AID DIDN'T CUT COCA FARMING, U.S. SAYS

FLORENCIA, Colombia - State Department officials have concluded that an
alternative-development plan aimed at slashing drug crops has failed, a
decision that raises doubts about the U.S.-backed effort to eradicate the
primary source of narcotics on America's streets.

Farmers in southern Colombia who signed voluntary agreements to eliminate
coca, the source of cocaine, in exchange for aid have eliminated little or
none of their harvest and have no intention of doing so before a deadline
later this year, according to a confidential State Department report.

As a result, U.S. Embassy officials have decided to abandon a plan to
encourage the substitution of other crops and products for coca. Instead,
they will concentrate on building large infrastructure projects to provide
jobs, and improve living conditions and transportation.

And they will rely on a controversial aerial fumigation program to show
farmers, mostly rural poor with small plots of land, that their coca will
be wiped out if they do not stop growing it.

"There's nothing that we can offer (the farmers) as an alternative that
comes near the value of coca," said Ken Ellis, the head of the U.S. Agency
for International Development in Colombia.

The U.S. decision represents a radical new direction in the
alternative-development program, long touted as the only way to ensure a
permanent reduction in the coca crops that fill valleys and riverbanks
throughout southern Colombia, which is the source of most of the cocaine
that reaches the United States.

Experts on alternative development and peasant farming say the changes
spell disaster. Small-scale farmers, who often plant coca alongside
traditional crops like corn, will face food shortages if spraying becomes
the primary tool to encourage eradication and kills their food crops as well.

And they say that many of the farmers, who migrated to isolated southern
Colombia in search of work, will simply move to other areas to grow coca if
they are not taught how to raise other crops.

"You can spray all you want, you can spend all the money in Europe and the
United States, but the problem of coca will continue," said Jesus Bastidas,
the director of an alternative-development program here in this crowded
state capital.

Colombian government officials acknowledge that the alternative-
development program has failed to produce results. But they say more time
and money are needed. Only 96 of Colombia's 222 coca-growing counties have
programs in place.

"We need permanent support," said Maria Ines Restrepo, the head of
Colombia's alternative-development program. "Our conflict is not going to
end without social investment."

There are few problems more stubborn in the fight against drugs than what
to do about the 100,000 or so small coca farmers in Colombia, a dilemma
involving social, political and economic issues intertwined with Colombia's
nearly 40-year-old guerrilla war.

Most of the farmers moved to isolated corners of Colombia in the 1970s and
'80s in search of jobs or land. Once there, they grew traditional crops on
small, 5-acre plots along with coca. They were helped by narcotics
traffickers and leftist guerrillas, who provided seeds, loans and technical
advice.

Although estimates vary, such farmers account for at least 15 percent of
the coca grown in Colombia, which last year had about 321,000 acres of
coca, according to a State Department report. The rest is grown on huge
plantations.

Experts say that wiping out the coca through fumigation would simply lead
to widespread displacement, food shortages and environmental damage, as
farmers push deeper into Colombia's rain forest.

That's why Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion U.S.-backed effort to halve drug
production here by 2005, included a budget of more than $100 million for
alternative development. The idea was to wean farmers off coca by providing
new sources of income through alternative crops or jobs in industries such
as rubber production.