Pubdate: Wed, 20 Aug 2003
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2003 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Juan Forero, The New York Times

DRUG-PLANE DOWNINGS RESTART

BOGOTA, Colombia - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced Tuesday
that President Bush has approved the resumption of a U.S.- supported program
in which Colombian fighter pilots can force or shoot down airplanes
suspected of ferrying drugs.

The program, called Airbridge Denial and a key component in Washington's war
on drugs in South America since 1995, was suspended in Colombia and Peru
after a Peruvian fighter in April 2001 shot down a private plane that was
carrying American missionaries.

Now, after more than two years of preparations to install safeguards to
prevent another mistaken downing, the United States and Colombia will work
together to identify drug planes and force them down, American officials
said. A much more limited program will be implemented in Peru, officials
said, but that is still months away.

Rumsfeld, traveling with reporters on a one-day trip to Colombia, said,
"There are plenty of ways that illegal trade can move -- land, sea or air --
and if you're not attentive to the air, it becomes a preferred method" of
the traffickers.

The White House, preoccupied with a bombing against the U.N. headquarters in
Iraq, issued a statement saying Bush had authorized the resumption of the
program. Bush, the statement said, had determined that Colombia "had put in
place appropriate measures to protect against loss of innocent life."

Rumsfeld arrived in Bogota on Tuesday morning under tight security to
discuss with Colombian officials the future of American aid for Colombia's
government, which is fighting three armed insurgencies and the robust
cocaine industry that helps fund them. Colombia already has received $2.5
billion in mostly military aid in the past three years, making it the third
largest recipient of American foreign aid.

Under the drug interception program, American and Colombian radar
coordinates that identify suspected drug flights would be passed along to
Colombian crews flying Cessna Citation surveillance aircraft. The
surveillance plane would then direct Colombian Air Force A-37 Dragon Fly
fighters to hone in.

Arinc Inc., a Maryland-based aviation company that has trained Colombian
pilots and technicians, would have at least one bilingual observer, most
likely an American, on each surveillance flight to maintain contact with
radar operators and Colombian Air Force commanders.

A Bush administration official who has worked on the program said any plane
suspected of carrying drugs or drug profits could be forced down or shot
down by the A-37s. The officials said the shoot-down orders could come from
only one man: Colombia's Air Force commander, Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco.

American officials said there is a series of safeguards in place. After
identifying a suspected drug plane, authorities would have to make radio or
visual contact and try to force the pilot to land. If the pilot disobeys,
then warning shots could be fired. Only as a last resort, American officials
say, can a plane be shot down.

The policy is already being harshly criticized by human rights groups and
some American congressmen who say it violates international law.

Human Rights Watch officials, who have met with American and Colombian
officials to raise concerns, say the program violates U.S. law enforcement
use-of-force principles, because drug flights are not normally an imminent
threat.

"To shoot civilian planes in cases that are not in self-defense or in cases
where you're not in a war, fighting combatants, is the equivalent to an
extrajudicial execution, regardless of the cargo," said Jose Miguel Vivanco,
director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.
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