Colombian rebels armed and ready for U.S.-backed drug offensive
PENAS COLORADAS, Colombia (AP) --
Their fuselages flashing in the sun, two airplanes lazily circled over
fields of coca,
ready to dump a load of herbicides onto the robust, green bushes used to
make cocaine.
Rebels waited below.
Crouching behind fences, tree stumps and the coca itself, fighters from
the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, opened up on the two Vietnam-era planes
with M-16
and Galil assault rifles, the crackle of automatic weapons fire splitting
the afternoon
silence.
During the action Friday, witnessed by an Associated Press team accompanying
the rebels through the coca fields near the southern village of Penas Coloradas,
neither of the U.S.-made OV-10 airplanes was shot down. But the
camouflage-clad leftist guerrillas considered it a victory: The unprotected
aircraft
veered off without releasing their cargo.
U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Colombia on Wednesday and a $1.3
billion
U.S. aid package aim to drive the rebels from the drug fields. Under the
plan, 60
U.S. combat helicopters will escort fumigation planes and ferry U.S.-trained
anti-narcotics troops into drug-producing plantations that cover vast areas
of
southern Colombia.
FARC rebels, as well as a rival right-wing paramilitary group, protect
the crops of coca and
poppy, from which heroin is made. The rebels have vowed to fight the anti-drug
offensive.
Critics contend the so-called Push into Southern Colombia, expected to
get into full swing next
year, will derail fledgling peace talks and draw the United States directly
into Colombia's 36-year-old
guerrilla war.
U.S. officials insist their only interest is in fighting drugs but express
growing concern about the
15,000-strong FARC, which has used proceeds from the drug trade to better
arm itself and to
dominate a large part of the countryside.
FARC commander Alfonso Cano called the planned offensive a veiled
counterinsurgency plan and a symbol of President Andres Pastrana's
subservience to Washington.
"The United States needs an excuse to continue to play the role of the
world's
policeman, and now that excuse is (fighting) drug trafficking," said the
bearded
rebel leader in an interview in San Vicente del Caguan, a town a four-hour
riverboat ride north of Penas Coloradas.
Nationwide, many Colombians support the anti-drug push. But in Colombia's
coca-growing regions, hundreds of thousands of poor coca farmers, itinerant
harvesters and small-time merchants do not.
In Penas Coloradas, a grimy settlement on the brown and windy Caguan River,
280 miles (450 kilometers) from the capital Bogota, coca is the economy's
driving force and the FARC the only law and order. The rebels take their
cut of
the cocaine production process while serving as a de facto government.
Liquor
sales are forbidden between Monday and Friday. Theft and drunkenness are
punished. Prostitutes at the town's Great Saigon bar must take AIDS tests.
Before the fumigation planes made their abortive spraying attempt, the
local rebel
commander -- known as Herley -- said the coming offensive will provide
the
FARC with an ample recruiting base among farmhands who could lose their
livelihoods as a result.
"How many enemies are created when you take away the food from someone's
children" the rebel, a 22-year FARC veteran with long, soiled fingernails
and
a bloodshot glare, asked as he strode through the coca fields.
Later, as the fumigation planes flew overhead, he rested the barrel of
his rifle on
a tree stump, aimed at the aircraft, and carefully squeezed off a few rounds.
For the farmers in Penas Coloradas, as in much of the rest of impoverished,
rural Colombia, there are few viable alternatives to making a living than
growing
coca. They are skeptical of government pledges that the anti-drug offensive
will
be accompanied by loans and other assistance to help them grow legal crops.
"The government doesn't even know we exist," fumed Miguel Hernandez, whose
four-acre (1.6-hectare) coca plot was fumigated two times last week, wilting
banana trees mixed in with the coca.
Only about a tenth of the U.S. aid plan would provide funds for alternative
development projects.
While the cocaine trade nets huge profits for those further up the
international drug chain, the small-time farmers who grow coca near Penas
Coloradas make very little.
Jose, a farmer who turned to coca four years ago after working for years
as a
migrant coffee picker, said he earns only about $375 a month in profits
off
his 12 1/2 acres (4.8 hectares) of coca. He didn't give his last
name for fear
of having problems with the law.
Standing in a wooden shack at a bend in the Caguan River, he intently watched
local men commissioned by drug cartels test the purity of his football-sized
bag
of "coca base" -- a semi-processed form of cocaine. One of the men then
handed Jose a wad of cash.
"It's not honorable work," Jose said sheepishly. "But here in Colombia
we have
to eat however we can."
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