COCAINE WAR WAGED IN JUNGLE

PUERTO OSPINA, Colombia -- Two civilian spies pulled hoods over their faces
and marched into the jungle, guiding 123 heavily armed Colombian Marines on
a seven-hour raid against coca-producing centers.

The mission proved rewarding for the troops from the U.S.-trained Battalion
90, who slogged through shin-deep mud and drenching rains to torch three
drug "laboratories and locate some 220 acres of coca bushes.

But it also revealed the massive hurdles that the Marines face in the
southern state of Putumayo, where Colombian officials estimate the acreage
planted with coca adds up to one-third of the nation's total. Colombia's
coca labs and plantations produce 70 percent of the cocaine that is sold on
U.S. streets.

Shortages of fuel and radios severely limit the soldiers' patrols and add to
their danger. They lack helicopters to fumigate coca fields and to move
troops effectively against leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.

Yet they are responsible for 13,130 square miles of some of the most
impenetrable jungles in Latin America and 3,100 miles of year-around
navigable rivers, plus thousands more miles navigable only during the wet
season.

"And all because of this damned plant, said Maj. Carlos Serna, 37, taking a
disgusted backhand swipe at a coca bush as he led the 123-man raid Sept. 17
near Puerto Ospina, a village on the Putumayo River.

U.S. TRAINING

River Combat Battalion 90 is one of five Marine units that has received U.S.
military training and equipment to interdict river traffic in chemicals used
for processing coca leaves into paste and eventually cocaine.

The 1,300-strong battalion also faces well-armed leftist guerrillas from the
Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces, known as FARC, who tax the drug
traffickers and use the region's rivers to move fighters and weapons.

Colombia's government has asked for another $500 million in U.S.
counter-narcotics assistance for military and police units over the next year.

The latest U.S. military team to train the battalion gave noncommissioned
officers six weeks of classes on small-boat handling and repairs, patrol
tactics and map reading, said commander Lt. Col. Jose Munoz Lopez.

U.S. Ambassador Curtis W. Kamman attended the graduation ceremony Aug. 4 at
its main base in Puerto Leguizamo, a town of 8,000 on the caramel-colored
Putumayo River, 340 miles south of Bogota, reachable only by air or water.

Munoz said the U.S. aid had helped his battalion so much that by
mid-September it had passed its record for all of 1998, when it destroyed 27
coca-processing centers called laboratories and 35 smaller sites called
kitchens.

During two raids last week alone, the Marines torched nine labs and
kitchens, detained nine peasants and destroyed some 30 containers of
chemicals used to process coca leaves into paste.

Marines quickly repaired boat motors whenever they stalled, and swung their
machine guns alertly toward the nearest bank as their attack boats sped over
the Putumayo, Colombia's southern border with Ecuador and Peru.

One Western military officer who has been monitoring Battalion 90's progress
rated it "an aggressive and smart bunch of guys.

But the Marines operate under huge handicaps.

BOATS FROM THE '50S

Critically short of gasoline and diesel fuel, the Leguizamo base can run its
electricity generators only eight hours a day. A forward base in Monclart,
53 miles upriver, has received no gasoline since August.

Leguizamo last week sent a flotilla of 1950s-era river gunboats, tugs,
barges and small attack boats on an eight-hour run to buy fuel in Puerto
Asis, some 150 miles to the west, half of it through guerrilla-infested jungle.

The previous refueling flotilla was hit by two rocket-propelled grenades
that wounded five soldiers as it returned from Puerto Asis, Capt. Amaury
Peniche, the region's Navy commander, told a group of journalists.

Those flotillas are similar to the ones occasionally sent out to patrol the
farther reaches of the Putumayo: an 80- to 90-foot mother ship, used as a
floating barracks for Marines, and squads of 22-28 foot fast attack boats.

The patrol flotillas must reduce their range of operations during the dry
season, from October to about January, because of low water on the river,
although the smaller attack boats can operate year around.

Squeezing extra duty out of last week's refueling flotilla, Battalion 90's
second in command, Maj. Serna, used it as a floating base from which to
launch two days of raids against coca processors near the river's banks.

