U.S. CIVILIANS WAGE DRUG WAR FROM COLOMBIA'S SKIES

Program Strives To Eradicate Coca

LARANDIA, Colombia -- They are private U.S. citizens but work on the front
lines of America's war on drugs.

Under a little-known program, more than 100 pilots, mechanics and others
work for the U.S. State Department in Colombia as part of a program to
eradicate Colombia's coca and opium poppy fields.

Some of the Americans fly planes that spray herbicides on the illicit
crops. Others fly gunships that accompany the spraying missions. Still
others fly hulking transport aircraft or work as aviation mechanics,
logistical experts and medics.

A leading Colombian news weekly last year ran a cover story describing the
American pilots as "gringo mercenaries" and "lawless Rambos." Some U.S.
critics say the private contractors are proxies for the U.S. military in a
place where the public would not allow a more direct American military
involvement.

"It creates a space for further involvement without putting U.S. soldiers
on the ground," said Ingrid Vaicius, a Colombia expert at the Center for
International Policy, a Washington think tank. "The contractors are not
watched as closely as U.S. military personnel would be." But others say
private contractors are needed because the U.S. military is stretched thin
and attention is focused on Iraq and other hot spots. Number of contractors
limited The U.S. Congress, concerned about private citizens fighting a
dangerous drug war overseas, mandated that only up to 400 U.S. contractors
be allowed in Colombia. U.S. officials say there are on average about 120
American pilots and other private contractors in Colombia's anti-narcotics
program at any one time.

"We don't even come close to the limit," said one U.S. official in
Colombia. The pilots, interviewed on the condition that they not be
identified, downplayed their cowboy image and characterized themselves as
regular guys with wives, kids and mortgages--even if their job is anything
but ordinary. From dawn until dusk, 16 American spray planes take off from
Larandia's dusty airstrip heading south to the coca fields.

Once there, they swoop down and drop the herbicide glyphosate, making pass
after pass just over the tree line, often as they are shot at by leftist
rebels and drug traffickers.

The work is endless. Colombia has hundreds of thousands of acres of
coca--the raw material for cocaine--planted along steep ravines and in
recently cleared jungle terrain.

The fumigation, part of the $1.5 billion U.S.-financed program known as
Plan Colombia, has accelerated under recently elected President Alvaro
Uribe, who agrees with U.S. officials that fumigation is the fastest way to
get rid of the illicit crop.

Herbicide safety in question Some Colombians say the herbicide causes
severe skin rashes and other illnesses. The American pilots at Larandia, a
sprawling Colombian military base in a swampy plain, say it's safe.

"Too much OJ will kill you," said a 35-year-old who trains pilots for the
program. "Everybody wants to [spray] coca. You don't get much downtime [at
Larandia]. It's pretty much all work and no play."

The Americans live in spartan dorms and relax by watching cable television,
lifting weights and fishing for piranha at the base's artificial lake.
Their pet buzzard took off a while back and hasn't returned. Some of the
pilots are two decades removed from their military careers. Many have had
second careers flying for the United Nations and other organizations. They
say Colombia is a great place to work, despite being at war. "Angola,
Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Sudan, Congo. Africa's got some really bad places,"
said one transport pilot, listing a few of the countries where he has
flown. "I haven't had any problems in Colombia. If you don't go trolling
for trouble, you don't find it."

Other Americans used to fly crop dusters or crisscrossed the U.S. dropping
retardant on major forest fires. They say they're used to working long
hours--"dark to dark," as one pilot described it--in stifling heat and
dangerous conditions.

Some say they hooked up with DynCorp, the main U.S. anti-narcotics
contractor in Colombia, because of the pay and work schedule: Most pilots
work 15 days and then have 15 days off. The most experienced pilots earn
more than $100,000 a year.

Many of them are in their late 50s, gray-haired and grandfatherly. The same
U.S. official quipped that the presence of all the old American pilots at
Larandia makes it look less like a military base than an "old folks home."
"I'm way too young to retire," said one pilot pushing 60. "I'll be doing
this till I'm 95."

That is, if he doesn't get killed. Bullets have hit spray planes more than
150 times this year, most fired by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC, an 18,000-strong rebel group that earns millions of
dollars a year taxing and protecting coca fields.

But the trees are the real danger. Flying at 200 miles per hour just above
the jungle canopy, pilots say it's difficult to make out a single thin tree
sticking up 50 or 60 feet from a field of light-green coca bushes. Three
Americans have been killed in crashes in recent years. "Most of the people
who shoot at us miss," said one 53-year-old pilot as he rested in the
cockpit of his aircraft. "I've had a bunch of close calls [with trees]
where I've had to duck the plane. You've got to be extremely careful." FARC
targets the planes. If a plane does go down, the pilots are in serious
trouble, even though they never fly without two heavily armed helicopter
gunships and a third rescue helicopter. Pilots carry pistols and receive
survival training. But the FARC, which has designated the Americans
military targets, controls much of the coca-growing region along with the
area surrounding the Larandia base.

The FARC has never attacked the base, but some Americans working here
believe that construction workers, maids and other Colombian civilians
working at Larandia are keeping tabs on the Americans for the rebels. "I
don't know anybody that wants to go off base," said one American logistical
expert. "It's there--the sense that the bad guys are surrounding us."