COLOMBIA: AUTHORITIES RETURN TO FORMER REBEL SAFE HAVEN FOR FIRST TIME IN THREE YEARS TO SPRAY 37 ACRES OF FLOWERING OPIUM CROPS

Record ID: 588584

  • Title: COLOMBIA: AUTHORITIES RETURN TO FORMER REBEL SAFE HAVEN FOR FIRST TIME IN THREE YEARS TO SPRAY 37 ACRES OF FLOWERING OPIUM CROPS
  • Date: 3rd March 2002
  • Summary: (U1) EL SILENCIO, COLOMBIA (MARCH 03, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV; HELICOPTERS FLYING 0.05 2. PAN: CREW INSIDE HELICOPTER 0.15 3. AV/INTER-ELEMENTAL: HELICOPTERS FLYING OVER REGION (2 SHOTS) 0.26 4. SCU OF POLICE INSIDE HELICOPTER 0.31 5. INTER-ELEMENTAL VIEW OF PLANE FROM HELICOPTER SPRAYING DRUG CROPS 0.39 6. SV: POLICE WALKING THROUGH DRUG FIELD 0.43 7. SV: COMMANDER OF ANTI-NARCOTICS UNIT, GENERAL GUSTAVO SOCHA, WALKING THROUGH FIELD, HOLDING OPIUM POPPIES 0.56 8. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SOCHA SAYING: "In this area, specifically in the area of San Vicente del Caguan, there is approximately 350 hectares of poppy fields. We were not aware of these fields, we didn't have any evidence. The magnitude of these fields have taken us completely by surprise as well as how old they are." 1.26 9. VARIOUS OF PLANE SPRAYING FIELDS (2 SHOTS) 1.40 10. MV: POLICE ON SITE 1.43 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 18th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: EL SILENCIO, COLOMBIA
  • Country: Colombia
  • Reuters ID: LVA83I8WKCU7D6XY1QKL65TN6RY8
  • Story Text: Colombian authorities have returned to a former rebel
    safe haven for the first time in three years to continue their
    war on drugs, spraying 37 acres of flowering opium poppies.


    Whisked into a field of red, flowering opium poppies
    on Black Hawk helicopters, Colombia's anti-narcotics police on
    Sunday returned to a former rebel safe haven to fight the war
    on drugs.

    The operation was the first in this Switzerland-sized
    swathe of cattle grazing land and jungle in three years, the
    life span of fruitless peace talks with the Revolutionary
    Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the government
    scrapped on Feb. 20.

    As a T-65 crop duster sprayed 37 acres (15 hectares) of
    poppies, cut into small, mountain plots, anti-narcotics police
    chief Gen. Gustavo Socha said cultivation of this crop used to
    make heroin had exploded under FARC rule.

    "In this area, specifically in the area of San Vicente del
    Caguan, there is approximately 350 hectares (865 acres) of
    poppy fields. We were not aware of these fields, we didn't
    have any evidence. The magnitude of these fields have taken
    us completely by surprise," said Socha, donning camouflage
    fatigues and toting a U.S.-made M-4 assault rifle.

    FARC, Latin America's oldest and largest rebel force,
    admits to "taxing" the trade in heroin and, more importantly
    cocaine, to fill war chests. The drug money has added extra
    fuel to a 38-year-old guerrilla war which claimed 40,000
    mainly civilian lives in the past decade.

    The United States, which has sunk $1 billion into Bogota's
    Plan Colombia anti-drug offensive in the past two years,
    brands the FARC "terrorists" who misused the safe haven ceded
    in late 1998 to run a drug trafficking business and to train
    troops.

    Heavily armed police took to the mountains on Sunday to
    keep watch for rebel fighters, as two Black Hawk helicopters
    -- equipped with machine guns that can fire 2,000 rounds per
    minute -- gave escort to the crop dusters as they sprayed
    poppy fields with powerful herbicides.

    The U.S. State Department estimates that virtually all of
    Colombia's heroin is sold on American streets. Socha said the
    enclave had enough poppies to produce $24 million of the drug.

    Socha added peasant growers in the former enclave had also
    sown 37,065 acres (15,000 hectares) of coca leaf, the raw
    ingredient in cocaine. That would represent more than 10
    percent of Colombia's total coca cultivation, according to
    November satellite data reported by the government.

    Colombia is by far the largest cocaine producer in the
    world and supplies more than 80 percent of the drug sold in
    the United States, the world's top cocaine consuming nation.

    Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers
    said that the United States has yet to see any effect on the
    availability and price of cocaine on American streets, despite
    its hefty investment in Plan Colombia.

    President Andres Pastrana, who broke off peace talks with
    the FARC after the rebels hijacked a commercial airline and
    kidnapped a senator late last month, has asked Washington for
    permission to directly target FARC rebels with U.S. aid slated
    for the the drug fight.

    Washington says that U.S. law prohibits its aid from being
    used against the FARC, but has vowed to help provide
    intelligence information on the rebels.

    Since the collapse in peace talks, the 17,000-member FARC
    have stepped up attacks on infrastructure, and on Sunday
    police found the body of a Colombian senator allegedly shot in
    twice in the head by rebels while trying to negotiate the
    release of two kidnap victims taken last year by the guerrilla
    fighters.


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