Pubdate: Wed, 16 Dec 2009
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: Front Page, First Column, continued on page A26
Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Chris Kraul, Reporting from Tumaco, Colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Colombia

Column One

GETTING HIGH ON THE WAR ON DRUGS

'Flying here is the biggest rush,' says a Texas crop-duster who now 
dodges bullets and trees to kill coca plants in Colombia.

By Chris Kraul, Reporting from Tumaco, Colombia

Spraying 800 pounds of herbicides on coca over treacherous terrain 
while getting shot at is not everyone's idea of a good time. But for 
Dave, a 35-year-old crop-duster from Texas turned "top gun" of 
Tumaco, it's a "kick in the pants."

Every day, weather permitting, the admitted adrenaline junkie starts 
up his armored plane, a bulky craft that resembles a horse trailer 
with wings. Then he zooms off from a tiny airport here on Colombia's 
Pacific coast to do his part in the drug war, a highly choreographed 
aerial ballet in which he and three other pilots flying in tight 
formation dump their chemicals.

Dave, who asked that his last name not be used because of security 
concerns, said his planes have been hit by small-caliber fire 25 
times since he started flying crop-eradicating missions here in 2005 
for a U.S. defense contractor.

"You know when the plane has been hit; it makes this kind of a 
sound," Dave said, slapping a nearby metal table hard, THWACK. "But 
there's too much to do piloting these things to have time to worry 
about the consequences."

The coca fields may measure miles across or just a few hundred yards, 
requiring "trigger pulls" lasting from 30 seconds to a split second. 
More often than not, Dave threads his plane through tight mountain 
valleys to reach increasingly remote crops that often have to be 
detected using satellite imagery.

"Flying here is the biggest rush I've ever had in an airplane," said 
Dave, who used to spray cotton and rice in South Texas, where his 
father was a crop-duster for 30 years before dying in a 2000 plane crash.

"The physical beauty of Colombia -- the Andes, the rivers, lagoons 
and mangroves -- are something else," he said. "And the pay is good. 
Plus, I believe in the mission.

"So, I don't see me going anywhere," said the burly, tobacco-chewing 
pilot, who has flown 1,000 sorties since he arrived almost five years ago.

Dave and 19 fellow pilots are the "aces" of Plan Colombia, the 
U.S.-funded anti-drug and -terrorism aid program that since 2000 has 
spent $6 billion to curb the flow of cocaine to the United States. 
Colombia is the world's biggest producer of the powder processed from 
coca leaves.

Although the amount of coca produced in Colombia declined by 28% last 
year from 2007, according to United Nations figures, the 
effectiveness of the eradication program is under intense scrutiny in 
the United States, and funding has recently been curtailed.

The flyboys, most of whom come from Texas or the Midwest, have dusted 
more than 3.2 million acres of coca in the last 14 years, some of it 
under a program that was launched five years before Plan Colombia got underway.

The risk level is high, especially here in Narino state, scene of 
some of Colombia's most violent clashes between rival rebel groups 
and narco gangs vying for control of a crucial cocaine production and 
transit corridor. Poor farmers and indigenous groups are often caught 
in the crossfire.

Dave said that so far, the 3/4-inch composite armor and ballistic 
glass encasing his plane's cockpit, engine and fuel tanks has kept him safe.

But he is aware that rebels are seeking surface-to-air missiles, 
which could pose a bigger risk to the planes.

The powerful but lumbering aircraft are easy targets. They have 
1,350-horsepower turbojet engines that are nearly as strong as those 
that power Abrams tanks. But they fly "low and slow" -- just yards 
above the tree line -- and invite potshots by traffickers.

On every mission, Dave and his fellow pilots are accompanied by what 
they call a security package: three Black Hawk helicopter gunships 
and, on the ground, a brigade of 100 Colombian special forces 
soldiers ready to recover him or his comrades in case of a crash.

Still, five pilots have been killed in the course of duty since the 
spraying program started in 1995. The danger comes not just from 
gunfire, but also high-tension wires, cellphone towers and "skinny 
palm trees we call snags" that suddenly jut out from the jungle canopy.

"All it takes is a split second of inattention and these obstacles 
could bring a plane down," Dave said.

The danger attracts a certain kind of flier, said an official with 
the Narcotics Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, which 
overseas the eradication program.

"These guys typically are cocky and they can be arrogant, but they 
are also very nonchalant in the face of real danger," said the 
official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to 
comment. "To do their jobs, they can't be retiring personalities."

Critics say the eradication program has merely pushed coca 
cultivation and processing to Peru and Ecuador, where cocaine 
production has increased as Colombia's has declined. Citing health 
risks, others say the U.S. government should fund only manual eradication.

Others say the spraying only aggravates the misery of farmers who are 
pushed into growing coca because they have few other options.

"The question remains the same: Are crop reductions achieved through 
forced eradication sustainable if the vast majority of families 
vulnerable to growing coca are left without viable legal livelihood 
options?" said John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, 
a think tank that has been critical of Plan Colombia.

The Colombian and U.S. governments say glyphosate, the industrial 
name for Roundup, is not hazardous, and that Colombians get no more 
intense a dose than "average weekend gardeners in the U.S."

The Ecuadorean government disagrees and has filed a claim before the 
International Court of Justice in The Hague, saying that winds have 
blown glyphosate across the border to its territory, harming crops and humans.

Many Colombian conservation groups are also critical of the program. 
A top official with one, who requested anonymity for herself and her 
organization because of possible political repercussions, said 
spraying especially hurts "marginal" communities.

"We think spraying is a menace," she said. "It hurts legal crops, 
damages the forests, forces peasants to abandon their farms and could 
even contribute to climate change."

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota says that budget cuts -- not efficiency, 
pilot risk or health concerns -- have prompted the White House to 
drastically scale back its financial support of both aerial and 
manual coca eradication in Colombia.

The Washington-based Center for International Policy estimates that 
2009 funding for coca eradication in Colombia was $105 million, down 
by $46 million, or nearly a third, from $151 million in 2007.

The coca destroyed this year will total 390,000 acres, down by 
one-third from the 570,000 acres sprayed and uprooted in 2008.

Despite declining funds and two fewer planes than the 14 available 
three years ago, Dave and his comrades press on. They continue to 
refine their techniques to match the narcos' tendency to grow smaller 
and smaller crops in out-of-the-way places.

Before each mission, the pilots attend a briefing and settle on the 
day's targets around Narino, a lush state bordered by Ecuador to the 
south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east.

"I can fly for miles and not see a sign of civilization, only an 
occasional smoke plume rising above the jungle. The smoke might be 
from a farmer clearing an area to grow licit crops, or it might be a 
burning drug lab," Dave said.

"It's easy to forget there is a war going on down there."

As he inspected his plane for bullet holes and fingered the 96 spray 
nozzles arranged across the wingspan, Dave said he is also keeping 
his reflexes sharp.

"Flying in mountains is inherently dangerous work," he said. "You 
suddenly can find yourself in terrain that is climbing faster than 
the aircraft can climb."

Patting the ungainly looking aircraft like some oversized pet, Dave 
looked up toward the cockpit and said, smiling, "She's just a big pussycat."

- -----

Kraul is a special correspondent. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake