Pubdate: Sun, 21 Jul 2002
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2002 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: Kevin G. Hall and Cassio Furtado, Knight Ridder Newspapers

POLITICAL, ECONOMIC UNREST BRINGS SETBACKS IN SOUTH AMERICAN DRUG WAR

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Despite spending billions of dollars, the United 
States is losing ground in the South American drug war.

Those billions were supposed to train police forces, whip soldiers into 
shape, spray crops with defoliants and teach farmers how to grow anything 
but coca plants.

In Peru, coca-eradication efforts stopped July 2.

In Bolivia, authorities last year had nearly ended the growing of coca 
leaves, which are refined to make cocaine. Now, farmers are back at it.

In Colombia, the president-elect's vow to eliminate the nation's burgeoning 
coca crop has shrunk to a pledge to attack only industrial-size plots.

Those three Andean countries produce almost all the world's cocaine.

At a time when market prices for coffee and other substitute crops are at 
record lows, the political will to carry on the unpopular pursuit of coca 
farmers in all three countries is questionable. To make matters worse, 
government opponents and insurgents in all three countries are siding with 
the cocaine industry.

"I think what it shows is that we cannot put our guard down, that this war 
against traffickers and narco-terrorists is never over," said Otto J. 
Reich, the U.S. State Department's undersecretary for Latin America and the 
Caribbean. "We have to support these governments."

John P. Walters, the White House drug czar, said he was concerned about the 
recent developments in Bolivia and Peru. But he said that Colombian 
President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez has a "historic opportunity" to curb 
production in the cocaine capital of the world.

If Uribe does not act, Americans soon could be coping with a flood of 
cheap, pure cocaine. Here is why: Although Bolivia and Peru cut their 
coca-leaf crops sharply beginning in the mid-1990s, Colombia's farmers 
picked up the slack, according to a U.N. survey, "Global Illicit Drug 
Trends 2002."

Were Peru and Bolivia to abandon their restraints, Andean cocaine 
production easily could rise to unprecedented levels.

Walters prefers the opposite scenario: If Uribe moves effectively against 
Colombian drug cartels and Washington can persuade Bolivia and Peru to keep 
production down, the United States could come out far ahead.

Drug Enforcement Administrator Asa Hutchinson, the top U.S. general in the 
drug war, did not respond to requests for comment.

The main incentive spurring coca production is the sorry state of prices 
for coffee, the most popular substitute crop. In Peru's Apurimac Valley, a 
25-pound sack of coca leaves brings a farmer $45, almost four times what 
coffee pays. What's more, coca plants produce four crops a year, compared 
with one for coffee. Coca plants need no fertilizer and are easier to grow 
and pick.

President Alejandro Toledo halted Peru's eradication and substitution 
programs -- temporarily, he said -- amid mounting civil unrest and the 
resurgence of a Maoist rural guerrilla movement that protects coca shipments.

Toledo's action angered the U.S. government, which had budgeted $65 million 
in alternative-development efforts in Peru this year.

"President Toledo has stated publicly that Peru must eliminate at least 
54,000 acres of coca to bring an end to Peru's role in the global drug 
trade. We welcome President Toledo's stated commitment to that goal and 
hope the current obstacles to achieving it can be overcome soon," said a 
U.S. official in Peru, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bolivia, once the world's coca-leaf king, eradicated more than 90,000 acres 
of coca between 1998 and this year, nearly putting itself out of the drug 
business. Now, fast-growing coca bushes are sprouting again in the Chapare 
region, which is about the size of New Jersey. For peasants in South 
America's poorest country, money is the motive.

In recent national elections, Evo Morales, an obscure Indian agitator who 
campaigned in favor of growing coca and vowed to shut down Drug Enforcement 
Administration operations, placed second and almost won the popular vote. 
He will control about one-third of Bolivia's Congress, and he vows to 
overturn laws that allow for coca eradication.

Today, Colombia leads the world in coca growing and cocaine production. But 
Uribe was elected on a pledge to go to war in the coca zones controlled by 
Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups, who collect "war taxes" 
from drug traffickers.

So far, however, more than $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid intended to 
curb coca and cocaine in Colombia has failed to restrict either.

Now, Colombia's eradication efforts face new hurdles that Uribe may not 
want to clear. To avoid uprisings, Uribe's designated agriculture secretary 
has said that Colombia's eradication efforts will be limited to 
industrial-sized plots of coca but will leave small plots untouched. The 
U.S. government wants to eradicate coca completely.

In at least one respect, the U.S. Congress also is hesitant about 
eradication. The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a 
Vermont Democrat, is insisting in an appropriations amendment that the 
defoliant sprayed from planes onto Colombia's coca leaves -- basically the 
same one used by home gardeners -- be sprayed with the caution that the 
Environmental Protection Agency calls for. Leahy fears that U.S. spraying 
will poison Andean farmers and their families.
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