COLOMBIA DEFENDS COCA PROGRAM, US QUESTIONS AID

Colombia's government on Tuesday defended its fledgling crop substitution
program in the face of a searing US report, which questioned whether aid
was wasted trying to convince farmers to rip out drop crops.

A senior government official challenged the report, saying the program was
not "a total failure." He added that most of the 35,000 families who
pledged to destroy their coca leaf -- cocaine's raw ingredient -- would do
so by a July 27 deadline.

"We do share the US worry that (voluntary) eradication is complicated and
difficult to achieve," said Gonzalo de Francisco, charged with distributing
alternative development aid under the US-backed "Plan Colombia" anti-drug
offensive.

"But it (the program) is not a total failure."

The United States has already invested US$1 billion on Plan Colombia's
interdiction and eradication programs, training pilots to spray coca while
donating high-tech military hardware to help Colombian police intercept
cocaine on the ground.

While acknowledging there has not yet been any impact on coca planting or
US cocaine prices, Washington has remained committed to Plan Colombia,
saying there would be more cocaine without it. Colombia is the world's top
producer of the drug.

A February US General Accounting Office report said that warring Marxist
rebels and far-right militias made the new voluntary eradication program
impossible in the target area of southern Putumayo province, the No. 1 coca
growing region.

It added the US$5.6 million the US Agency for International Development (US
AID) had spent by September last year failed to show promised results, and
recommended a reevaluation of the more than $50 million Washington
earmarked for the program.

"Congress should consider requiring that US AID demonstrates measurable
progress in its current efforts to reduce coca cultivation in Colombia
before any additional funding is provided for alternative development," it
said.

FARMERS UNEASY, AID WORKERS KILLED

De Francisco acknowledged that progress has been slow, and added that coca
farmers still did not trust the government.

So far, just over 3 percent of the more than 87,000 acres (35,000 hectares)
of coca covered by the crop substitution agreement had been ripped out by
farmers, he said.

Meanwhile, less than half of the families who joined the program a year ago
have been given promised development aid.

When asked whether the government would send crop dusters to spray
devastating herbicides on family farms which failed to meet the July
eradication deadline, de Francisco hesitated -- saying he would rather not
punish Putumayo families.

"I don't want to believe in punishment," he said. He added that farmers
would realize "the end to coca is inevitable."

A US State Department official, who declined to be named, told Reuters
Washington still wanted to pursue alternative development in Colombia --
saying legitimate crops were the only way to permanently wean poor farmers
off profitable coca.

But he added that perhaps Putumayo, most of which is under control of
far-right paramilitary gunmen, was not best place to start crop
substitution. The GAO report gave the same message.

"Without government control of project sites, narcotics traffickers and
guerrilla forces will continue to profit from illicit drug operations and
impede legal economic activity generated by development programs," the GAO
said.

Four aid workers, employed by Colombian NGOs, have been kidnapped by
insurgent forces since the start of the program. Two were killed, with one
of them shot execution style last September after being accused of being
military intelligence.

Paramilitary gunmen and rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, were blamed for the killings. Colombia's 38-year- old
guerrilla war is increasingly fueled by the drug trade, and has claimed
40,000 lives in a decade.