Pubdate: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2001 The Seattle Times Company Contact: http://www.seattletimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409 Author: Kevin G. Hall MILITARY CORRUPTION DOGS U.S. DRUG-FIGHTING EFFORTS IN PERU RIO DE JANEIRO - The Peruvian air force's downing of an airplane, killing an American missionary and her daughter, is the most recent chapter in a troubled history and raises new questions about the effectiveness of the U.S.-led drug-interdiction program in Peru and elsewhere. The Clinton administration billed the Andean nation's 120,000-man armed forces as a vital partner in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts, thanks in large measure to a shootdown policy that has wiped out at least 30 small aircraft operated by suspected drug traffickers. Production of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine, also dropped sharply. Yet recent revelations show that while Peru's air force may have downed some drug traffickers, it was taking huge bribes from others to let them pass. Yesterday, the White House lauded the program, calling Friday's fatal error an "isolated incident." "The program itself is an important program, a successful program over the years, to interdict drugs from coming into the United States," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. State Department statistics, U.S. officials fighting the drug war in South America and even South American presidents appear to tell a different story. "Today, the scourge of drugs is still amongst us," said a letter written by the presidents of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador and given to President Bush at the Summit of Americas in Quebec. The presidents were asking for increased U.S. aid in battling drugs. "We need real help." The United States spends $2.6 billion a year battling illicit drugs, including $731 million targeted for the Andean region. Most of the U.S. effort in Peru, Colombia and other South American countries is directed at eradicating drug crops and identifying aircraft and boats transporting drugs. U.S. officials have hailed Peru's coca-eradication efforts as a success. Once the world's leading producer of coca leaf, Peru saw coca production fall in 2000 for the fifth consecutive year: from 233,168 acres to 84,474 acres, according to the State Department. But the cocaine business remains lucrative in Peru, which is one indication that interdiction and eradication efforts are having little impact. Roger Rumrill, a Peruvian expert on the drug trade, called Friday's downing of the Cessna the "most absurd accident in the world," because more than 70 percent of the drug trade between Peru and Colombia now moves by sea along the Pacific Coast. When Peru's air force took over efforts to control airborne drug trafficking, there were more than 100 drug flights a week along the Amazon border with Colombia and Brazil. Successful downings moved that trade to the river system; that later gave way to ocean transport, Rumrill said. "Right now, interdiction and control efforts are at their lowest (in the Amazon), because there are no serious air or river routes," he said. While Colombia and Peru continue a shootdown policy, Brazil's law allowing it remains "under study" by the president's office nearly two years after the legislature passed it. The shootdown policy has a checkered history in Peru. Former President Alberto Fujimori, a longtime U.S. ally in wars against drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas, fled to exile in Japan in November to avoid corruption charges; his powerful spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, became an international fugitive. Fujimori's top military leaders are all in jail, facing charges ranging from corruption and running arms to Colombian guerrillas in the drug trade to protecting drug traffickers. On April 5, retired Gen. Nicolas Hermoza, Fujimori's armed-forces commander from 1992 to 2000, was arrested and charged with protecting drug traffickers. Captured drug baron Demetrio "El Vaticano" Chavez testified he paid $50,000 each to Montesinos and Hermoza to allow safe passage for planes carrying cocaine. More damning evidence came last summer, when word leaked that the military leadership had moved Jordanian weapons to Colombia guerrillas, who control the world's prime cocaine-production region. Information from Gannett Newspapers was included in this report. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom