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"The U.S. Black Hawk allotments alone are worth $224 million and the aircraft can be modified to launch rockets and fire mortars and can be mounted with machine guns." "I want to thank the government of the United States, the U.S. Congress and the beloved people of this nation...." Tuesday January 8 7:10 PM ET Colombia Toasts US-Donated Black Hawks, Drug Fight TOLEMAIDA MILITARY BASE, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian President Andres Pastrana officially received on Tuesday the last of 16 state-of-the-art Black Hawk helicopters promised by the United States to aid the Andean nation's anti-cocaine offensive. Standing in front a $10 million aircraft hanger, also paid for the by the U.S. government, Pastrana said the ongoing U.S. military aid would be decisive in the battle to wipe out a drug trade which fueled Colombia's guerrilla war. ``I want to thank the government of the United States, the U.S. Congress and the beloved people of this nation for understanding the message we have sent out to the world,'' Pastrana said from the Tolemaida military base in central Colombia. ``Colombia cannot (win) alone, but united we can defeat the scourge of drugs and its harmful consequences.'' Military analysts say Colombia's increasing use of helicopters to quickly transport troops to hot spots has given it an advantage on drug traffickers and leftist rebels by radically cutting response time to arriving intelligence data. The United States, the world's biggest cocaine consuming nation, is pouring more than $1 billion in mainly military aid into Pastrana's Plan Colombia anti-drug program. It is the biggest U.S. military buildup in Latin America since El Salvador in the 1980s. Washington hopes the military aid will cut the more than 580 tons of cocaine turned out annually by Colombia, the world's largest producer of the drug, and stem financing for the more than 30,000 Marxist-inspired rebels and outlawed paramilitary fighters in Colombia's 37-year-old war. The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 mostly civilian lives in the past decade. The U.S. Black Hawk allotments alone are worth $224 million and the aircraft can be modified to launch rockets and fire mortars and can be mounted with machine guns. Including the U.S. donations, Colombia now has a fleet of 29 Black Hawk helicopters. Additionally, the United States has already delivered 33 UH-1N troop transport helicopters under Plan Colombia and has promised 25 Huey-II helicopters -- which U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson said on Tuesday would begin arriving later this month. ``Together, these aircraft show an exceptional increase in our bilateral efforts to intercept the drug trade at its source,'' Patterson said. She said that since Plan Colombia was launched in January 2001, the anti-narcotics police eradicated 230,000 acres of coca -- double the amount destroyed the previous year. Colombian security forces also dismantled 1,400 cocaine laboratories and seized nearly 54 tons of the drug. The United States has earmarked an additional $500 million in aid to help modernize Colombia's security forces under the so-called Andean Initiative, which also allots anti-narcotics aid to Colombia's neighbors, including Peru and Ecuador. . __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
