PERU STOPS COCA ERADICATION

LIMA, Peru -- Peru has cut programs to uproot coca fields and encourage
farmers to grow alternative crops, key parts of the U.S.- backed war
against cocaine.

To appease protesting coca farmers, Peru's anti-drug agency agreed over the
weekend to suspend efforts to eradicate coca -- the raw material of cocaine
- -- in the Huallaga River valley in the eastern Amazon jungle region.

The government also halted efforts by CARE, an Atlanta-based aid agency, to
wean farmers in the Ene and Apurimac River valleys, also in the eastern
Amazon, from cultivating the coca leaf.

The Huallaga and Ene-Apurimac river basins accounted for almost 65 percent
of Peru's coca cultivation in 2001, according to U.N. figures.

Shelving the alternative development and coca eradication programs there
could deal a harsh blow to the much-lauded crackdown on coca in Peru, which
once led the world in coca cultivation.

A U.S. embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed
concern about the suspensions. In February, U.S. Ambassador John Hamilton
announced the United States would triple its anti-drug funding to President
Alejandro Toledo's government to $150 million in 2002.

Toledo's government has set a goal of eliminating at least 54,000 acres of
coca.

Last year, teams of laborers manually ripped up 15,800 acres of coca,
according to U.S. government statistics. It was unclear how many acres Peru
planned to eradicate this year.

Peru suspended eradication in the Huallaga valley after thousands of coca
farmers began a protest last week against the program.

Raul Pena, who heads an association of coca growers in the Huallaga region,
said the protesters want eradication to be more gradual. He also said poor
coca growers don't see most of the aid money poured into anti-coca programs.

"Nothing is making it to the coca farmer," Pena said. "The money ends up
somewhere else along the way."

CARE has used U.S. government funds to promote a legal economy in
coca-growing areas by building roads and schools and helping coca farmers
switch to crops such as coffee, cacao and asparagus.

On Saturday, Peru's anti-drug agency signed an agreement to pull CARE and
associated groups from the Ene-Apurimac valley, where locals expressed
frustration with alternative programs.

Officials from CARE and Peru's anti-drug agency were not available for
comment on Wednesday.

But the suspension of the Huallaga and Ene-Apurimac programs comes amid
signs that coca might be making a comeback.

Thanks to slumped coca prices in the mid-1990s and eradication programs,
Peru's coca crop shrank from 285,000 acres in 1995 to 84,000 acres by 2001.

But the price of coca has soared to near record levels as the prices of
coffee and cacao have dipped to historic lows. The result, depending on the
method of measuring, has been a rebound in cultivation or, at best, holding
the ground against an increase after years of declining coca production.

U.S. officials say satellite photos of coca fields show new acreage last
year was offset by eradication.

The U.N. Drug Control Program, however, using satellite maps, aerial
surveillance and ground assessment work, comes up with higher numbers of
acreage. It says the coca crop has expanded to cover 114,000 acres in 2001,
from 107,000 acres in 2000.