Pubdate: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 Source: Washington Post (DC) Section: Pg. A28 Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Author: Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer BEHIND U.S.-PERU PACT, A HISTORY OF DIVISION For many U.S. officials, an agreement with Peru that has led to more than 30 midair attacks against drug-smuggling aircraft has been a resounding victory in the war on drugs. Along with U.S.-funded development programs and aggressive law enforcement on the ground, the air interdiction program is credited with a more than two-thirds drop in recent years in Peruvian exports of coca base, the processed raw material of cocaine. "Has this been an effective program?" said a former official who until recently was closely involved with it. "The answer is undeniably yes." Supporters say that suspending the agreement, as some critics have advocated since Friday's mistaken shoot-down of a civilian aircraft carrying American missionaries, would leave Peru blind in the sky and quickly lead to increases in illegal drug production. While agreeing with President Bush's decision to temporarily shut down the U.S. radar surveillance flights that target suspected smugglers for Peruvian air force jets, former White House drug control policy director Barry R. McCaffrey said, "I'll guarantee you that if this is closed down for 90 or 180 days, you'll see them [the smugglers] go back into the air. . . . It's a factor that will have to be balanced" in any long-term decision about the program. But the dilemma in Peru reflects a larger problem for U.S. anti-drug strategy in the hemisphere's cradle of cocaine production. Although various policies in recent years have been successful -- the air interdiction over Peru, a crop eradication program in Bolivia -- the amount of cocaine exported from the Andean region has not changed very much. By some estimates, it is expected to increase in the near future. Anti-drug experts blame the "balloon effect" -- squeeze drug crops and exports in one place, and they simply pop up somewhere else. McCaffrey and others cite success in Peru and Bolivia as the primary reason for the massive increase in coca cultivation in Colombia -- nearly triple since 1995, to more than 360,000 acres. Peruvian production has decreased by two-thirds to about 90,000 acres over the same period. Last year, the United States launched an assistance program to aid Colombian anti-drug efforts, primarily through aerial crop eradication, support of increased military action on the ground and a long-term agricultural development program. U.S. expenditures on Plan Colombia totaled $ 1.3 billion last year. But even as Plan Colombia has gotten underway, there are indications that production is going back up in Peru and has even started in Ecuador. Although eradication of coca plants is still outpacing new cultivation in Peru, CIA figures for last year indicate that the gap is rapidly narrowing. "Farmers planted an estimated 3,200 hectares [8,600 acres] in 2000," a recent CIA report said, "more than double the [new] amount planted in 1999." Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass), one of dozens of members of Congress who have traveled to the region recently, said that Ecuadoran officials briefing a congressional delegation there last month indicated new coca cultivation areas, where coca growth previously had been minimal. "They showed it to us on the map," he said. Most of the areas, he said, were near Ecuador's border with Peru. The Bush administration has proposed a new aid program that would more evenly distribute U.S. funds among the Andean countries. The administration's budget request includes $ 882 million for an Andean Ridge initiative, including $ 206 million for Peru, compared with less than $ 90 million in last year's Peruvian program. Colombia is in line for nearly $ 350 million, Ecuador for $ 77 million and Bolivia for $ 143 million. Without this funding and the continuation of intelligence-sharing agreements with Peru, administration officials contend, the balloon effect will be enhanced, and traffickers who are pushed out of Colombia will again expand production in Peru. But Friday's shoot-down has given new arguments to critics who maintain that the air interdiction policy has been ill-advised from the start. The United States began providing radar-tracking information to Peru and Colombia in 1990, but the Defense Department halted the program in 1994 when both those countries declared policies of shooting down drug traffickers. The position of the Pentagon, along with the Justice Department and some portions of the State Department, was that shooting at civilian aircraft was a violation of international law, and that the United States could be held liable for any assistance to such a program. "Mistakes are likely to occur," several officials warned, according to internal memos from the time, including the shoot-down of aircraft not involved in the drug trade. Walter Dellinger, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in a 1994 memo to "all relevant national security agencies" that no such assistance could legally be given to Peru or Colombia "in circumstances in which there is a reasonably foreseeable possibility that such information or assistance will be used in shooting down civil aircraft, including aircraft suspected of drug trafficking." But President Bill Clinton, under strong pressure from his administration and from members of Congress who accused him of lacking a tough anti-drug policy, worked to reinstate the agreements. By the end of 1994, Clinton had proposed and Congress had passed a law exempting U.S. government employees from liability for any "mistakes" that might occur while cooperating with another country's shoot-down policy. The law called for the president to determine that such cooperation was a national security necessity and that the country in question had "appropriate procedures in place to protect innocent aircraft." In December 1994, Clinton certified that both conditions had been met. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth