US, COLOMBIA UNVEIL NEW DRUG RADAR

SAN JOSE DE GUAVIARE, Colombia - U.S. and Colombian officials on
Friday unveiled a massive new radar station aimed at vastly improving
Colombia's ability to detect illegal cocaine flights.

President Andres Pastrana and U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman
inaugurated the U.S.-funded, $20 million detection post at a military
base in San Jose de Guaviare, 170 miles south of Bogota in the heart
of Colombia's southern coca-growing belt.

Colombian special forces troops displayed trenches, high barbed-wire
fences and machine-gun placements surrounding the 100-foot-tall radar
apparatus, which covers an area the size of a football field.
Heavily-armed leftist rebels who earn revenues protecting the drug
trade are active in the steamy jungles surrounding the base.

Most of the cocaine processed in the region is flown out on small
planes which take off from clandestine airstrips, often flying low to
avoid detection.