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Email: letters@nytimes.com


March 6, 1997

In a Rebuff to the U.S., Colombia Halts
Drug Eradication Program

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

BOGOTA, Colombia Colombia, the world's largest producer of
cocaine, Wednesday suspended all aerial eradication of
drugproducing crops in a sharp rebuff to the United States.

The move was an unexpectedly swift and forceful reaction to the Clinton
administration's decision to include Colombia on a list of nations not fully
cooperating with the United States in the fight against drugs. In
suspending the flights, Colombia shelved what American officials viewed
as a cornerstone of its antidrug programs.

Joaquin Polo, Colombia's antidrug czar, announced the decision in a
radio interview Wednesday afternoon in which he said Colombia was
reviewing any further cooperation with the United States on any antidrug
programs.
"The work of fumigation is temporarily suspended while, as the
government announced, the entire subject of international cooperation
with the government of the United States is reviewed," Polo said.

In Washington, a senior State Department official said that the United
States learned of the Colombian government's decision to suspend aerial
eradication only Wednesday morning.

"We have not received any explanation for this decision, but hope that it
has been taken for technical and not for policy reasons," said the official,
who declined to be identified. "We urge the Colombian government to
resume eradication operations as soon as possible."

Polo said Colombian officials did not notify American Ambassador
Myles Frechette of the decision in advance.

Clinton administration officials have said the decision last week to
decertify Colombia was largely a repudiation of President Ernesto
Samper, who has been linked to drug traffickers. For his part, Samper
consistently framed the American rebuke as a national insult.

The aerial spraying of fields growing coca and poppies is a risky tactic in
which helicopters escorting the planes must sometimes fire at the ground
to deter attack from the growers. The United States has continued to
finance virtually the entire fumigation effort in Colombia even though it
decertified the country last year. It supplies all of the planes and
helicopters, technical aid and training for Colombian pilots.

When a country is denied certification as a U.S. ally in fighting drugs,
it loses access to most American military and economic aid and may face
trade sanctions. But the law exempts humanitarian and antidrug aid.

Some pilots and gunners in Colombia's last eradication flight Wednesday
in the mountains of southern Colombia appeared discouraged by the
poor marks the United States had given their country.

"We're out here every day, fumigating and putting our lives at risk and the
U.S. says we're not doing enough," said one pilot, who spoke on
condition his name not be used.

In its report, the United States criticized both Samper and the Colombian
Congress, which cleared its president of charges he took $6 million in
campaign contributions from Cali drug lords. The report said that coca
crops last year had increased by 32 percent, despite fumigation efforts.
The United States also estimated Colombia had fumigated 40,000 acres
of illegal crops, rather than the 47,000 acres Colombia claimed.

While the disparity in figures seemed minor, Polo said Wednesday
afternoon that it was the main reason for breaking off all eradication
efforts.

"They work with our police handinhand all year long, and then when it
comes time for an evaluation there's a total ignorance of what we've
done," Polo said in a telephone interview. "They have to value the work
that we do together."

According to State Department figures, more than half the
cocaineprocessing laboratories and 90 percent of the coca eradicated in
Colombia since 1990 were destroyed during the administration of
Samper, who took office in August 1994. But analysts described the
suspension of aerial spraying as a thinly veiled retaliation for
Washington's decertification and a way to divert attention from American
criticism of Samper.

"Suspending fumigation is mainly a way to turn what is really just a
problem of Samper into a problem of the country," said Fabio Castillo, a
Colombian drug expert and author of "The New Horsemen of Cocaine."

While Colombia had warned that it would review the terms of its
antidrug cooperation with the United States, few here expected a
decision so quickly. A spokesman said Samper and a close circle
of his associates had decided to suspend the flights at a meeting
earlier Wednesday.

Colombian police and military commanders complain that decertification
has meant they can no longer obtain ammunition from the United States
to battle drug traffickers and their guerrilla allies.

In the 1996 fiscal year that began last October, the State Department
budgeted $44 million to give Colombia to fight drugs, of which $19
million was allocated for aerial eradication of coca and poppy fields.

Pilots spraying the steep mountainsides where poppy is growing were
clearly resentful at the American decision. One pilot said he had been
shot at 15 times in the five years he has been spraying.

Each time he flies, the pilot said, his singleseater plane is surrounded by
three helicopters, with heavy guns trained on the ground below.

Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company

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