Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jan 2001
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas   75265
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Author: Tod Robberson, The Dallas Morning News

COLOMBIA PUTS U.S. AID TO WORK IN HUGE COCA ERADICATION PROJECT

Anti-Drug Campaign Has Wiped Out 65,000 Acres In 6 Weeks

SANTA ANA, Colombia - Now that Washington has placed more than $1 billion 
in mostly military aid at his disposal, President Andres Pastrana has 
ordered the most intense chemical eradication campaign ever witnessed in 
the world's top coca-growing region.

Colombian police crop-dusting planes, backed by nearly 2,000 U.S.-trained 
anti-narcotics troops, are swooping down each day on the swath of southern 
Colombia where most of the world's cocaine originates.

Viewed from above this week in a military helicopter, the devastating 
effects of the six-week campaign are unmistakable. Where 65,000 acres of 
bright-green coca once flourished, today a grayish-brown moonscape stands 
in stark contrast to the surrounding jungle. Farming families have fled en 
masse, military officials and farmers say.

The earth is likely to remain in its scorched state for the next six 
months, said army Brig. Gen. Mario Montoya, commander of the joint military 
and police forces executing the eradication campaign.

"We are spraying an average of 800 hectares [2,000 acres] per day," Gen. 
Montoya said, adding that the herbicide is 96 percent effective in wiping 
out ground vegetation. The herbicide, glyfosate, is manufactured in the 
United States under the brand name Roundup.

Trees and other more substantial jungle growth appeared to have been 
unaffected by the spraying.

The controversial eradication campaign and deployment of troops has raised 
the ire of the nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is demanding that the spraying be halted 
if the government wants to resume a 2-year-old peace process.

Facing mounting pressure from the guerrillas on one side and the U.S. 
Congress on the other, Mr. Pastrana now confronts the difficult decision of 
whether to ease up on Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion counternarcotics 
program he launched last year, in an attempt to put the peace process back 
on track. If he pulls back, top U.S. officials said recently, the future of 
U.S. funding for Plan Colombia could be placed in jeopardy.

In October, the FARC imposed a three-month travel ban in the southern 
province of Putumayo, the coca-growing capital of the world, to protest the 
planned eradication campaign that now is the keystone of Plan Colombia. The 
rebels cut off virtually all commerce in Putumayo's largest towns while 
putting peace talks with the government on hold.

Safe Haven Decision

With rebel protests still under way, Mr. Pastrana must decide Wednesday 
whether to extend the permission he granted two years ago for the FARC to 
occupy a 16,000-square-mile safe haven bordering Putumayo or whether to 
order government troops to reoccupy the zone.

The rebels have promised that if the extension is granted and other 
conditions are met, they will return to the peace talks. But if the safe 
haven is canceled, military analysts say, a return to all-out war could be 
imminent.

While thousands of troops are being deployed throughout southern Colombia 
in support of the campaign, an estimated 18,000 troops currently are 
surrounding the safe haven. The army is awaiting orders from Mr. Pastrana 
to move in, said Brig. Gen. Javier Hernan Arias, commander of troops along 
the southwestern border of the safe haven.

"We are in a state of tense calm," he said in an interview. If the zone is 
canceled, he added, "We are ready for this, and we are in a state of high 
morale. This is what we've trained for - for war. This is our job."

At the same time, however, Mr. Pastrana is on the verge of granting 
another, much smaller safe haven in north-central Colombia to the nation's 
second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, for an 
initial nine-month period. The government has faced harsh domestic and 
international criticism over the safe-haven concept, largely because it has 
yielded minimal results in advancing the peace process with the FARC.

Just outside the zone, in the area where eradication missions have been 
most intense - near the Putumayo towns of El Tigre, El Placer and La 
Hormiga - government troops have engaged in three pitched battles against 
FARC guerrillas since the campaign began Dec. 19. The insurgents have mined 
and booby-trapped laboratories and have used homemade bombs to repel 
government forces.

