MILITARY CORRUPTION DOGS U.S. DRUG-FIGHTING EFFORTS IN PERU

RIO DE JANEIRO - The Peruvian air force's downing of an airplane, killing
an American missionary and her daughter, is the most recent chapter in a
troubled history and raises new questions about the effectiveness of the
U.S.-led drug-interdiction program in Peru and elsewhere.

The Clinton administration billed the Andean nation's 120,000-man armed
forces as a vital partner in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts, thanks in large
measure to a shootdown policy that has wiped out at least 30 small aircraft
operated by suspected drug traffickers. Production of coca, the raw
material used to make cocaine, also dropped sharply.

Yet recent revelations show that while Peru's air force may have downed
some drug traffickers, it was taking huge bribes from others to let them pass.

Yesterday, the White House lauded the program, calling Friday's fatal error
an "isolated incident."

"The program itself is an important program, a successful program over the
years, to interdict drugs from coming into the United States," State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

State Department statistics, U.S. officials fighting the drug war in South
America and even South American presidents appear to tell a different story.

"Today, the scourge of drugs is still amongst us," said a letter written by
the presidents of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador and given to
President Bush at the Summit of Americas in Quebec. The presidents were
asking for increased U.S. aid in battling drugs. "We need real help."

The United States spends $2.6 billion a year battling illicit drugs,
including $731 million targeted for the Andean region. Most of the U.S.
effort in Peru, Colombia and other South American countries is directed at
eradicating drug crops and identifying aircraft and boats transporting drugs.

U.S. officials have hailed Peru's coca-eradication efforts as a success.
Once the world's leading producer of coca leaf, Peru saw coca production
fall in 2000 for the fifth consecutive year: from 233,168 acres to 84,474
acres, according to the State Department.

But the cocaine business remains lucrative in Peru, which is one indication
that interdiction and eradication efforts are having little impact.

Roger Rumrill, a Peruvian expert on the drug trade, called Friday's downing
of the Cessna the "most absurd accident in the world," because more than 70
percent of the drug trade between Peru and Colombia now moves by sea along
the Pacific Coast.

When Peru's air force took over efforts to control airborne drug
trafficking, there were more than 100 drug flights a week along the Amazon
border with Colombia and Brazil. Successful downings moved that trade to
the river system; that later gave way to ocean transport, Rumrill said.
"Right now, interdiction and control efforts are at their lowest (in the
Amazon), because there are no serious air or river routes," he said.

While Colombia and Peru continue a shootdown policy, Brazil's law allowing
it remains "under study" by the president's office nearly two years after
the legislature passed it.

The shootdown policy has a checkered history in Peru. Former President
Alberto Fujimori, a longtime U.S. ally in wars against drug traffickers and
leftist guerrillas, fled to exile in Japan in November to avoid corruption
charges; his powerful spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, became an
international fugitive. Fujimori's top military leaders are all in jail,
facing charges ranging from corruption and running arms to Colombian
guerrillas in the drug trade to protecting drug traffickers.

On April 5, retired Gen. Nicolas Hermoza, Fujimori's armed-forces commander
from 1992 to 2000, was arrested and charged with protecting drug
traffickers. Captured drug baron Demetrio "El Vaticano" Chavez testified he
paid $50,000 each to Montesinos and Hermoza to allow safe passage for
planes carrying cocaine.

More damning evidence came last summer, when word leaked that the military
leadership had moved Jordanian weapons to Colombia guerrillas, who control
the world's prime cocaine-production region.

Information from Gannett Newspapers was included in this report.