Clash Over Anti-Drug Plan

Governors from key cocaine-producing regions in Colombia Monday condemned a U.S.-backed plan for aerial spraying of drug crops, saying the operation would imperil the livelihood of thousands of poor peasants.

With U.S. funding, the Colombian army is set to launch a massive military push in the country's south to combat the Andean nation's booming drug industry.

The almost $1 billion in mostly military aid for President Andres Pastrana's "Plan Colombia," approved by the U.S. Congress last July, is aimed at eradicating illicit fields of coca and cutting the funding of leftist guerrillas who protect and profit from the trade.

But a group of governors on the front line on the war against drugs said they would present in an upcoming meeting an alternative plan urging Pastrana's government to stop aerial spraying of herbicides and instead fund crop-substitution programs to wean peasants from their dependence on drug crops.

"The real problem is the terrible situation in which thousands of peasants live in Colombia," said Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, governor of the southwestern province of Huila. "We can't run over their livelihoods without giving them opportunities to grow other crops," he told Reuters.

The U.S. State Department contends that Plan Colombia dedicates more than $45 million for programs "to provide economic alternatives."

The governor's plan, which is to be made public at a national meeting of governors scheduled for Feb. 15-16, is backed by at least six governors, including the governor of Putumayo, which grows 50 percent of the country's coca leaf — the raw material for cocaine.

On the lawless southern border with Ecuador, jungle-covered Putumayo is seen as ground zero for the offensive, which would employ Black Hawk helicopters to transport anti-narcotics battalions.

Right-wing paramilitaries, who often target civilians suspected of collaborating with leftist rebels, were blamed for the execution-style killings of at least 20 peasants in separate attacks throughout Colombia over the weekend, police and local media said.

Mr. Clinton in August waived human rights requirements that were part of the bill providing the money for Plan Colombia. Dealing with the paramilitaries was one of several requirements laid out in the legislation; in August, the White House concluded that Colombia's efforts to control the groups were not adequate, but approved the waiver citing the "national security interest" of the United States.

Colombia, the world's No. 1 producer of cocaine, is in the grip of a four-decade conflict that has left 35,000 civilians dead in the last 10 years. The war pits leftist guerrillas against right-wing paramilitaries and the armed forces.

U.S. and Colombia drug officials say the country's main guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), takes in millions of dollars a year from the drug trade.

The United States has insisted it wants to target drug traffickers and not be drawn into an expeditionary guerrilla war.

In neighboring Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez on Monday urged Mr. Clinton's successor, President-elect George W. Bush, to think again about supporting Plan Colombia. "I hope that the new (U.S.) government will reconsider Plan Colombia," Chavez said in a televised address to Congress.

But a key adviser to Mr. Bush, his U.S. Trade Representative-designate Robert Zoellick, in remarks that possibly foreshadow the incoming Bush administration's policy, has called for stronger American policy on combating Colombia's insurgents.

The Plan Colombia legislation caps the number of U.S. troops to be used in Colombia at 500, but the president can waive that limitation for up to 90 days if "the Armed Forces of the United States are involved in hostilities or that imminent involvement by the Armed Forces of the United States in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances."

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