Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 Source: Register-Guard, The (OR) Copyright: 2001 The Register-Guard Contact: PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188 Website: http://www.registerguard.com/ Author: Juan Forero, The New York Times Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia (Reports about Colombia) HERBICIDE USED AGAINST COCA CROPS SANTA ANA, Colombia - Trained and financed substantially by the United States, the Colombian army has begun an aggressive land and air assault on the country's coca-growing heartland, claiming to have stripped a quarter of all coca crops in the past six weeks. Low-flying aerial spray planes - protected from ground fire by two elite battalions that are dropped into coca fields - have blanketed Caqueta and Putumayo provinces, spraying herbicide over 65,785 acres as of Tuesday, according to newly released military estimates. Although aerial defoliation of coca has been used across Colombia for 10 years, government officials say this is the first serious effort in this rebel-infested region. The defoliation effort is a centerpiece of President Andres Pastrana's ambitious Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar effort designed to cut Colombia's coca crop in half by 2005 and, with it, a crucial revenue source for leftist guerrillas. The United States has pledged $1.1 billion in that effort, most of it in the form of transport helicopters and training for anti-narcotics troops, whose role is to protect spray planes and destroy coca-processing labs in the jungle. The aerial eradication, however, has not come without a price. Farmers in the Valley of Guamuez in northwestern Putumayo, a swath containing the largest concentration of coca, have complained that legal crops like plantains and yucca were destroyed along with coca. "I have the proof to show that it wasn't just the coca farmers who have suffered," said Carlos Alberto Palacios, secretary of human development in the town of La Hormiga. "We believe people will go hungry," said Palacios, an expert on the coca trade. "They've fumigated everything, fields and plantain rows and yucca and everything that people need to live on." On a half hour helicopter flight with Gen. Mario Montoya over what was once Colombia's most bountiful coca-producing region, fields that once were bright green with coca and other plants were now a pale brown, wiped free of vegetation for miles around. "This is the only way," the general said, taking a look through the window of the chopper. "We don't have another way." Montoya, who is in charge of the effort, said as many as 250,000 acres in the two provinces were dedicated to coca before spraying began on Dec. 19, a figure higher than last January's estimate of 185,000. The two provinces, a tropical swath of jungles and fields conducive to coca farming, are believed to contain three-quarters of Colombia's coca, the leaves of which are used to make cocaine. U.S. officials, who provide Colombian authorities with satellite maps that help pinpoint coca fields, confirmed Montoya's assessments. U.S. officials also said the spraying using glyphosate - a powerful chemical used in many pesticides - is at least 90 percent effective during first-time use, wiping out fields within a few weeks. Palacios, the coca trade expert, and other town officials said farmers did cultivate coca, but also a host of legal crops, as well as raise cattle and other livestock. The health department of Putumayo is in the process of collecting testimony from farmers whose lands were sprayed, said Nancy Sanchez, who is supervising the effort as coordinator of the department's human rights section. "There's complaints about intoxication, diarrhea, vomiting, skin rashes, red eyes, headaches," said Sanchez. "In the children, above all, there are ill effects on their skin." U.S. officials have insisted that tests on glyphosate have demonstrated that the pesticide cannot cause harm to humans or animals. The government, which is concerned about how aerial spraying will be viewed overseas by potential financial backers, points out that the farmers whose fields were sprayed had opportunity to sign pacts that would have prevented aerial eradication. Under a program that already has 2,000 signatories across Putumayo, the farmers in Valley of Guamuez could have agreed to yank their coca plants in return for up to $1,000 worth of livestock and food. "The people from this zone had not shown up," said Pastrana's point man on Putumayo, referring to the farmers in the Valley of Guamuez. The official, Gonzalo de Francisco, added: "These people can't be angry with the fumigation. They were doing something outside legal norms." Montoya said that some legal crops were fumigated: "We know that we can make mistakes, but the mistakes are minimal compared to the magnitude of the operation." Fumigating some legal crops was hard to avoid because coca farmers tend to hide their crops by planting next to larger, legal crops, like banana trees, he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager