PROBLEMS SURFACE IN DRUG WAR

The planes swooped in at treetop level, trailing a fine mist of herbicide
over fields of coca, corn and banana as combat helicopters clattered
overhead, the door gunners ready to crush any resistance.

For the governments of the United States and Colombia, the aerial spraying
mission in the Indian village of Santa Rosa del Guamuez was among the first
in a controversial counterdrug effort in the world's largest
cocaine-producing region.

But already the strategy is running into problems and fueling deep
resentment. The planes killed not only coca -- the base ingredient of
cocaine -- but the food crops and pasture.

"The helicopters came with a great noise. They were heavily armed. You
could see the machine guns," recalled resident Virgilio Queta of the
morning of Jan. 6.

Government investigators are inundated with complaints from farmers, and
are finding that some complaints of non-drug crops being sprayed are true.

Juan Martinez, of the government ombudsman office, confirmed that some
pasture sprayed with herbicide had died. Even the pasture of the mayor of
La Hormiga, the main town where the missions have centered, was fumigated.

A three-hour hike by Martinez and Associated Press journalists around Santa
Rosa showed that the herbicide landed mostly on the coca crops, many of
them on farms smaller than an acre. The government and U.S. officials had
given assurances that mainly large-scale "commercial" plantations would be
targeted.

The fields in Santa Rosa looked like moonscapes, with only deadened
branches of the formerly robust green bushes sticking above the brown ground.

Adjacent food crops were shriveled and yellowed from the herbicide, as well
as some of the jungle. Tribal fish farms were also sprayed, the Indians said.

Santa Rosa's residents, members of the Cofan and Paez tribes, resent the
spraying and wonder if their ancestral lands will recover.

"We are natives here," Angelina Queta, a 58-year-old Cofan woman, told
Martinez. "If this land is ruined, we are not going to ask the government
to relocate us from our homeland -- so treat it with respect."

Plan Colombia -- President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug initiative that
Washington is financing with $1.3 billion including helicopters and
training for Colombian troops -- envisions a mass-scale fumigation of
Putumayo, the state where Santa Rosa sits.

An average of 2.7 gallons of the herbicide glyphosate is sprayed on each 2
1/2 acres of coca. There are at least 138,000 acres of coca in Putumayo,
said Gonzalo de Francisco, Pastrana's point man for the state.

De Francisco is trying to get small-scale coca producers to eradicate their
crops manually in exchange for government development aid, and said he
already has signed up 2,000 families. A week after Santa Rosa was sprayed,
its residents agreed to destroy the rest of their coca in return for aid.

Unless more do so, thousands more gallons of herbicide will fall on
Putumayo, a verdant Amazonian region bordering Ecuador. De Francisco
defended the fumigation strategy, saying it was preventing far greater
environmental damage caused by the coca producers.

In addition to the vast acreage of rainforest that has been felled for the
planting of coca, 10.8 million gallons of pesticides, herbicides and agents
such as gasoline, sulfuric acid and ammonia are used in Putumayo annually
to grow coca and convert it into cocaine, the government said.

Resistance to the campaign by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary
gunmen who "tax" cocaine production has been muted so far. De Francisco
said the aircraft had received only four bullet hits, with no injuries to
crew members, since fumigation began around Christmas in Putumayo.

Most of the missions are in areas where paramilitary forces have ousted the
rebels in recent fighting. The paramilitary members are loosely allied with
the military, and have said they don't plan to resist the fumigation missions.

But the rebels are ready to battle the U.S.-supplied helicopters.

"If they fly low around here, we'll be throwing lead up at them," vowed a
young rebel who manned an ambush point alongside a highway an hour's drive
from La Hormiga.