U.S. CHOPPER DESTROYED IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia- Colombia's military destroyed a U.S. government
helicopter to keep it from falling into the hands of guerrillas who forced
it down during an anti-drug mission, Colombian and American officials said
Thursday.

Five Colombian police officers died protecting the downed UH-1N helicopter
aircraft, and three Colombian soldiers were wounded. There were no
Americans aboard the State Department helicopter when it was hit by ground
fire last week.

The crew - including Colombian police and a Peruvian pilot working for a
private American company contracted by the U.S. government for the drug war
- - was evacuated unharmed, the officials said.

Hovering above was a second U.S. Huey helicopter with a search-and- rescue
team that included Americans and Colombians working for the same contractor
that employed the Peruvian pilot, said Col. Carlos Rivera, deputy director
of Colombia's anti-narcotics police. The team was not called into action,
he said.

The helicopter was destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of
the guerrillas, said a U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of
anonymity.

The downing of the helicopter and the deaths were reported on Jan. 18, the
day they occurred, but officials did not reveal at the time that it was a
U.S. government aircraft.

Charlene Wheeless, a spokeswoman for the contractor - DynCorp of Reston,
Va. - confirmed by e-mail that the Peruvian pilot of the downed helicopter
and "Americans and third country nationals" aboard the search and rescue
helicopter are company employees. She did not provide more details on the crew.

The incident marked the second time rebels of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have shot or forced down a counterdrug
helicopter in less than a year. It illustrates the obstacles facing
anti-drug efforts in the nation that produces most of the world's cocaine.

It also highlights the large role played by civilian contractors in the war
against drugs, which Colombia is fighting with hundreds of millions of
dollars in U.S. aid for destroying crops and laboratories guarded by the
FARC and other insurgent groups.

Some of the riskier jobs are being carried out by the contractors, many of
them Americans - including U.S. military veterans - who have experience
flying and repairing helicopters and crop dusters, or have worked as
paramedics.

Last February, a DynCorp search-and-rescue team risked rebel gunfire to
help rescue the crew of a downed Colombian police helicopter in the same
area of southern Caqueta state where last week's combat occurred.

Critics say private contractors are used to avoid putting U.S. military
personnel at risk, something that could sap American public support for the
drug war in Colombia.

In last Friday's fighting, Rivera said, a crop duster and five helicopter
escorts were on a drug-spraying mission over the coca- growing town of
Curillo when FARC rebels fired machine guns from the ground. The town is
close to the main stronghold of the 16,000-strong rebel group.

"We take hits almost every day," Rivera added.

Bullets ripped into the hydraulic system of one of helicopters, setting an
oil light flashing and forcing its pilot to make an emergency landing by a
riverbank.

A support helicopter - a Black Hawk also provided by Washington - landed,
scooped up the damaged helicopter's four-man crew and left 16 police to
guard the aircraft until reinforcements could arrive. Five were fatally
shot by the estimated 200 rebels on the ground, and three soldiers were
wounded when bullets pierced their rescue helicopter.

Rivera said police tried to land a repair crew to fix the downed helicopter
and fly it out, but the rebels were too numerous. An air force plane was
sent in to bomb the chopper from the air. Rivera said the Colombian
government received U.S. authorization before destroying the helicopter.