HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html
Pubdate: Tue, 15 May 2001 Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Germany Wire) Copyright: 2001 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/817 COLOMBIAN COCA, POPPY CULTIVATION EXPANDS DESPITE ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS BOGOTA -- Coca and poppy cultivation is expanding in Colombia despite government efforts against illegal drugs, according to a published report. The news magazine Cambio, quoting Colombian and United Nations anti-drugs officials, said on Sunday that coca and poppy plantations had expanded from a total of 103,000 hectares at the end of 1999 to 162,000 hectares 12 months later, for an annual gain of 60 per cent. The findings, the magazine said, were based on satellite photos. It said the findings were likely to intensify the growing public dissatisfaction with the government of President Andres Pastrana. Under the government's anti-drugs plan, the United States is to provide 1.3 billion dollars, mainly in military spending, to Colombia's 7.5-billion-dollar campaign. European countries, according to Pastrana, also are to provide significant funding to the plans. The plans call for the destruction of coca and poppy crops as well as compensation to peasants who lose their livelihoods as a result. A government official, who requested anonymity, told the magazine that government-sponsored aerial herbicide spraying of plantations had proved to be a "disaster". And General Gustavo Socha, the chief of Colombia's anti-drugs police, blamed the failure of the herbicide spraying programme on the failure to offer any alternative crop choices to peasant farmers. Meanwhile, the fields that had been sprayed were soon abloom with new illegal crops, he said. The magazine quoted Francisco Thoumi, a narcotics trade expert, as saying the decline in demand for cocaine and heroin in the United States and some European countries and the increased production of coca and poppies used in making the drugs could lead to a market collapse. The strong expansion in the crops in Colombia was mostly a response to their increased production in neighbouring Peru and Bolivia, Thoumi was quoted as saying. Conditions for crop production are better in areas of Colombia controlled either by leftist rebel groups or right-wing paramilitaries, both of which are paid by drug producers for their protective services. The rebels have rejected Pastrana's anti-drugs campaign, calling it a prelude to direct intervention by the United States. - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew