"The increase in coca cultivation in Colombia is a surprise and shock," Antonio Maria Costa, director of the Office on Drugs and Crime, said in a statement. "A surprise because it comes at a time when the Colombian government is trying so hard to eradicate coca; a shock because of the magnitude of cultivation."

The findings follow almost eight years of heavy aerial fumigation of drug crops in Colombia, an American-designed strategy that has cos tmore than $5 billion. That program includes military assistance that has helped Colombia's army weaken the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a peasant-based rebel group that has funded its war against the state in part through the cocaine trade.

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