Source: Chicago Tribune


Chemicals  sprayed  on  coca  crops  in  Colombia as part of a massive campaign  against drug trafficking can cause skin and eye irritations, the  State  Department  acknowledged  for the first time Thursday, but the  effects are considered mild, and the Bush administration plans to push forward aggressively with the program.

Part  of the administration's $1.3 billion Plan Colombia initiative to help  the South American country curtail its illicit cocaine industry,
the  aerial  spraying of herbicides is viewed in Washington as the key to  success.  The  Bush  administration  is opening a public-relations campaign  for  the  spraying  program  out  of concern that it will be halted  by protests in Colombia and opposition from environmentalists.
The  State  Department's senior official in charge of counternarcotics said  he  is  so  confident  of  the program's safety that he would be
willing  to  put his family in a field while it was being sprayed with the plant killer.

At  the  same  time,  Rand  Beers acknowledged some evidence of health risks  and  enough  unanswered questions that the U.S. is launching an investigation to determine whether the herbicide is safe.

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COLOMBIA SPRAYING PLAN MAY BE RETHOUGHT

Source: St. Petersburg Times

A  senior  State  Department  official  said  Thursday that a chemical solution  used  to  spray  illegal crops in Colombia "is not a totally
benign  product"  and  that  Washington  might reconsider the program.

Rand  Beers,  assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and  law  enforcement affairs, appeared to give at least some credence to  complaints  by peasants in Colombia that aerial spraying is making them sick, causing skin rashes and diarrhea.

"This  particular mixture does cause slight irritation to the eyes and the skin,"  said  Beers, who helps oversee a $1.3-billion aid package
to  Bogota  known  as  Plan  Colombia.  "This  is not a totally benign product."

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USE OF FOREIGN PILOTS AVOIDS DRUG WAR POLICY

Source: Contra Costa Times

BOGOTA,  Colombia  --  The  U.S.  State  Department  has  directed its largest  private  contractor  in  Colombia  to  hire foreign pilots to
fight  the  drug war, an order that helps get around Congress' attempt to keep  the  United States from slipping further into this country's messy civil war.

Last  year,  Congress  limited  to 300 the number of civilian contract workers  participating  in  U.S.-financed  drug-eradication efforts in
Colombia.  But  in a little-noticed decision, the State Department has counted only U.S.  citizens toward that limit.

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"This  seems  to  be  a  loophole  around the cap, a way to get around them,"  said  Rep.  Janice  Schakowsky,  D-Ill.,  who  has  sought  to eliminate  the  use  of private contractors in the region since a U.S. company  was  involved  in an accidental downing of a private airplane by  the  Peruvian  military  in April that killed a missionary and her daughter.

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