Gen. Montoya said the FARC and their chief rivals, paramilitary 
"self-defense" militias, are vying for control of the region with only one 
objective: to profit from the cultivation, processing and export of cocaine.

Because of the insurgents' heavy presence in the region, he added, it was 
nearly impossible in previous years to conduct eradication flights of 
anywhere near the intensity of the current campaign.

Previously, he said, one out of every four flights by a crop-dusting plane 
would result in damages from ground fire by the insurgents because there 
were no troops on the ground to secure the area before spraying began or 
police moved in to secure drug labs.

Today, said Col. Hugo Manuel Benitez, commander of one of the two 
U.S.-trained counternarcotics battalions operating in southern Colombia, as 
many as 400 troops will be deployed to secure an area targeted for aerial 
eradication.

"We enter en masse, with force," he explained. "Really, all [the 
insurgents] can do is pull back."

So far, Gen. Montoya said, not a single soldier, police officer or pilot 
has been injured or killed since the operations began. In addition to the 
crop eradication, police backed by counternarcotics forces have seized 34 
small and medium-sized laboratories used for refining the base ingredients 
of cocaine.

The result, he said, has been to drive up the price of coca base in the 
region from roughly $350 per pound six months ago to about $600 per pound 
today.

In the estimated 500 crop-dusting flights launched since Dec. 19, only 
three crop-dusters have been hit by ground fire, Gen. Montoya said. In 
addition, flights that previously had to be flown at altitudes of 200 feet 
or more because of ground fire from insurgents protecting coca fields now 
can be flown at altitudes of 20 to 50 feet. It means the spraying can be 
conducted with far greater precision and with less chance that legal crops, 
rivers and other vegetation will be hit, he said.

The crop-dusters carry onboard computers that communicate with U.S. 
satellites and are programmed to notify pilots when they are flying over 
land identified by U.S. intelligence services as coca fields.

Coca Farms Everywhere

A confidential map supplied by the U.S. State Department Air Wing 
underscored the enormous task that lies ahead for Colombia's 
counternarcotics forces. Putumayo appears on the map as a swath of green 
dotted by thousands of tiny red squares, each representing a coca farm. 
Last year's eradication efforts for the province are indicated on the map 
with scattered yellow dots, barely visible, which appear to constitute a 
minuscule percentage of the area under coca cultivation.

"Since 1995, the growth rate [in cultivation] has been about 10 to 20 
percent each year," Gen. Montoya said. "Our first goal of our eradication 
plan is to stop the growth rate. Afterward, we will start to reverse it."

Although 140,000 acres of coca were destroyed last year throughout the 
country, according to National Police estimates, more than half of the 
eliminated coca was replaced by new cultivation in Putumayo alone.

Fearful of retaliation from Washington because of reports that the campaign 
has damaged legal crops, top military and police officials have gone on a 
public-relations offensive to justify the spraying campaign.

Brig. Gen. Gustavo Socha Salamanca, chief of the National Police 
anti-narcotics unit, said that because of the sophisticated intelligence 
and computer-guided procedures provided by the United States, it would be 
"impossible" for pilots to spray legal crops by mistake.

But local farmers interviewed at a military base in Santa Ana complained 
that the food crops necessary for the local population's survival have been 
hit hard by the spraying.

"On my farm, they have wiped out my plantain and yucca crop," said Robinson 
Quincero, owner of a 20-acre farm outside Santa Ana. Two acres of his farm 
were devoted to coca cultivation.

"I was a person who never wanted to work in this [coca farming business]. 
So what can a person do?" he said. "People want to change. They're just 
looking for a way out."

He is among 400 farmers who have signed up for government financial 
assistance designed to wean them from dependence on coca income and help 
them convert to legal crops.

Those who fail to sign up for the program will be subject to the 
eradication campaign, Gen. Montoya said. But he insisted that any farmer 
who loses legal crops because of erroneous spraying has a right to demand 
reimbursement from the government.

Some farmers also have complained of skin sores and irritation after coming 
in contact with the spray, but the government insists the herbicide is 
harmless.
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