Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jul 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A01, Front Page
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Juan Forero, Washington Post Foreign Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?208 (Environmental Issues)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Plan+Colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COLOMBIA'S LOW-TECH COCA ASSAULT

Uprooting Bushes by Hand Preferred Over U.S.-Funded Aerial Spraying

EL MIRADOR, Colombia -- The latest shift in Colombia's war on drugs 
is evident on a green hilltop in this town, as weather-beaten men in 
gray jumpsuits -- government-paid eradicators -- use hoes and muscle 
to rip out bushes of coca. Policemen carrying M-16 assault rifles and 
land-mine detectors stand sentry, while a radio operator listens in 
on the crackling conversation between two Marxist guerrilla units.

The operation here in the southern state of Caqueta is tedious, hard 
and dangerous, since destroying coca is a financial blow to the 
guerrillas, who draw much of their funding from the crop that is used 
to make cocaine. But Colombian officials say uprooting by hand is the 
future -- a strategy at odds with U.S. reliance on aerial fumigation.

Three years ago, almost all coca eradication efforts in Colombia were 
carried out through aerial spraying. By last year, however, more than 
100,000 acres of the crop were destroyed by hand, accounting for 
almost 25 percent of the coca eradicated. The Defense Ministry said 
it is designing a plan to uproot 172,000 acres by hand this year.

"We are convinced of the advantages of manual eradication over 
spraying, and that's why we want to give more importance to manual 
eradication," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said in an 
interview, echoing the views of other officials.

Aerial spraying by crop dusters was sold as a great elixir that would 
curtail Colombia's coca crop, delivering a lasting blow to the 
cocaine trade. But after seven years and more than $5 billion in 
funding from the United States, CIA monitoring of coca shows that 
this country has as much of the crop as it did in 2001, the first 
full year of aerial spraying under what is known as Plan Colombia.

U.S. officials say new mapping techniques have allowed them to survey 
more ground in Colombia than before, making such comparisons unfair. 
They say a sharp drop in violence during President Alvaro Uribe's 
five-year tenure shows that the program is undercutting funding for 
violent groups. And they say that other measurements -- more cocaine 
labs have been destroyed, and more than 500 drug traffickers have 
been extradited to the United States since 2002 -- prove that the 
cocaine trade has been hit hard.

"The cultivation number, as an isolated measure, can be leading some 
people to believe it's not working," John P. Walters, the White House 
drug policy chief, said by telephone from Washington. "A more 
difficult but more important number is how much they are able to 
produce. It looks like that's down."

Although U.S. officials have not publicly criticized manual 
eradication, they have repeatedly emphasized their commitment to 
aerial fumigation. Officials here in Colombia, meanwhile, from Vice 
President Francisco Santos to officers in the National Police, which 
carries out anti-drug operations, are publicly taking a stand that 
contradicts that of the Bush administration.

"We feel that we're on a stationary bicycle," said Santos the defense 
minister, referring to the results of the spraying program. "We've 
advanced very slowly. So we have to change our tactics."

The reasons for the shift are manifold:

Coca, once found primarily in Colombia's south, is now cultivated 
nationwide. Aerial spraying has prompted farmers to abandon large 
plots for smaller, more isolated ones in regions where legal crops 
are often grown next to coca. Crop dusters invariably hit the 
legitimate crops, too, angering farming communities. Fumigation has 
also hurt relations with neighboring Ecuador, which says the spray 
from planes is wafting into its territory and damaging farms.

In addition, U.S. and U.N. data show that Colombia, Bolivia and Peru 
together continue producing more than enough cocaine to meet world 
demand. Colombia is the only U.S. ally to fumigate drug crops on a large scale.

"The strategy doesn't work; fumigating doesn't eradicate," El Tiempo, 
the country's largest newspaper, said recently in an editorial. 
"Instead of clamoring for help on a program that seems more 
inappropriate every day, the government should take advantage of this 
moment to redirect and rethink its anti-drug collaboration with the 
United States. Fumigation should be suspended and only used in 
extraordinary cases."

In interviews, government officials say one of the chief benefits of 
manual eradication is that it destroys the entire coca bush, root and 
all. By contrast, farmers whose crops are sprayed often quickly cut 
them back to the root in order to regrow the bush. Farmers also cover 
coca leaves with substances that limit the effectiveness of the 
herbicide spray, glyphosate.

Santos, the defense minister, said it is possible that in coming 
years 75 percent of the coca removed will be eradicated manually.

Officials also said that with Colombia planning to spend more to 
build a state presence in lawless regions, it makes sense to 
eradicate on the ground, instead of from the air. "When you're in a 
plane, it's 140 knots and you're gone," said Col. Jose Angel Mendoza, 
who commands police operations here in Caqueta state. "When you're on 
land, you're with the people."

Vice President Santos, though, said the idea is to develop a strategy 
in which coca farmers are eradicating in exchange for assistance 
cultivating legal crops. Without such alternatives, said John Walsh, 
senior associate for drug policy at the advocacy group Washington 
Office on Latin America, the gains achieved by manual eradication 
will be reversed with new plantings.

The involvement of coca farmers in eradication may not yield fast 
results, he said, but "it should mean more durable results and, just 
as importantly, could foster a positive relationship between 
communities and different levels of government."

The development of the new strategy comes as Democrats in the U.S. 
Congress, concerned about human rights in Colombia as well as the 
effectiveness of aerial fumigation, have cut aid to the country by 10 
percent. The spraying program would be hit hard by a House plan to 
slash military funding to Colombia by $150 million, though the Senate 
may restore some of the funds when it votes this month.

Walters, the U.S. drug policy chief, said cutting aerial spraying 
would be shortsighted. He said the strategy has weakened the rebels, 
while helping to push thousands of paramilitary fighters into a 
government demobilization program. A classified study released by the 
White House said that profits from drug-related activities collected 
by the largest rebel group here -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC -- fell by a third between 2003 and 2005 and are 
now $60 million to $115 million a year.

For now, the Colombians are funding the manual eradication, though 
officials said they want the Bush administration to show greater 
flexibility with anti-drug funds.

It has not been easy, or cheap, particularly in lives lost. About 40 
policemen and eradicators have been killed in the past year -- a fact 
that weighed heavily on the team working the coca fields in El Mirador.

"This is a guerrilla zone, so the danger is always there," said 
Anselmo Calderon, 39, one of the men who's been uprooting coca in El 
Mirador. "It's no secret the guerrillas sustain themselves with this, 
so we can become a military target."

The job takes time. Calderon and dozens of other men were assigned to 
clean one plot after another over eight consecutive weeks. Their work 
is dependent on a police unit, which ensures that muddy trails aren't 
mined or that booby traps haven't been planted deep under the coca 
bushes that are to be uprooted.

On a recent day, success was measured by the horizon, said one police 
officer, Jose Luis Merchan. He pointed out the other hilltops, all of 
them scraped clean of coca plants.

"What were coca fields have been turned into cattle pasture," he 
said. "But it gets harder all the time. People put the plots higher, 
in more mountainous areas, harder for the police." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake