White House Says Cocaine Levels Are Down, But Some Analysts Disagree

Estimates on last year's cocaine trade:

South American production* White House drug office: 640 metric tons United Nations: 670 metric tons U.S. task force: 1,390 metric tons

Seizures State Department: 373 metric tons

Consumption White House drug office: 300 metric tons in U.S. alone.

* South America provides virtually the world supply of cocaine. By U.S. and Latin American authorities.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - As proof that the U.S.-backed drug war in South America is paying off, the Bush administration says cocaine production has plummeted by nearly 30 percent over the past three years.

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Paramilitaries Desperate To Make Big Bucks Before They Demobilize Are Smuggling Out Much Larger Quantities Of Cocaine -- Leading To More Seizures

BOGOTA - Paramilitary leaders are rushing to sell millions of dollars' worth of cocaine before they demobilize so they can retire wealthy from Colombia's protracted war, a top military commander said Thursday.

Navy chief Adm. Mauricio Soto said in an interview with The Associated Press that the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, is shipping an unprecedented amount of stored cocaine from the country ahead of their demobilization, which is under way as part of a peace deal with the government. As a result, cocaine seizures have shot up, as traffickers try to smuggle out more shipments, Soto said.

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Critics See Possibility Of 'Environmental Mischief'

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A group of Colombian scientists believe they've found a way to wipe out cocaine production: Unleash an army of hungry moth caterpillars. But critics of the proposal say the chance for "ecological mischief" is high.

The plan envisions breeding thousands of beige-coloured Eloria Noyesi moths in laboratories, packing them into boxes and releasing them into steamy coca-growing regions of Colombia, the world's main supplier of the drug. The moths, about twice the size of a fly, are native only to the Andean region of South America.

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BOGOTA,Colombia (AP) -- A group of Colombian scientists believe they've found a way to wipe out cocaine production: unleash an army of hungry moth caterpillars. But critics of the proposal say the chance for "ecological mischief" is high.

The plan envisions breeding thousands of beige-colored Eloria Noyesi moths in laboratories, packing them into boxes and releasing them into steamy coca-growing regions of Colombia, the world's main supplier of the drug. The moths, about twice the size of a fly, are native only to the Andean region of South America.

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Residents Of San Onofre In Northern Colombia Accuse Paramilitary Forces Of Murdering Hundreds And Burying The Bodies On A Farm Outside Their Town. But A Propsed Bill Would Ensure That The Paramilitaries, Even If They Confess, Would Only Receive Mild Priso

SAN ONOFRE, COLOMBIA - Wielding a trowel and crouched inside a 4-foot-long grave, a forensic dentist scraped dirt from the jawbone of an unidentified person believed to have been executed by paramilitaries.

Noting that the foot bones lay next to the skull, the investigator said that 15 of the 16 bodies uncovered on this cattle ranch in recent weeks had been hacked to pieces, a time-saving tactic that allowed the killers to dig smaller graves.

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BOGOTA - After pouring $3 billion into Plan Colombia, the United States is about to be betrayed by one of its closest allies in the fight against drugs and terror. The Colombian government is putting the final touches on a scheme to launder the criminal records of top paramilitary commanders - including some of the country's most powerful drug lords - while allowing them to keep their wealth and maintain their control over much of the country. Should the plan be approved, it will be an enormous setback for U.S. counternarcotics and counterterror efforts, as well as for human rights in Colombia.

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Pins Hopes On New Lightning-Fast Vessel

Midnight Express Chase Boat Of Choice

PLAYA SIETE OLAS, Colombia - The beach known as Siete Olas, or Seven Waves, arches away to the west -- a long and deserted belly of off-white sand girdled by lacy pleats of Caribbean surf and an aquamarine sea.

A broad, green promontory shelters the bay, and the late-morning sun beats down from a powder-blue sky.

This ought to be paradise, and in some ways it is, but it is also Colombia -- and that means drugs.

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Colombia: It All Comes Together In A Country Where Drug Lords Rise From The Dead And Smugglers Never Run Out Of Lucrative Schemes

His name is Wilber Varela, his criminal alias is Jabon -- or "Soap" -- and he has killed more people than you could easily count.

A month ago, he was supposed to be dead.

Now, it seems that Wilber Varela is alive and well and back at his day job, shipping illegal narcotics to foreign markets, mainly in the United States.

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This is the last in a three-part series on Colombia's drug war.

SANTA RITA, Colombia - A sombre, soft-spoken coffee grower named Benito Vargas rests on a small wooden veranda in the shade of a large guayabo tree and denies that there's malfeasance in these green hills.

"I've lived here for 24 years," he says, referring to this small hamlet in the verdant mountains of southern Colombia, "and I've never seen any illicit plants."

By "illicit plants," Vargas means either poppies (the raw material for heroin) or coca (the raw material for cocaine).

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Colombian authorities have seized $US350 million ($460 million) worth of cocaine stashed on a jungle riverbank by far-right paramilitary groups in what police called the biggest cocaine bust in history.

