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Pastimes : Deadheads -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (21256)	6/28/2000 2:07:00 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49844

Mean while back in the Jungle....... LOS POZOS, Colombia, Jun 28, 2000 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Washington's escalating drug war in Colombia is expected to come under sharp attack at an international peace conference opening Thursday in this tiny village in the country's coca-growing south. Hosted by leftist guerrillas as part of negotiations to end the Andean country's 36-year conflict, the Conference on Illegal Drug Crops and the Environment will be attended by delegates from 21 countries, including Britain, Spain, France, Canada and Japan - but not the United States. The U.S. government declined, citing a prohibition on official contacts with Colombia's largest rebel band, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.S. officials would probably not have enjoyed themselves. The rebels, who have fought the Colombian government for decades, intend to use the two-day event to rail against U.S. policy in the country. They also will try to cultivate resistance to a planned military push into Amazonian jungles where peasants grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. The FARC welcomes its visitors at a time when Washington is "using the excuse of fighting drugs to try and defeat Colombia's popular movement and insurgents," rebel negotiator Carlos Lozada said in Los Pozos. On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers were finalizing the $1.3 billion aid plan the rebels object to. The package aims to help Colombian troops retake jungles near San Vicente del Caguan, where the FARC and rival paramilitary groups guard and tax cocaine-producing plots for huge financial payoffs. The bulk of the funds would pay for military helicopters and Green Beret training for Colombian army battalions. Those battalions will be given the task of securing rebel-held areas while fumigation planes eradicate coca from the air. Critics of the plan abound. Environmentalists contend fumigation is destroying the rain forest, while rights activists worry the military push will fuel violence and upset peace efforts in Colombia. Despite record spraying, Colombia's coca crop has doubled since 1995 and moved deeper into the Amazon. Some experts believe it would be more effective to attack drug demand in the United States and Europe, while devoting more funding in Colombia to help peasants find alternatives to the drug crops. At this week's conference, rebels will accompany ambassadors on flights over denuded jungles and invite them to hear shoeless coca farmers describe how fumigation is killing their livelihood. "This is a long-standing wish of the FARC ... to show people how the peasants live, how they have no alternatives, how aerial fumigation doesn't work and how the government had done next to nothing," said Klaus Nyholm, director of U.N. anti-drug programs here. But, Nyholm said, "there's a lot of nonsense being said about fumigation. It's not killing off people and cattle or destroying the soil." He said fumigation is a reasonable strategy for killing off about half the coca crop in Colombia, located in large commercial plantations run by drug traffickers. Criticism of fumigation should resonate with some countries openly critical of the U.S.-backed approach. "In Switzerland, we believe that the drug problem is something that has to be attacked on the consumption front," said Geneva's ambassador to Bogota, Victor Christian. But it will be difficult for the FARC to drive a wedge between the United States and major allies. Diplomats going to San Vicente del Caguan say they have no intention of becoming rebel propagandists. Some are expected to carry stern demands for the FARC to halt kidnappings as a show of its sincerity about peace. And with an estimated 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine now going to Europe instead of the United States, governments there have a compelling reasons to support get-tough efforts. By JARED KOTLER Associated Press Writer Copyright 2000 Associated Press, All rights reserved -0- APO Priority=r APO Category=1102 KEYWORD: LOS POZOS, Colombia SUBJECT CODE: 1102 * end of story *