COLOMBIA: DRUG FIGHT TO GO FORWARD

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Possible lengthy delays in the delivery of 18
U.S.-built combat helicopters will not restrict Colombia's fight
against cocaine production, the nation's top military commander said.

Clinton administration officials warned Thursday in Washington that
Colombia may have to wait at least until 2002 to receive the Black
Hawk helicopters that are an essential part of a $1.3 billion U.S.
anti-drug aid package.

Officials also warned they might not have enough money to buy all of
the Black Hawks included in the recently approved plan.

Republican lawmakers said such delays would cripple operations to
wrest control of Colombian coca fields guarded by heavily armed
guerillas and right-wing paramilitary groups.

Colombian officials had expected to begin receiving the helicopters by
the beginning of next year.

But armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias said the U.S.-backed
anti-drug offensive would go forward as planned.

Until the Black Hawks arrive, the military will use "the means that we
have," Tapias told reporters Friday at the Tolemaida army base south
of Bogota.

The Colombian military already has 18 U.S.-built UH-1N "Huey"
helicopters which U.S. officials say can be used in the interim. The
more expensive Black Hawks are faster, higher-flying, and able to
carry more troops.

The helicopters are needed to transport U.S.-trained counter-narcotics
troops into coca-producing areas and provide armed escort for
airplanes that spray the drug crops with deadly herbicides. Guerrillas
often fire on the aircraft.

U.S. special forces troops have already trained one 1,000-man army
anti-drug battalion deployed in southern Colombia, and are currently
training another battalion.

While Tapias downplayed the effects of a helicopter delay, a prominent
congressman warned it would severely hamper counter-drug efforts.

"The first people harmed will be the people in the United States,
since the drug routes would be maintained intact and in permanent
action," lawmaker Manuel Velazquez told The Associated Press.

The aid from Washington responds to a boom in cocaine and heroin
production and trafficking from the South American country that
produces an estimated 90 percent of the world's cocaine.