Estimates of the guerrilla profit on the coca trade vary wildly, from $100 million a month to $100 million a year.

Beyond leading to renewed signs of drug trafficking, the increased coca plantings here and elsewhere have led to a reappearance of Shining Path guerrillas, who benefit from the coca trade.

'Strange, then, Senor Bryant, that there should have been so much loudly publicised military activity devoted to destroying the coca trade over the last seventy years.'

Those forces have committed abuses and moved into the coca trade as they have taken over territory from the rebels in recent months.

Mr. Fujimori had criticized the proposed military aid package, saying that armed action alone would not put an end to the coca trade in the Upper Huallaga region.

The rebel group has said it taxes coca cultivation and other aspects of the coca trade but does not traffic in drugs.

"We believe people will go hungry," said Mr. Palacios, an expert on the coca trade.

Financed by large landowners and through "taxes" imposed on the coca trade, Mr. Castaño's group has been responsible for most of the massacres in Colombia.

Alternative crop programs were also being resisted by coca farmers who depended on the coca trade for their livelihood.

More important than the gains against the traffickers, they believe, the military operations broke the old taboo that fighting the coca trade would be unpalatable.