FLY-BY-NIGHT DRUG WAR

Aerial Spraying Efforts In Colombia Will Go Under Cover Of Darkness To
Avert Ground Fire

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Fumigation pilots outfitted with night vision goggles
are about to test whether they can spray coca and poppy fields at night to
avoid getting strafed with gunfire from ground-based rebels guarding drug
crops.

U.S. officials say the night-flying strategy is aimed at making an
effective counternarcotics spray program hit drug traffickers even harder.

``There are people who think this will be the wave of the future,'' said an
advisor in the Washington office of U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey.

Responding to stepped-up eradication efforts, rebels of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia are firing on aerial crop dusters more than ever.
At least two dozen times this year, guerrillas have peppered fumigation
planes and helicopters that support them with gunfire, police say.

``All of our helicopters have been shot by the narcos. All of them. There's
not one where you can say, `This one hasn't been hit,' '' National Police
Chief Rosso Jose Serrano told The Herald.

The spread of coca, the raw material for cocaine, is outpacing the
fumigation of crops. Colombia is the world's largest producer of coca
leaves, having surpassed Peru and Bolivia. According to U.S. satellite
data, coca fields in Colombia grew by 32 percent in 1996 and 18 percent in
1997.

Rebel protection of the coca fields in the eastern plains and the
heroin-producing poppy fields in the high Andes has hindered fumigation.

The Turbo Thrush and armored Bronco OV-10 aircraft that are used to spray
herbicide must fly perilously low -- near rebel marksmen -- to dust the
fields.

``With night flying, in many ways, we'd be able to get traffickers off
guard. There'd be nobody in the fields,'' said the U.S. official, who spoke
on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials appear more enthusiastic than their Colombian counterparts,
who say they'll go ahead with night testing but have doubts about safety.

``We are about to conduct the first exercises. I hope it works for us. But
I see it as very difficult,'' Serrano said.

``Until I am convinced that we aren't risking the lives of the pilots, I
won't order it in place.''

Serrano said traffickers have strung wires between towering poles near
their fields, hoping to ensnare the propellers of the crop dusters.

Despite the difficulties, Colombia has made major inroads in fumigation.
Through April 4, the government had sprayed 64,450 acres of coca and 3,265
acres of poppies, a record pace. Success is partly the result of dry
weather, caused by the El NiÒo weather phenomenon, that has kept herbicide
from washing off fields in the rain.

Much of the flying and maintenance is done by 100 or so pilots and
personnel of a U.S. company, DynCorp, under a State Department contract.