U.S.-BACKED AIR ASSAULT IN COLOMBIA WILTS LEGAL CROPS ALONG WITH COCA

LA HORMIGA, Colombia A huge anti drug campaign, backed by more than $1
billion of U.S. military and social development aid, has entered a new
punitive phase of aerial spraying that is killing farmer's legal crops
as well as fields of coca here in the country's most bountiful drug
growing region.

Using U.S. and European satellite photographs to pick targets,
Colombian Army and police aircraft have begun spraying herbicides on
small farms in western Putumayo, the southern province that accounts
for more than half the country's coca production.

The flights, paid for by the American-backed anti-drug campaign called
Plan Colombia, have taken place occurred almost daily over several
farming communities since Dec. 22 and have wilted hundreds of hectares
of coca, the key ingredient in cocaine, and legal crops, which often
are planted alongside coca. Local people say the chemicals have
sometimes fallen on towns and farmhouses, causing people to suffer
fevers. They also blame the spraying for the deaths of some cows and
fish.

Colombia accounts for 80 percent to 90 percent of the world's cocaine
production and a growing share of its heroin. The fumigation in
Putumayo marks a bold new escalation of Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion
campaign to cut Colombian drug production by half in six years, by
2005.

Until recently, spraying focused almost entirely on remote
industrial-sized coca and poppy plantations that grow most of
Colombia's drugs. Officials claim it has denuded roughly 50,000
hectares (125,000 acres) of drug fields. Now the planes are targeting
more populous farming areas like this one, where coca is seen by many
poor villagers as a legitimate cash crop and is often grown side by
side with corn, yucca, pineapple and livestock. Often it shares a plot
next to the farmer's tin-roofed shack.

The new approach is designed in part to punish several coca-rich
communities that have refused to join a U.S.-backed program that pays
farmers to uproot illegal crops and replace them with legal ones. Some
of the communities declined to join because of threats from leftist
guerrillas who profit from the drug trade.

In La Hormiga, a town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of
Putumayo's commercial center, Puerto Asis, town officials and
residents say the fumigation has been devastating. In interviews,
dozens of farmers said that the spray, delivered by small planes
escorted by armed helicopters, has killed hundreds of hectares of food
crops, scores of cattle and hundreds of fish that washed up on the
banks of the Guamuez River. On several occasions, several witnesses
said, the aircraft dropped herbicide within the town itself.

The U.S. drug control policy director, Barry McCaffrey, has said
repeatedly that the herbicide, Roundup, produced by Monsanto Co., is
harmless to humans and animals. He called it "totally safe" during a
visit to Colombia in November.

However, in the United States the herbicide is sold with warning
labels advising users to "not apply this product in a way that will
contact workers or other persons, either directly or through drift."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says glyphosate-based
products such as Roundup should be handled with caution and could
cause vomiting, swelling of the lungs, pneumonia, mental confusion and
tissue damage.

Several farmers here said they have experienced fever-like symptoms
since being sprayed, but local doctors report only one hospitalization
for chemical poisoning.

Mayor Flover Edmundo Meza, whose own farm was fumigated last week,
predicts widespread hunger throughout the municipality of 35,000
people because of crop damage. The loss could result in thousands of
families leaving their farms, he said.

"Our intention is to eliminate these crops - voluntarily - and avoid
these damages, but the government is not listening to us," said Mr.
Meza, who took office Jan. 1.

The U.S. Congress has pledged $1.3 billion over the next two years to
Plan Colombia, most going toward such military hardware as the
helicopters used in the fumigation missions. The U.S. contribution
also includes money to build small businesses, health clinics, schools
and roads that Colombian officials hope will help end two decades of
coca cultivation in Putumayo.

European nations have chipped in more than $200 million for social
programs, but have roundly condemned the fumigation strategy.

About $81 million of the U.S. aid is available for the plan's
alternative development program, which through subsidies and small
loans seeks to coax farmers to abandon coca crops for legal ones. Of
that sum, $30 million is marked for eradication programs that farmers
must join if they are to avoid fumigation.

In December, more than 500 families signed up for crop substitution
programs in Puerto Asis, an area largely protected from guerrilla
forces by privately funded paramilitary groups and a nearby army base.

But not a single farmer in La Hormiga or in the neighboring
municipality of San Miguel signed on to the plan when it was presented
here late last summer. Gonzalo de Francisco, President Andres
Pastrana's point man for Plan Colombia, said the communities
understood the consequences but might have been frightened off by
pressure from guerrilla forces.