Aug. 5, 2002

LIMA, Peru (AP) - For the second time in just over a month, the government has agreed to ease up on anti-drug operations in response to protests by coca farmers.

The government agreed early Monday to gradually reduce the cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, and help find markets for alternative crops grown in Peru's second-largest coca producing valley, the Ene-Apurimac river basin.

The agreement ended a three-day sit-in in the Andean city of Ayacucho, 205 miles (330 kilometers) southeast of Lima, by some 7,700 coca farmers who had marched more than 90 miles (150kms) from their farms in the eastern Amazon jungle to the city. They had threatened to march to Lima.

The government also agreed to pave the main road to the valley and connect the valley to a regional electrical grid.

Although the government is not eradicating coca plots in the Ene-Apurimac river basin, farmers in the region feared authorities might decide to do so under pressure from the U.S. government, according to coca expert Eduardo Musso.

A U.S. embassy spokesman stressed that eradication is an important part of the anti-drug effort.

"In as much as the agreements with cocaleros (coca farmers) downplay the importance of eradication, the overall counter narcotics program may suffer," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name.

The agreement follows one in late June in which the government suspended a coca eradication program in the Huallaga River valley, north of the Ene-Apurimac region. At that time the government also agreed to suspend work by Atlanta-based aid agency CARE to wean farmers in the Ene-Apurimac region from cultivating the coca leaf through support for alternative crops.

Protesters in both cases said the private organizations that run anti-coca programs absorb aid money poured in by the U.S. Agency for International Development and that poor coca farmers see little benefit.

Eradication and alternative development are key to the U.S.-backed war against the cocaine trade. The Ene-Apurimac river basin and the Huallaga region accounted for almost 65 percent of Peru's coca cultivation in 2001, according to U.N. figures.

CARE has used U.S. government funds to promote a legal economy in coca-growing areas by helping coca farmers switch to crops such as coffee, citric fruits and cacao, from which chocolate is made.

But the price of coca has soared to near record levels as the prices of coffee and cacao have dipped to historic lows. The result has been a rebound in cultivation after years of declining coca production.

U.S. officials say satellite photos of coca fields show new acreage last year was offset by eradication.

Eradication programs and slumping coca prices in the mid-1990s had shrunk Peru's coca crop from 285,000 acres (114,000 hectares) in 1995 to 84,000 acres (33,600 hectares) in 2000.

U.S. officials say satellite photos of coca fields show new acreage last year was offset by eradication, leaving total acreage at 2000 levels.

The U.N. Drug Control Program, however, using satellite maps, aerial surveillance and ground assessment work, comes up with higher numbers. It says the coca crop has expanded to cover 114,000 acres (45,600 hectares) in 2001, from 107,000 acres (42,800 hectares) in 2000.

Last year, teams of laborers manually ripped up 15,800 acres (6,320 hectares) of coca, according to U.S. government statistics. Peruvian officials say they plan to eliminate up to 17,000 acres (6,800 hectares) of coca in 2002. But the recent agreements have cast doubt on those projections.

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