Pubdate: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 Source: Register-Guard, The (OR) Copyright: 2002 The Register-Guard Contact: http://www.registerguard.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism) COCA, POPPY CROPS EXPAND IN PERU TINGO MARIA, Peru -- The jungle-draped mountains that loom over this town in the Huallaga valley conceal a truth that anti-narcotics officials have been loath to admit. After years of declining prices and production, coca crops are on the rise again in Peru. Even more worrisome to U.S. counternarcotics officials, Colombian drug traffickers are promoting poppy plants, the raw material of heroin. "We are very concerned about poppy growth in this country. There seem to be numerous indications that there is a vast increase in the amount of poppy out there," Jim Williard said, gazing up at the mountain peaks above Tingo Maria, 200 miles northeast of Lima. Williard, chief of the Narcotics Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, said anti-drug police discovered and destroyed 375 acres of poppies last year compared with 62 acres in 2000, and that may only be the tip of a deadly iceberg. As poppy fields expand, all signs indicate that Peru's much-lauded war on the coca leaf, cocaine's raw material, is foundering. From 1995 to the end of 2000, coca fields shrank from 285,000 acres to 84,500 acres. But the price of the leaf has soared to record levels, spurring peasant farmers to rehabilitate their plots. U.S. officials say satellite photos of coca fields show new acreage last year was offset by the Peruvian government's forced eradication of coca plants. But the U.N. Drug Control Program, 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. And U.S. officials working in programs to encourage alternative crops admit that although their figures show no overall increase in acreage, coca farmers have increased yields by packing many more plants into the same plots. Peru's new anti-drug czar, Ricardo Vega Llona, is pessimistic. He estimates that total coca acreage may have climbed as high as 148,000 acres. "I really don't like to say we are losing the war. It sounds better if we simply say we are not winning it," he said. Until the early 1990s, drug smugglers flew raw cocaine to Colombia for refining, but U.S. surveillance flights closed the air bridge. Now the smugglers move drugs to neighboring countries over land and through a maze of Amazon tributaries. The anti-narcotics campaign was weakened further by the suspension of U.S. surveillance flights a year ago after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down a Baptist missionary plane, killing an American woman and her infant daughter. The war on drugs will be high on President Bush's agenda when he visits Peru on March 23, and U.S. officials say they hope to announce the renewal of surveillance flights by then. American - and Peruvian - officials appear even more concerned by the poppy proliferation. A recent State Department report called it "alarming." Colombian traffickers are supplying Peruvian peasants with poppy seeds and offering technical assistance and cash loans, say anti-drug police in Tingo Maria. The Colombians have concentrated their efforts in the Huallaga valley, Peru's most important coca-growing region. Demostenes Garcia, commander of the anti-drug police base in Tingo Maria, is worried. "Poppy is the new threat here in the Huallaga valley," he said, explaining that peasants can earn $450 for a pound of opium latex, compared with just $50 for 25 pounds of coca leaf. Garcia noted that Peruvian poppies produce about 50 bulbs per plant compared with 10 in Afghanistan. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl