VICTIMS OF WAR ON DRUGS

The senseless deaths of an American missionary and her daughter in Peru
last week raise grave questions about the U.S. role in Peru's battle
against illegal drugs.

Americans are seeking answers as they mourn the death of Veronica Bowers,
and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, who were killed when a Peruvian jet
fighter shot into the small plane they were flying in along with Bowers'
husband, Jim, and their 6-year-old son, Cory. Many people in Winston-Salem
are feeling the loss in a personal way, because of the ties the couple had
to the community. The Bowerses were graduates of Piedmont Bible College,
now called Piedmont Baptist College. The plane's pilot, Kevin Donaldson,
who was wounded in the incident, graduated from the college's Missionary
Aviation Institute.

The attack is even more inexplicable because of the involvement of a
surveillance plane operated by the CIA, which tracked the small plane and
alerted the Peruvian air force that it might be operated by drug
traffickers. Both Peruvian and U.S. officials agree on that much, but not
on much else. Americans are saying that the CIA warned the Peruvians that
the identity of the plane was not certain and called for a delay in firing
on it. Peruvians are saying that they followed proper procedures; Americans
are disputing that. The Peruvian air force has expressed regret over the
deaths, but has denied that it did anything wrong.

Somebody is either lying or terribly mistaken; a review is being mounted to
try to sort things out.

But one thing is already all too clear: The United States is taking a huge
risk in providing surveillance for a militaristic, quick-trigger Peruvian
war on drugs.

The United States suspended its cooperation with the Peruvian military's
campaign of shooting down suspected drug flights for six months seven years
ago, out of fear of precisely this kind of mistake. Officials were worried
that Peru might kill innocent people by shooting at the wrong plane, and
that Americans could share in the responsibility if they had provided the
information about a suspicious flight. The United States started
participating again after a six-month interval during which provisions were
put in place to provide immunity for Americans and set up procedures that
were supposed to prevent mistaken shootings.

Last Friday, something went wrong. The U.S. position is that Peru failed to
follow those established procedures.

But the wonder really is that something like this didn't happen sooner.

The U.S. government has participated in this campaign because it's
reasonably successful. The harsh strategy has helped cut the production of
coca in Peru. Unfortunately, though, the growing of coca hasn't stopped; it
has just moved, mostly to Colombia, where it is processed into cocaine. And
the demand for illegal drugs remains high in the United States.

Congress and other U.S. officials have figured that the benefits to the war
on drugs were worth the risks of participating in possibly illegal actions
that could threaten innocent people. What happened last week tragically
proved how wrong they were.