Colombia Coca Crop Off 15%, for First Time
"We have begun to shrink the expansion of the business," Walters told the House International Relations Committee.
The 144,450 hectares (357,000 acres) under cultivation in 2002 was down from 169,000 hectares (418,000 acres) in 2001, a 15 percent drop, he said.
About 123,000 hectares (304,000 acres) were destroyed in 2001, Walters said, much of it in the latter half of the year.
The United States has been shipping airplanes, helicopters and herbicide to Colombia for years, but drug lords have always been able to pay farmers to plant ever more coca bushes, from which cocaine is extracted.
U.S. officials have been frustrated by previous eradication efforts in Peru and Bolivia during the 1990s, when large swaths of coca were eliminated only to be planted in neighboring Colombia, leaving the total south American coca acreage at around 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres).
Walters credited the combined strategy of attacking drug crops to deny income to the leftist rebels and right wing paramilitary groups who profit from the trade.
The revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, with 17,000 irregular troops, and the united self defense forces of Colombia, with 10,000, rely on the drug trade for operating funds.
Walters, director of the national office of drug control policy, also praised the efforts of Mexico, under President Vicent Fox, while leveling criticism at Guatemala and Haiti, two countries that did not fully cooperate with us anti-drug efforts.
Colombia produces three-quarters of the cocaine that is smuggled into the U.S. and is a major producer of heroin, as well, according to the U.S. State Department.
Congress holds hearings on drug policy annually, on eve of the president's March 1 deadline, by which he must certify to Congress that countries on a watch list are cooperating with U.S. drug efforts in order to be eligible for aid. (AFP)