REBEL ATTACKS HINDER PLAN COLOMBIA

Guerrillas Target Aid Workers As Spying Suspects, Stifle Assistance

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - An aid worker in a U.S.-funded program to eradicate
drug crops in Colombia is kidnapped by guerrillas, accused of spying for
the military, and executed.

A colleague is abducted and forced to play Russian roulette while being
interrogated. Another, a 60-year-old agronomist, is kidnapped and tied to a
tree.

Attacks on development workers are the latest snag to emerge in
Washington's $1.3 billion anti-drugs initiative in Colombia, which produces
most of the world's cocaine.

Plan Colombia began last December when U.S. crop-dusters sprayed a blanket
of herbicide on coca plantations in southern Colombia's Putumayo state,
ground zero for the war on drugs. The planes left in February to spray
elsewhere and are expected back soon.

In the interim, aid deliveries were supposed to have begun to tens of
thousands of peasants who agreed to eradicate their plantations of coca -
the main ingredient in cocaine.

But most farmers have not received any aid, so many have nursed their
fumigated fields back into acres of robust coca bushes. And now, danger for
aid workers threatens to paralyze a U.S.-funded alternative development
program, just as it was finally getting started.

Juan Carlos Espinoza, who manages the aid program in Puerto Asis,
Putumayo's largest town, suspended field visits by his staff after the
attacks by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Security
concerns are forcing other aid organizations to avoid rebel-infested areas.

The FARC, which earns huge profits by taxing the cocaine trade, has grown
suspicious that the aid workers may be spies for the military or its
paramilitary allies, Mr. Espinoza said. Fueling the rebels' paranoia,
officials said, is the fact that visits by some aid workers have been
followed by military attacks on the same areas.

The problems come as Colombia's government is seeking more support from
Washington, where the drug war has taken a back seat to the war on terrorism.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana met with President Bush on Sunday. Last
Thursday and Friday, Mr. Pastrana met with U.S. lawmakers and officials
including Attorney General John Ashcroft, telling them the drug trade is
financing terrorism.

Washington's aerial fumigation of Putumayo, a lush expanse of jungle and
hills bordering Ecuador, has bruised its cocaine-fueled economy. Many
migrant workers have lost their jobs stripping the shiny green leaves off
coca bushes and hauling them to processing labs hidden in the jungle. From
farm-supply stores to brothels, many businesses are reeling.

U.S.-trained troops, meanwhile, have destroyed hundreds of the clandestine
labs and made it harder for traffickers to slip in and out of Putumayo with
cash and cocaine.

But like the hardy coca bush, Colombia's drug business stubbornly hangs on.

U.S. officials believe some 60 percent of farmers whose crops were sprayed
during the December-February blitz have replanted. They say many farms must
be repeatedly fumigated.

Coca is also sprouting in other parts of the country, and U.S. officials
don't expect big reductions in Colombia's coca crop until 2003.

About 38,000 farmers - whose crops represent two-thirds of the coca in
Putumayo - have pledged to destroy their plants in return for aid to
develop legal businesses such as medicinal herb farms, cattle ranches and
fish hatcheries.

The government also promised short-term aid - about $850 worth of seeds,
livestock and tools per family. But even that has not arrived.

Private Colombian organizations distributing aid for the government blame
delays on bureaucracy and the need to survey every family's needs. The aid
groups say they expect to begin deliveries later this month, but admit it
could be many months before they reach every family.

There is deep mistrust on both sides. Some Colombian officials doubt the
peasants will tear up their crops as promised. Many farmers suspect the
government is making empty promises - or doubt that alternative development
will succeed in a region with poor soil and few roads.

"Coca is the only thing worth planting here," Wilmar Ospina said while
weeding coca bushes behind his house near the Putumayo town of La Hormiga.

When the planes sprayed his field in January, Mr. Ospina quickly pruned the
plants before the herbicide seeped in.

On a recent cool morning, he stood amid chest-high coca bushes and smiled.
"Today they are prettier than ever," he said.