Rice: Coca Eradication Program Is Effective By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

Rice: Coca Eradication Program Is Effective By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago

BOGOTA, Colombia - Although results from a massive coca eradication program have been disappointing, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday night the overall U.S. assistance policy is working and should not be abandoned.

"You don't stop in midstream on something that has been very effective," Rice told a news conference. "It took a long time to get this program started and it's going to take a little while to eliminate the problem."

Rice was joined at the news conference by Colombia Foreign Minister Carolina Barco after meeting with President Alvaro Uribe.

The United States has provided more than $3 billion in assistance to Colombia since 2000 on counternarcotics and counterinsurgency programs and on programs to improve the criminal justice system.

A centerpiece of the counterdrug program has been an eradication strategy aimed principally at coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.

After two years of encouraging results, data released last month showed that the total area under coca cultivation — 281,000 acres — remained essentially the same in 2004 compared with 2003 in spite of a massive spraying campaign. Critics suggested the spraying campaign wasn't getting the job done.

Rice, perhaps focusing on the positive three-year trend, said, "I don't think it is time to abandon a strategy that is both diminishing the crop here and a strategy that is restoring the democratic security of Colombia."

That was a reference to U.S. efforts to help Colombia defeat three armed insurgencies, the largest of which is the leftist FARC rebel group.

Rice said that one measure of progress is the restoration of government control over areas previously in insurgent hands.

On the justice front, Rice said the government had corralled a record number of drug traffickers. She also said extraditions of Colombian traffickers are up since Uribe took office in 2002. According to the U.S. Embassy, the figure during that time frame is 214.

Rice, in the second leg of a four-nation hemispheric swing, flew here Wednesday from Brasilia, Brazil, where she delivered a speech in which she acknowledged that two decades of democracy in Latin America had failed to benefit tens of millions of the hemisphere's poorest citizens.

"Do not lose your hope. Do not lose your courage," she said. "And, most of all, do not turn back now."

Rice said poverty in the region represents a challenge. "The answers are to be found in more democratic reform," she said. "In time, the blessings of democracy come to everyone who keeps the faith with the principles of democracy."

Rice's pro-democracy message was the same as she and other Bush administration officials have been delivering on other continents: "The United States is committed to the success of democracy in Latin America."

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Poverty in that region? What about guerrillia in that region? And is the government supporting the people there?

By Lionheart on Apr 27, 2005, 19:11 in Politics & the war.

lpdiver says on Apr 28, 2005, 04:53:

The war on drugs Is mutually benefical to the both sides fighting the war. It assures a high dollar crop and increased consumption therefore mutually assuring both sides needs.

The crime is the millions in the penal system in the U.S. who are there solely on drug charges and the innocent victims in both countries. Think of the billions and billions of dollars spent on this war and could this money not have been spent more intelligently?

Give the crap away free on the street corner to anyone stupid enough to desire after they have completed a compulsory education program.

T

"cook some rice!"

Scalestick says on Apr 28, 2005, 08:32:

I agree. If those billions of dollars spent on this program, and other sceptical programs, were put to use in education and agriculture to help better life for all, not just a few, the whole planet would be better off. I don't see how spending billions of dollars for a questionable eradication program and military arms can be considered aid. The poor still suffer and the rich keep getting richer.

I guess aid actually stands for arms income development.

greg says on Apr 28, 2005, 12:07:

More crap out of Kindasleaza. Can`t believe she`s in South America and isn`t going to go see her buddy Hugo Chavez.