Police and navy personnel confiscated 13.8 tonnes of cocaine hidden on the banks of the River Mira, near the Pacific Ocean port of Tumaco in southern Colombia, in an operation that ended on Friday.

With a street value of about $US25,000 a kilogram in the US, where police think the drugs were headed, the cocaine would sell for a total of about $US350 million.

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The Allegations of Arms Trafficking Are Latest Blow to Relations Between the Two Nations

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Colombian police announced Wednesday that two American soldiers have been arrested in a plot to traffic ammunition, the second time in recent weeks that U.S. troops stationed here were detained on smuggling allegations.

The Americans were captured Tuesday in the town of Carmen de Apicala, 56 miles southwest of Bogota, after authorities raided a condominium there and found 32,900 rounds of ammunition of various calibers, according to National Police Chief Jorge Daniel Castro.

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Officials Say the Soldiers Were Found in a House With More Than 30,000 9-Millimeter Rounds.

BOGOTA, Colombia In the second embarrassing incident involving U.S. troops here in a little more than a month, Colombian police have detained two U.S. soldiers on suspicion of arms smuggling near a large military base in this nation's heartland, officials said Wednesday.

The soldiers, whose names, ranks and duties were not disclosed, were arrested Tuesday in a condominium near the town of Carmen de Apicala with a "big quantity" of ammunition, Colombian Police Chief Jorge Daniel Castro told local radio.

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Colombia's defence minister has said a deal giving US soldiers immunity from prosecution was amendable, as law-makers want to charge five US soldiers suspected of cocaine smuggling.

Five US soldiers were arrested aboard a US military plane leaving Colombia on March 29, allegedly with 16 kilograms of cocaine.

They had been in Colombia on an anti-drug mission. One of the five has been released for lack of evidence.

"I am not saying that [the agreement] should be modified, but if problems are found that merit a change, I am sure that officials at the Colombian Foreign Ministry and US State Department officials would sit down for that," Jorge Alberto Uribe told reporters.

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Country's Leader Vows To Continue With Fumigation

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe vowed Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report found that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to make a dent in the area of coca cultivation in Colombia.

Critics of Washington's effort to crush drug production in Colombia, the world's main cocaine-producing country and a major supplier of heroin, say the report indicates the Colombian and U.S. governments are losing the war on drugs, which has cost more than $3 billion in U.S. aid here since 2000.

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But White House Report Finds Fumigation Hasn't Cut Coca Supplies

BOGOTA, Colombia -- President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

Uribe, in an interview with local RCN radio, said he was undeterred by the report by the White House drug office.

"Our will is to continue seizing the drugs and to continue with the fumigation," Uribe said.

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BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe vowed to press ahead with US-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

Critics say the report indicates the Colombian and US governments are losing the war on drugs, which has cost more than $3bn in US aid here since 2000.

"The US government's own data provides stark evidence that the drug war is failing to achieve its most basic objectives," John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank critical of US drug policies in Colombia, said on Friday.

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BOGOTA, Colombia - Five U.S Army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly trying to smuggle some 32 pounds of cocaine from Colombia aboard a U.S. military aircraft, U.S. and Colombian officials said Thursday.

The soldiers were detained Tuesday as a result of the investigation, said Lt. Col. Eduardo Villavicencio, a spokesman for the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command.

He would not disclose where the five are being held, other than "in the United States."

"This is an ongoing criminal investigation," Villavicencio said, declining to release any other details.

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POLICE have found a home-made submarine capable of carrying $260 million worth of cocaine on a Pacific Ocean smuggling mission.

Police, who acted on a tip, made no arrests after finding the submarine hidden in the port of Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, police said yesterday.

It was the second publicised case of Colombian drug smugglers trying to use submarines. In 2000, an underwater vessel was found far from the coast in the Andean mountain capital of Bogota.

"They started building the submarine about six months ago, using small pieces so as not to make people suspicious," said Eduardo Fernandez, the security chief in the southern province of Valle del Cauca.

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Efforts Target Rain Forest In Colombia

Over the jungles of western Colombia --- The newest battle in Colombia's drug war is being fought in one of the largest tracts of virgin rain forest in the Americas, an expanse of stunning beauty where crystalline rivers weave around mountains hugged by a blanket of trees.

Harried by eradication campaigns elsewhere, drug gangs have been moving into the remote region, bringing in millions of seedlings for coca --- the bush used to make cocaine --- to be planted by peasants who are felling patches of trees.

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Depression, Anxiety Rising Amid Violence

Four decades of internal conflict have turned Colombia into an anxiety-ridden nation struggling to overcome an epidemic of emotional problems, mental health professionals say.

More than 40 percent of Colombians between ages 18 and 65 acknowledged suffering mental illness at least once during their lifetimes, including depression and substance or alcohol abuse, according to a study by Dr. Juan Posada. One-fifth of Colombians have experienced profound feelings of anxiety.

The reasons: Battles by drug gangs, an ongoing civil war, high murder and kidnapping rates, along with double-digit unemployment and grinding poverty.

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