RECONNAISSANCE

The targets were pinpointed by the two civilian spies who had scouted the
area 15 days earlier. Former coca farmers from Puerto Ospina, they switched
to the military after guerrillas stepped up their presence there this spring.

Although the FARC has kept five to eight rebels stationed at Puerto Ospina
since then, collecting tolls on passing boats and drug shipments, they had
apparently fled by the time the refueling flotilla docked.

The two spies, hooded to hide their identifies from former neighbors, led
the patrol unerringly to two working laboratories, a key point because labs
work only when leaves are harvested, three to four times per year.

Only a 20-minute march out of Puerto Ospina and into the jungle, Serna
started smelling the chemicals used in a lab to turn leaves into paste --
gasoline, cement, caustic soda, fertilizers and even some pesticides.

Ten minutes later the patrol broke into a small clearing planted with coca
and spoted a laboratory -- a one-room hut attached to an open-sided shack,
about 30 by 30 feet, used for mashing coca leaves and storing chemicals.

A longer march through thicker jungle opened onto a bigger coca field and a
larger laboratory, containing five 60-gallon drums of gasoline-soaked coca,
empty but with bedding for 18 workers and a case of mandarin-flavored Gatoraid.

Marines later spotted a smaller coca field nearby, and Serna ordered them to
search for the kitchen he knew had to be hidden somewhere close by. They
found the 15-by-15 foot hut not 30 feet into the jungle.

"A very good day, proclaimed Serna, 37, a two-year veteran of Putumayo River
patrols whose sister and parents live in Miami. "Just consider what more we
could do with more fuel, more American help, maybe a helicopter.

CONTACT LOST

His 123-man patrol had only three portable radios -- U.S. Army units have
one per dozen or so men -- and one's battery died soon after the column set
off from the gunboat Riohacha, their floating barracks.

Radio contact with the gunboat, the column's only possibility for calling in
reinforcements or support fire from the ship's cannon if it came under heavy
attack, was lost half a mile into the jungle.

"The jungle swallows communications, Serna said. So who would he call for
help? "The Holy Trinity, he joked.

Without enough radios, the column became strung out over the seven-hour
mission. Four soldiers briefly lost their way, and at one point an officer
found himself on a narrow trail with only two other Marines.

At each lab and kitchen, Serna had to take legal samples of each chemical,
jot down approximate quantities and snap photographs with a pocket camera
before he torched the huts with the processors' own gasoline.

But as the patrol withdrew, it had to leave the coca fields intact. To
uproot the plants by hand would have taken days -- giving guerrillas time to
set up ambushes -- and most plants would have grown back in any case.

Serna did log the coca's locations with a hand-held computer that uses
satellites to determine latitude and longitude, for relay later to National
Police fumigation helicopters. But he knew that was useless.

`NOTHING HAPPENS'

"We've been reporting positions for two years and nothing happens, he said,
because police choppers have been too busy spraying bigger plantations
elsewhere around Colombia.

The Marines found the labs empty of workers or owners and detained only
three peasants who claimed to have been clearing cow pastures nearby. "Just
making the machete fly, my general, one of the peasants told Serna.

A squad of soldiers aboard one helicopter could have hit the same three
sites in a lot less time, Serna acknowledged, and perhaps arrived with
enough surprise to arrest lab workers or owners.

Back aboard the Riohacha, Serna and two officers then spent another hour
writing legal reports detailing the materials they destroyed or seized, down
to a quart bottle of sulfuric acid and a single 9mm bullet.

Another lieutenant later came into his room to ask Serna how to account for
the meals given to the detained peasants, because the Riohacha's kitchen was
trying to charge them to his unit's allocation.

"Well, the prisoners have to eat, so I guess some of your guys are going to
have to eat [cold, packaged] rations, Serna replied.

The next morning, one Marine grumbling about the incessant rains, cold food
and low salary of about $210 per month said he was considering quitting
after more than 18 months in the battalion.

Drug traffickers who are competing against the guerrillas for control of the
coca trade in the area have offered him and other Battalion 90 Marines up to
$555 per month to join their private armies, he said.

"They know we had American trainers, said the Marine, "so they think we're
the best."