ANTI-DRUG OFFENSIVE LAUNCHED IN COLOMBIA

U.S.-Backed Operation Targets Valley Coca Fields

LA HORMIGA, Colombia - Launching the U.S.-backed counter-narcotics
offensive known as Plan Colombia, army troops and police have begun a
land and air assault on a valley that holds a third of Colombia's
coca fields.

The joint operations are the central element of the "Push into the
South," a two-year plan to eradicate coca in the southern state of
Putumayo and the first phase of Plan Colombia, designed to destroy
half the nation's cocaine industry and strengthen its government in
five years.

Reports suggest the blitz is destroying thousands of acres of coca
bushes, driving up prices and throwing itinerant coca leaf pickers
out of work across the valley in Putumayo. But poor farmers are
complaining that the herbicide sprayed by police airplanes to kill
the coca is also killing their food crops and could unleash waves of
hunger and refugees.

As scripted in a $1.3 billion aid package approved last summer by
Washington, about 1,800 U.S.-trained troops and 15 U.S.-supplied
helicopters began raiding coca fields and protecting the crop-dusters
in Putumayo.

The Colombian government's reinforced military presence has allowed
low-flying spray planes to stage their first large-scale raids in the
region, lessening the danger of gunfire from leftist guerrillas paid
by traffickers to protect drug operations. Their first target: the
Guamuez Valley, 1,500 square miles of rolling hills that hold 110,000
acres of coca and 1,500 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC.

La Hormiga, with 18,000 people, does about $500,000 a week in coca
business, and even an 18-year-old hotel clerk can give visitors the
latest prices for what everyone calls "the merchandise."

Resistance has not been overwhelming, but complaints are loud. "All
my corn, yucca and bananas died. What am I going to feed my family?"
said Jose Melo, 34, as he surveyed his three acres of sprayed and
withering coca bushes.

The spraying comes atop an infestation that sociologist Carlos
Alberto Palacios said has cut coca production in the La Hormiga area
by as much as two-thirds - a leaf-eating worm jokingly known here as
"the Clinton."

"The entire coca trade is stopped," said Enrique, code name for the
commander of 600 right-wing, anti-guerrilla gunmen known as
Self-Defense Forces or AUC, who dominate most of the towns and roads
in the valley.

Enrique confirmed that his men are under orders not to shoot at the
planes, saying that while he "taxes" area coca dealers to finance AUC
operations, "we are 100 percent in favor of eradication."