Pubdate: Sat, 05 Oct 2002
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Andrew Selsky, Associated Press

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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom