U.S., PERU TO REASSESS DRUG WAR

LIMA, Peru - The downing by Peru of a missionary aircraft from the
United States has dealt a severe blow to the two countries' efforts to
halt drug shipments between Peru's coca fields and the trafficking
cartels in Colombia.

Peru's policy since the early 1990s of forcing down suspected
trafficking planes has been praised by Washington as a principal
reason why the cultivation of coca plants - the raw material from
which cocaine is made - has been reduced by two-thirds in Peru since
1995.

In those six years, 30 drug-trafficking planes have been shot down by
Peruvian pilots, and scores more have been forced to land - though
before they went down, the drug traffickers usually dumped the drugs,
which were found later.

The aggressive air policy has frightened most local pilots into
stopping their smuggling activities, U.S. and Peruvian officials say.
That in turn, they say, has interrupted local coca leaf markets and
encouraged thousands of coca-growing peasants to try to cultivate
other crops like cocoa and coffee, with economic help from the United
States.

But U.S. officials have long acknowledged that the program has its
risks.

The Clinton administration suspended intelligence-gathering flights
over Peru and Colombia for a month in 1994 because of concerns that
U.S. officials could face criminal liability in accidents such as the
one on Friday that killed an American missionary and her newly adopted
infant daughter.

A Peruvian air force A-37 fighter jet attacked their pontoon plane,
mistaking it for a drug flight. Friends of three American survivors
said they had been told that the Peruvian jet then strafed the
survivors after they crash-landed on an Amazon River tributary in the
jungle near the Brazilian border.

Relatives of the survivors have also said they were told that the
Peruvian air force did not make radio contact with the survivors
before shooting.

In Washington Monday, U.S. officials stopped short of apportioning
blame for what the White House called an "isolated incident."

But one senior administration official said, "It does appear that the
Peruvians, had they followed the proper procedures, could have averted
this tragedy."

Apparent errors of command and control, which occurred despite the
presence of an American surveillance flight in the area, have forced
both governments to reconsider their enforcement strategies.

"The interdiction program has been suspended temporarily, but that
could be a very long time, depending on the investigation," said a
State Department official. "If you were to terminate the program
forever, you would remove one of the main roadblocks to drug
cultivation in Peru."

Adm. Luis Augusto Galvez Figari, spokesman for Peru's Defense
Ministry, called the incident "a big break for the traffickers."
Without flight interdiction, he said, "they will be able to move much
more freely."

"This program has been a brake on them," he said, "since unfortunately
drugs pour through our jungles."

American and Peruvian officials said they were planning a joint
investigation and that investigators from the State Department, the
U.S. military and the CIA would arrive in Lima over the next few days.
"Everyone who has responsibility will be at the table, and we'll take
the necessary actions," a State Department official said.

Galvez Figari said that over the weekend, Peruvian investigators
questioned a Peruvian officer who was stationed on the American
surveillance plane, the Peruvian pilot of the fighter jet, and "the
total line of command that was involved in the incident."

He said investigators would try to determine if proper procedures had
been followed, and who was responsible for any errors.

U.S. and Peruvian officials said that U.S. surveillance planes
customarily alerted the Peruvian air force when their pilots spotted
any flights that appeared suspicious.

But the Americans said they left it to Peruvian military and
aeronautic authorities on the ground to check flight plans and
determine if a particular flight was actually surreptitious.

The two governments have established stringent rules of engagement
before a plane may be shot down. The Peruvian authorities are supposed
to try to make radio contact with the plane from the ground and air.

If a pursuing air force aircraft fails to make radio contact, it is
required to make visual contact with the unidentified plane by using
signal blinkers and then by tipping its wings in a maneuver that
pilots recognize as meaning that a landing is being ordered.