For the first time in a decade of booming cocaine exports, the head of one of the three biggest Colombian dope "families" had been forcibly retired.

They control 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine exports, and many paramilitary leaders are wanted for extradition to the United States.

In Boliva alone, where the export of legal goods is about $800 million each year, illegal cocaine exports may exceed that amount.

The eradication of coca crops is a central element of the United States plan for battling cocaine exports.

Joint Bolivian and American efforts to combat cocaine exports have run into strong opposition in recent weeks from organized peasant growers of coca, the raw material of the drug.

They are responsible for massacring thousands of civilians, and they finance their activities through extortion and by providing 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine exports.

They control some 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine exports.

The cartel's share of Colombia's $5 billion in annual cocaine exports has dropped from about 70 percent in mid-1989 to about 40 percent today.

Colombia's coffee earnings have slumped at the same time that the Bush Administration is seeking Mr. Barco's help in cracking down on cocaine exports.

In Colombia, the result has been a remarkable drop in violence, but no measurable decline in cocaine exports.