DRUG SPRAYING FIGHT INTENSIFIES

BOGOTA, Colombia - Battle lines are being drawn over the massive fumigation
of drug crops in Colombia, with opponents saying it poses health risks
while the U.S. ambassador warns that aid could be withheld if the
Washington-backed plan is scrapped.

The country's top anti-narcotics enforcer, meanwhile, is accusing drug
traffickers - who have lost of millions of dollars in profits - of waging a
smear campaign against Washington's $1.3 billion counterdrug offensive.

"What I have seen is a plot against the fumigations," said Gen. Gustavo
Socha, chief of the anti-narcotics police. "The drug traffickers are
generating false information and forcing people to disseminate it."

Though he did not provide specific examples, Socha said drug traffickers
were forcing peasants to give false testimony about alleged illnesses from
the sprayings.

Farmers and a coalition of governors from southern Colombia are demanding
an end to the fumigation. The governors have visited the U.S. Congress to
make their case.

The fumigation drive, in which planes spray herbicide on drug crops
protected by leftist rebels and rival paramilitary forces, is the key to
Washington's strategy to curb drug production in Colombia. This South
American country is the leading supplier of cocaine and heroin to the
United States.

The campaign has drawn increasing fire in recent weeks from critics who say
the chemicals dropped from the planes are not only harmful to people, but
are polluting one of the world's richest ecosystems.

A judge in Bogota on July 27 ordered a temporary halt of the spraying in
Amazonian Indian lands.

It appears doubtful the Colombian government will jettison the sprayings
nationwide. But, underscoring Washington's concern about the turn of
events, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson warned that a permanent halt could
jeopardize U.S. aid.

"I have no doubt that many voices in the U.S. Congress would call for an
end to assistance to Colombia," Patterson was quoted as saying in El
Tiempo, Colombia's most widely read daily. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the
comment was accurately quoted by the Bogota newspaper.

Patterson did not elaborate on what assistance would be cut. Washington's
$1.3 billion contribution to President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug
offensive, dubbed Plan Colombia, is already in the pipeline.

It is paying for dozens of Blackhawk and "Super Huey" helicopters to ferry
troops to drug-producing regions controlled by Colombia's illegal armed
groups. The rival groups, along with the government, are embroiled in a
37-year civil war fueled by the drug trade.

The U.S. funds are also bankrolling social programs in Colombia.

For some, the debate recalls Washington's "big stick" approach to Latin
America of times past.

In the respected Bogota newsmagazine Cambio, columnist Roberto Pombo
alleged the sprayings were destroying the environment and impoverishing the
country's peasant farmers, who have few or no viable alternatives to making
a living other than growing drug crops.

Pombo called the fumigations a "failed campaign against drug traffickers,
all by imperial order from the United States."

However, Pastrana had sought the assistance, and a groundswell of public
opinion against the fumigation offensive, slated to continue over at least
the next three years, has not materialized.

U.S. officials insist the herbicide, glyphosate, which is produced by the
U.S. chemical company Monsanto, is safe. But the British company Imperial
Chemical Industries confirmed Friday it has stopped supplying an additive
used with the glyphosate, saying that use of the two agents together had
not been tested.

The crop dusters, many provided by the State Department and flown by
American contractors, have blanketed 123,500 acres of cocaine- producing
crops since the campaign was launched last December in southern Putumayo
province, Colombia's cocaine heartland.

Recent U.S. estimates showed 336,400 acres of coca, the main ingredient in
cocaine, were being cultivated in Colombia. Colombian police say 15,300
acres were being used to grow poppy, from which heroin is made.