Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jun 2003
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2003 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

ANTIDRUG FLIGHTS TO RESUME IN PERU

As U.S. Cracks Down In Colombia, It Seems Coca Production Is Shifting

AGUAYTIA, Peru - Alarmed by evidence that drug trafficking is on the rise in
Peru, the Bush administration expects controversial antinarcotics
air-interdiction flights to resume in the Andean nation by the end of this
year.

"We are seeing a large increase in the number of people clearing out old
coca fields, and getting back into it," explained a senior U.S. official in
Peru who is familiar with antinarcotics efforts there. His agency doesn't
permit him to be named.

The official and other experts attribute the resurgence in Peru of coca, the
raw material for cocaine, mainly to intense pressure on coca growers in
neighboring Colombia, where Washington has spent nearly $2 billion in recent
years. Other factors include lapses in enforcement in Peru and the failure
of U.S.-promoted alternative crops such as coffee and heart of palm to be as
profitable as coca for Peruvian farmers.

Colombians, the official said, "are paying money to Indians" to farm coca in
Peru. Since it takes 18 months to 24 months for a coca bush to reach peak
production, the new plantings in Peru may be intended to offset anticipated
future losses in Colombia.

Equally troubling, said the U.S. official, is evidence that Peru has become
a player in the global heroin trade through the export of growing quantities
of opium sap or latex.

Coca is grown almost exclusively in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
Historically, when growers in one country in the Andean triangle are
squeezed, production shifts to another. The White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy estimates that Peru produces about a fifth of the
roughly 770 tons of cocaine exported annually in recent years to the United
States and Europe.

U.S.-backed air surveillance and interdiction of traffickers ended abruptly
in Peru and Colombia on April 20, 2001, when the Peruvian air force and a
CIA contractor downed a floatplane and killed U.S. missionary Veronica
Bowers and her infant daughter. Their return home had been mistaken for a
drug flight.

Before that, Peru, with CIA help, had made sharp gains against drug
trafficking by blowing small planes ferrying drugs to Colombia out of the
sky.

Despite U.S. help in growing alternative crops and building new roads and
bridges to bring those crops to market, coca -- a guaranteed cash crop
harvested four times annually -- remains king in the region.

"There is still not another product that provides a living for farmers,"
said Flavio Sanchez, the head of the coca grower's association in Aguaytia.

"Bridges and roads are fine, but tell me how I am supposed to eat a bridge
or a road," said Elsa Malpartida, a leader of the coca grower's association
in Tingo Maria.

Forced eradication and a production boom in Colombia combined to reduce
Peruvian coca cultivation by 70 percent in the 1990s. Since 2001, however,
Peruvian cultivation has increased. Last year, although 17,000 acres of coca
fields were eradicated in Peru, total coca cultivation increased by almost
6,500 acres.

Indirect evidence suggests traffickers already have resumed aerial
deliveries. "We have detected unregistered flights that we cannot confirm
are drug flights but many probably are," said Nils Ericsson Correa, Peru's
Cabinet-level antidrug czar.

In neighboring Brazil, he said, a sophisticated new Amazon regional radar
system called SIVAM has allowed Brazil's air force to intercept 88 drug
flights and put 33 clandestine airstrips out of commission.

It's unclear when antidrug flights will resume. Peruvian pilots and their
on-the-ground tracking partners have completed training on simulators in
Oklahoma City.

Colombia also expects to resume antidrug flights before the year's end.
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MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk