COLOMBIAN DRUG CROPS PROLIFERATE

BOGOTA, Colombia -- With Washington set to deepen its involvement in
Colombia's anti-drug efforts, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said
Wednesday there are far more cocaine- and heroin-producing crops
growing here than previously believed.

"Everywhere we look there is more coca than we expected," Patterson
told a small group of American journalists, referring to the prime
ingredient of cocaine.

It was her first substantive on-the-record briefing since arriving in
Colombia a year ago from El Salvador, where she also was the
ambassador.

The most recent U.S. estimate, conducted at the end of last year,
showed 336,400 acres of coca being cultivated. That compares to the
U.S. State Department's estimate of 303,000 acres for 1999. In
addition, Colombian police say 15,300 acres were being used to grow
poppies, from which heroin is made.

But now drug crops have been found in areas of Colombia where none
was believed to have existed before -- in eastern Vichada state and
north, in Arauca state, among other places.

Washington is sending planes and helicopters to Colombia and is
considering giving more aid, atop a $1.3 billion existing package
aimed against leftist rebels and rival right-wing paramilitaries who
tax drug crops that are exported to the United States and elsewhere.

The training of 3,000 Colombian army counternarcotics troops by U.S.
Green Berets in southern Colombia was completed last May. But plans
are envisioned to expand the training to more Colombian soldiers in
smaller batches in other parts of the country, Patterson said.

"We don't think there is going to be a problem on the Hill with
that," Patterson said, referring to the U.S. Congress, where some
oppose U.S. military aid to Colombia. "The U.S. Congress would be
notified if that plan goes forward."

Critics of Washington's aid say the United States is being sucked
into another war, as in Vietnam or El Salvador.

It is unclear by how much the original drug-crop estimates may be
short. Of the heroin crops, Patterson said: "There is more out there
than we can find right now."

She added that a very pure grade of Colombian heroin has been
arriving in the United States, particularly New York and Philadelphia.

Patterson said the pace of fumigation will pick up "very dramatically.''

Washington made a clear sign Tuesday that U.S. participation will
continue when the House approved $676 million to fight drugs and
advance economic and political stability in Colombia and in its
neighboring countries.

The first of dozens of new combat helicopters provided under the aid
package will be arriving on Saturday from the United States. Fourteen
more U.S. crop dusters will also be arriving starting in September,
which will more than double the current fleet in Colombia by next
March.

Some of the crop dusters are being outfitted with night-vision
devices to enable pilots to fumigate after dark, making them less
exposed to gunfire from rebels and paramilitaries.

The crop dusters began blanketing huge chunks of Colombian territory
with the herbicide glyphosate last December under the U.S. aid
program. The planes have been escorted by reconditioned U.S.-provided
helicopters and protected by Colombian soldiers trained by U.S. Green
Berets.

No U.S. citizens will be allowed to fly the army combat helicopters,
Patterson said.

"It's dangerous," she said. "I'm under no illusion what it would mean
to have an American shot down here, and no one in the U.S. is."

Reacting to complaints that glyphosate is a health hazard, the U.S.
Embassy will recruit 1,000 Colombians as test subjects in a
toxicological study.

U.S. officials insist that glyphosate, sold in the U.S. as a common
weed killer under the name Roundup, is safe.