COCA-KILLING FUNGUS TRIALS RULED OUT BY COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia - The Colombian government says it has no intention of
testing or even further studying a fungus promoted by the United Nations
and the United States as a potential "silver bullet" for killing coca plants.

In an interview, Environment Minister Juan Mayr said the US State
Department "told lies" when it reported last week that Colombia had agreed
to field test the fungus before deciding whether to it use against
cocaine-producing plants.

"We will not accept the introduction of any foreign element, which is what
they have offered us under the name Fusarium oxysporum," Mayr said
yesterday, adding: "We have told them to forget it."

Mayr said a team of scientists from the government, Bogota's National
University, and several prestigious private institutes examined the plan
presented several months ago under UN auspices, and rejected it categorically.

They warned of possible mutations and adverse affects on people and the
environment in the delicate Amazon basin, where most of Colombia's coca is
grown.

Based on expert opinions, "I think it makes no sense to permit the entry of
an external biological agent that can have an adverse affect on our
ecosystems," said Mayr, who has the authority to reject the use of any
herbicide based on the fungus in Colombia.

Mayr said the government would welcome funding for research into
alternative biological controls based on "blights" or even insects already
present in the coca-growing areas.

He said there was no evidence that Fusarium oxysporum - an outbreak of
which ravaged coca in Peru in the early 1990s - exists in the southern
states where most of the almost 120,000 hectares of coca are grown. Nor
does the government plan to look for it further, Mayr added.

Last week, a State Department spokesman said reports that Colombia had
agreed to a US-funded testing program were accurate.

The New York Times reported on July 6 that the Colombian government had
agreed to such a program under US pressure.

Washington's leverage here is undoubtedly growing as Colombia prepares to
receive the bulk of a $US1.3 billion ($A2.22 billion) US aid package
President Bill Clinton signed Thursday for stemming an explosion of cocaine
production in the South American country.

The aid, much of it for military helicopters, would permit increased aerial
eradication of coca crops using chemical herbicides already approved by
Mayr's ministry.

Armed leftist rebels entrenched in the coca regions have impeded
fumigation, often firing on crop dusting planes.

The rebels and peasant coca farmers contend chemical spraying causes
illnesses, and kills food crops as well as coca - not to mention forcing
growers to cut down more virgin forest in order to replant their wilted crops.

The development of a safe, nontoxic, Fusarium-based herbicide that kills
only the coca would "obviate these concerns" argued the spurned UN
proposal, which was to be funded with a $US300,000 ($A511,683) grant from
the US Department of Agriculture.

But according to Mayr, many of the complaints about the approved herbicide
- - known as glyphosate - are highly exaggerated.

He said it would be better to keep spraying glyphosate while developing
biological alternatives than to introduce a potentially hazardous fungus.

Amid complaints from environmentalists, the state of Florida last year
ditched a plan to test a strain of Fusarium against marijuana crops.

Colombians wonder why the US government is so eager to use it in their country.

"Why apply it, even in a test, on Colombian territory and not in the United
States?" Bogota's leading El Tiempo newspaper said in its editorial today.

"Is destroying coca a mission to be carried out at any cost, without any
considerations?"