U.S. TO STUDY SPRAYING RISKS IN COLOMBIA

The EPA and Centers for Disease Control will examine the effect of
herbicides on the peasant population.

WASHINGTON -- To silence critics of U.S.-sponsored aerial spraying in
Colombia, the Bush administration is launching a study intended to
bolster its claims that herbicides used in the program are safe.

However, if the plant killers are shown to be harmful to people, the
study could backfire, putting the drug war and billions of dollars in
U.S. aid to Bogota in jeopardy.

With help from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the U.S. Embassy in
Bogota is working with Colombia to set up a plan to evaluate the
safety of the spraying program. The two federal agencies helped
establish methodology for the study and will help oversee it once it
gets under way.

To underscore the sensitive nature of the task, there already is
friction between the EPA and the State Department, which administers
the $115-million spraying program. The EPA does not want the State
Department using the agency for political cover.

Results of the study, which is expected to take six months, could
prove crucial in determining the fate of the drug war in Colombia. If
it concludes that the chemicals used in spraying operations are not
safe, the $1.3-billion U.S. aid package to Bogota known as Plan
Colombia, along with future funding, could be derailed.

"Any finding that any of these chemicals pose serious risks to human
health would put the aerial fumigation program in jeopardy," said
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who requested the study.

The Bush administration says aerial spraying is key to its anti-drug
strategy in Colombia. Without it, future U.S. aid hangs in the
balance, according to Anne Patterson, the American ambassador in
Bogota. U.S. support for Colombia, she said, is part of a multiprong
strategy that relies on alternative crop development, counter-
narcotics training and aerial spraying, and military equipment for
Colombia's armed forces.

"The U.S. Congress approved funding to support Plan Colombia on those
terms," Patterson said in a recent newspaper interview in Colombia.

"If those terms were to change, I have no doubt that many voices in
the U.S. Congress would call for an end to U.S. assistance to
Colombia."

Colombia is mired in a decades-old civil war, with Marxist rebels and
right-wing paramilitary groups often aligned with government troops
fighting it out.

U.S. officials say the drug trade helps finance the rebels and the
paramilitaries, with both sides raking in hundreds of millions of
dollars annually.

Part of the strategy under Plan Colombia is to wipe out the coca and
poppy crop, used to make cocaine and heroin, to cut funding to the
armed groups and force them to the negotiating table.

In this climate, the truth often gets mangled.

Aides say that's why Leahy pushed for the health study. As chairman
of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations
Committee, he found it nearly impossible to get reliable information
on the spray program.

Leahy asked that the CDC be brought in. The State Department also
turned to the EPA.

The EPA agreed but stressed it was not comfortable with being drawn
into a controversial review outside its jurisdiction. The agency
questioned the wisdom of applying U.S. test standards to chemicals in
Colombia used under vastly different conditions than in the United
States.

While glyphosate, a herbicide used in the spraying program has been
tested in the United States and pronounced safe, Leahy said he has
doubts about its use in Colombia. He and others are particularly
concerned about the combination of glyphosate and the additive Cosmo-
flux, which the State Department insists is safe.

According to the State Department, glyphosate is "less toxic than
common salt, aspirin, caffeine, nicotine and even Vitamin A."

As a result, it routinely questions claims that aerial spraying in
Colombia, including in the southern region of Putumayo where the bulk
of the spraying is occurring, is making people sick.

In congressional testimony last month, Rand Beers, assistant
secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement
affairs, cited a recent review by Colombia's leading toxicologist.

"His report is not complete, since the evaluations were so recently
done," Beers said. "However, the same physician completed a similar
study in Narino (state) in May, concerning the same types of health
problems as alleged in Putumayo, and found the several cases that he
reviewed to be inconsistent with glyphosate exposure."

In a letter dated April 17, however, Ambassador Patterson told Leahy
that the type of review Beers would cite in his testimony was not
"scientifically feasible." In her letter, Patterson pointed out that
both the CDC and EPA had told her office it was impossible to
determine if aerial spraying was making people sick without testing
subjects before and immediately after the spraying "because there are
no reliable biomarkers of glyphosate exposure."

"That is," the ambassador wrote, "it is not found in blood, urine, or
bodily tissue after about 7-10 days."

The new study will test people before and immediately after spraying.

Some people claim that aerial spraying causes skin rashes, diarrhea,
and in extreme cases, deformities in children.

Leahy said he asked for the study because he was concerned "about
reports that the large-scale aerial spraying of glyphosate and other
chemicals in Colombia may have caused health problems, particularly
among children."

"I do not know if these reports are true, but the CDC is the most
reputable public health agency in the world, and I am confident that
they will do a credible study."

Last month, the British chemical giant Imperial Chemical Industries
joined the debate over the safety of the spray solution.

ICI, which manufactures one of the ingredients of Cosmo-flux,
requested that the authorities in Colombia stop using the additive,
saying it had not been properly tested for use in the aerial
eradication of crops.

While critics welcomed word of the U.S. study, they called for an
immediate halt to aerial spraying in Colombia until the test results
are in. Since December, when aerial spraying intensified, 123,500
acres of illicit crops have been destroyed.

"The bottom line," said Kimberly Stanton of the Robert F. Kennedy
Human Rights Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington, "is
there's no place in the U.S. where a community would allow this kind
of fumigation to happen to them."

Military captures 11 rebels after peace talks break off

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's military said it captured 11 rebels
from the nation's smaller guerrilla army on Saturday during a
nationwide operation against the group following a rupture in peace
talks.

The 11 fighters from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, were
seized in the coastal city of Cartagena, navy Vice Adm. Fernando
Roman told Radionet radio station.

Roman said the combatants, among them a commander, were responsible
for extortion, bombings and kidnappings in the northern region.

At least 2,000 soldiers were also searching for rebels throughout the
ELN's stronghold in Bolivar state, army Capt. Jorge Florez said.
Troops were mounting smaller operations in eastern Arauca province.

"There are orders for operations throughout the whole country," Florez said.

President Andres Pastrana broke government contacts with the 6,000-
strong group, the nation's second largest, on Tuesday. He accused its
leaders of refusing to budge during talks aimed at opening formal
peace negotiations.

The ELN's leadership blamed the breakup of the peace talks on the
government, saying it lacked the political will to pursue peace.

Talks with the nation's largest rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, have yielded few results.

Two days after talks broke, presumed ELN fighters bombed northern San
Francisco town, killing three children and injuring at least 35
people. Six ELN combatants died in clashes Friday with troops in
northern La Bodega.