
eradicate coca crops in the southern region.

Tens of thousands of peasant farmers in Putumayo state were to have
received development aid under the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia, an
initiative of the Clinton administration that was approved by Congress and
is still active under the Bush administration.

But only about half the families in Colombia's cocaine heartland ever
received the aid, a U.S. official said Thursday at a briefing with journalists.

"I believe the magnitude of the problem was way above their ability to
actually get out and meet every family that supposedly signed the voluntary
eradication pacts," the U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity.

Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Center for International Policy in
Washington, put the figure much lower - saying only 20 percent received
development aid.

Only a small fraction of the aid package was for alternative development.
There have been no figures released on how much aid was actually released
to farmers but in many cases it was just enough for seeds and tools.

The U.S. official indicated the Colombian government and the coca farmers
had made hollow promises.

"This is a game that the government and the coca growers in Putumayo have
played for over a decade," he said. "Each one of them promises something
and neither of them actually complies."

Many coca farmers in Putumayo said they doubted the government really
planned to deliver aid and they would destroy their coca plants only when
it arrived.

Only about 6,000 of the 26,000 families who signed the so-called voluntary
eradication pacts followed through on their promise to destroy their coca
plants, according to a Colombian government official involved in the program.

Those who did comply only destroyed about 20,000 of the roughly 335,000
acres of coca in Colombia.

But the official, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity,
insisted that some form of aid had reached 90 percent of those who signed
the pacts.

The deadline for the farmers to get rid of their coca fields expired on
July 28. Since then, U.S. spray planes protected by U.S.-trained Colombian
troops have begun widespread aerial fumigation of the coca crops in
Putumayo. The spraying resumed after an almost yearlong hiatus to give the
voluntary eradication pacts a chance to work.

"We began early this calendar year telling people that when the pacts
terminated, anybody who had coca would be subject to spraying," the U.S.
official said.

The voluntary eradication pacts had been promoted by former President
Andres Pastrana's government as the soft side of Plan Colombia, which is
largely a military-style offensive against drug crops that finance leftist
rebels and their right-wing paramilitary foes.

President Alvaro Uribe, who took office on Aug. 7, has expressed support
for the widespread fumigation of coca crops.