U.S. PILOTS IN COLOMBIA DRUG WAR SAY THEY'RE NOT MERCENARIES - THEY'RE JUST
DOING A JOB

BOGOTA, Colombia -(AP)- Trying to dispel their mercenary image, U.S.
contract pilots waging a drug war in Colombia insisted Friday they are just
regular pilots doing a job - which happens to involve them getting shot at.

Flying crop dusters and helicopters, the American employees of DynCorp, of
Reston, Va., have been on the front lines of Washington's campaign to
eradicate cocaine- and heroin-producing crops in the South American country.

Three Americans have been killed in two crashes since 1997. Other aircraft
have been hit by gunfire from rebels and paramilitaries who "tax" and
protect the coca and poppy crops.

The pilots have been earning a reputation as daredevils. A leading Bogota
newsmagazine, Semana, last month called the Americans "mercenarios" and
"Godless Rambos" in a cover story.

In a public relations counteroffensive, three veteran U.S. pilots and a
manager met with reporters in a drab DynCorp briefing room full of maps at
Bogota's airport. The conversation was monitored by a U.S. Embassy official,
who said the pilots could only be identified by their first names and that
they could not be photographed.

Wearing T-shirts or sport shirts, and in their 30s and 40s, they look like
any regular group of guys you might find in a working-class area of Dallas
or Detroit. And if they make the news, it won't be good news.

DynCorp pilots earn upward of $75,000 per year, but volunteers for the job
are not plentiful.

"It's tough to find people who are willing to come down here and do this,"
said Bob, a veteran pilot from Texas who wears his hair long and sports a
thick mustache.

"It's a little different," agreed Mark, another crop-duster pilot with a
boyish face.

Meanwhile, concern is building in Washington that the Bush administration is
quietly increasing America's involvement in the Colombia conflict by using
civilian fliers to avoid a direct U.S. military buildup. Americans also fly
Colombian army and search-and-rescue helicopters.

The U.S. Congress has mandated that up to 300 U.S. contractors and 500 U.S.
military personnel are allowed in Colombia. DynCorp acknowledged Friday that
it already has 335 employees in the country. But the company and the U.S.
Embassy insist the contractor limit is not being broken because only about
100 of the personnel are U.S. citizens, with the rest coming from Peru,
Guatemala and other countries.

"This raises a whole new set of issues, like how the United States may be
trying to circumvent the contractor cap," said Ingrid Vaicius, an analyst
with the Center for International Policy in Washington.

Critics charge the widespread spraying of herbicide is harming the
environment and making people sick. Mark, from his bird's eye perspective,
said he has seen farmers burning down the rainforest to replace their
fumigated coca fields.

Some of the three dozen American pilots - like Thomas, a lanky Texan - are
veterans of Vietnam and other conflicts. Others fell into this risky
business through classified ads or word-of-mouth with no prior experience in
hostile environments.

Mark, who crisscrossed the United States working as a crop-duster, said he
took the DynCorp job because he could work year-round. If he works two weeks
on, he gets two weeks off, and the company flies him home during the break.

The pilots carry sidearms on missions and have received survival training.
Beyond facing being shot down, the Americans also risk capture by members of
the 16,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who earn
millions of dollars in the drug trade.

"We're just concerned that we survive the incidents," said Bob. "We've been
hit over solid jungle, we've been shot at by people standing on the banks of
small streams, over coca fields and open fields, in almost every segment of
the flight."