The Cocaine Jungle

Wednesday, 19 October, 2005 1900 BST on BBC Two

Colombia supplies 90% of the world's cocaine, but the market is no longer controlled by drug barons like Pablo Escobar.

Instead two armed groups fight over land and cocaine laboratories, killing anyone in their way.

Into this chaos have stepped the Americans, sending their own men into combat, alongside Colombia's elite anti-narcotic units.

The US can employ up to 800 troops and 600 pentagon contractors in the fight against cocaine in Colombia.

Known as Plan Colombia, Washington has ploughed more than $3bn (�1.7bn) into this attempt to reduce cocaine production in the Andean country.

The US and the UN both say that Plan Colombia is working, but the figures they rely on are flawed, according to the governor's office of the largest cocaine producing region in the country.

Fabio Trujillo says: "The UN believe there are 17,000 hectares of cocaine in this region, but we know the figure is closer to 70,000," suggesting that coca production is higher than ever.

The enemy within

In The Cocaine Jungle Paul Kenyon travels with the Junglas, an elite anti-narcotic unit, as they comb the rainforest.

They are with an informant who points out hidden cocaine laboratories.

It is, of course, a highly dangerous job. The informant filmed on this raid was later shot dead in Bogota.

The programme also reveals how senior US soldiers have been accused of arms trafficking and cocaine smuggling themselves, exacerbating the very drug war they are there to sort out.

And as entire villages flee the US coca spraying planes and intense fighting around cocaine producing areas, Colombia has amassed the second largest number of "internally displaced" people in the world.

Is Plan Colombia really working at all?

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