PERU TO PRESS FOR DRUG FLIGHTS

LIMA, Peru -- Peru plans to urge Secretary of State Colin Powell to resume
the U.S.-backed anti-drug flights suspended after the Peruvian air force
mistakenly shot down an American missionary plane this spring.

Powell is scheduled to visit Lima on Monday and Tuesday for an assembly of
the Organization of American States.

Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said that Peruvian officials would use the
opportunity to ask for clarification of "the dates and conditions in which
aerial drug interdiction flights could restart."

The missionary plane was shot from the sky on April 20 after it was
initially mistaken for a drug flight by a CIA-operated surveillance plane
and then fired on by a Peruvian military jet. A Baptist missionary,
Veronica Bowers, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed.

Results of a joint U.S.-Peruvian investigation released Aug. 2 found that
an overloaded communications system, procedural errors and translation
problems between the English-speaking CIA-hired crew and Spanish-speaking
air force pilots had all contributed to the tragedy.

When the report was issued, Maj. Gen. Jorge Kisic, operations chief of
Peru's air force, said Peru's skies had been "inundated by narcotics
traffickers" since the surveillance and interception flights were halted
over Peru and Colombia.

However, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers, who headed the
American side of the investigative commission, said no evidence of
increased trafficking had been seen.

But Abraham Ramirez, legal counsel to Peru's air force and a member of the
Peruvian-U.S. investigative commission, said Wednesday that, while no
statistics were available, "the air bridge for illicit trafficking in
Peruvian airspace has increased since April 20."

Ramirez said Beers, head of the State Department's Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement, would accompany Powell, and that a brief
meeting to discuss improved procedures for the aerial drug interdiction
program had been scheduled.

The U.S. Congress and the Bush administration are waiting for a follow-up
report being prepared by Morris Busby, a former U.S. ambassador to
Colombia, before deciding whether to resume the flights. The report is not
expected for several weeks.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana, who is scheduled to meet Powell later
Tuesday and Wednesday, also urged Washington to restart the interdiction
program and re-establish intelligence-sharing about suspected drug flights.

"I think we can truly hit the heart of the business through interdiction,
and not simply through fumigation" of drug crops, he told reporters on
Thursday.

Until the mid-1990s, Peru was the world's largest producer of coca, the raw
material for cocaine, supplying Colombia's Medellin and Cali drug cartels
before they started growing their own supply.

U.S. officials have largely credited the shift in coca cultivation from
Peru to Colombia to the controversial policy of intercepting, and sometimes
shooting down, small planes suspected of smuggling raw cocaine paste from
Peru to its northern neighbor.

Last year, Washington approved a $1.3 billion aid package, Plan Colombia,
providing the South American nation with helicopters, troop training and
crop-spraying aircraft to help eradicate illegal drug crops, which are
guarded and taxed by armed guerrillas and paramilitaries.