U.N. CALLS FOR DRUG CROP MONITORS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A top U.N. anti-drug official called Tuesday for
international monitoring of a U.S.-backed aerial eradication campaign
against drug crops and rejected claims that the program is not harming
peasant farmers.

The statements by Klaus Nyholm, director of U.N. counternarcotics programs
here, came amid growing domestic opposition to crop-spraying using
chemicals and as the U.S. Congress considers additional drug-fighting aid
for the South American country.

A $1.3 billion U.S. aid program is paying for combat helicopters, troops
training and crop dusting planes to wipe out coca and opium plantations.
Colombia is the world's main cocaine exporting nation and a growing
supplier of heroin to the United States.

Nyholm said the United Nations has collected ample evidence that herbicides
are being forcibly sprayed on small farmers food plots.

"We know that despite the government's policy, sometimes small farmers'
plots are hit as well, and that legal crops such as bananas and beans are
being fumigated by mistake," he told a news conference in Bogota.

Nyholm disputed recent comments by Colombian officials that the eradication
effort is surgically targeting only large-scale coca and opium plantations
run by drug traffickers.

Nyholm said many of the scientific studies dragged out by both proponents
and opponents of the forced eradication program are biased. He urged an
international monitoring mechanism be created to evaluate the safety and
effectiveness of the chemical being used.

Nyholm did not detail his proposal, however, saying only that the United
Nations has asked the World Health Organization to get involved.

Nyholm urged that the government place more emphasis on funding alternative
development programs, project offering farmers aid to switch to legal crops
such as organic coffee.