THE WAR ON DRUGS TURNS EVEN NASTIER

It has been 30 years since the United States started aggressively fighting
illegal drugs by going after the sources in countries such as Peru,
Colombia and Bolivia. Since then, the money spent on drug suppression has
soared. But so has the amount of drugs produced. And the body count.

Naturally, given that its efforts to eradicate illicit drugs have produced
nothing but failure, the U.S. plans to do more of the same.

The latest focus is Peru. In advance of a March visit by President George
W. Bush, the U.S. ambassador told a Peruvian newspaper that American
anti-drug aid to the country will triple, to $156 million U.S. The
ambassador also announced that the "airbridge denial" program will soon
resume. Under the policy, planes that fail to identify themselves are blown
out of the sky by Peruvian jets, supervised by American spotters on
contract with the CIA. Aerial interdiction was suspended last year when a
plane carrying American missionaries was destroyed. A young woman and her
baby died.

Whether other innocent people have been killed by "air-bridge denial" in
Peru is unknown since the evidence ends up in a smoking heap. But even if
there were good reason to suspect all those shot down of drug smuggling,
the policy is still brutal.

That the U.S. is to return to such methods is a sign of desperation. Opium
poppy production in the Peruvian countryside has surged. Reports indicate
rising prices may have prompted a rise in cocaine production in the vast
Peruvian countryside, a dynamic that began well before the suspension of
aerial interdiction.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The U.S. and the United Nations have long
held up Peru as a success story in the drug war. Over six years in the
1990s, Peru's cocaine production fell by 60 per cent. It shows the war can
be won, officials said. But what they rarely mentioned was that drug
production in neighbouring Colombia rose exactly in tandem with its fall in
Peru and Bolivia. In effect, all the drug warriors did was push production
into Colombia, where it made the guerrillas very rich and helped turn
Colombia into a basket case.

The U.S. and UN were also notably silent when the Peruvian government fell
in 2000 and evidence surfaced that Peru's top drug fighter, spy chief
Vladimir Montesinos, was corrupt. It is alleged in Peruvian court, where
Mr. Montesinos faces a slew of charges including human-rights violations,
that he took bribes from some traffickers even as he cracked down on others.

Officially, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are gung-ho about Uncle Sam's drug
war. But that says more about American power than it does about what South
Americans really feel. The Andean countries are desperate for the Americans
to lower tariffs on bananas, coffee, oil, textiles, tuna, leather products
and cut flowers. When Mr. Bush visits Peru, the agenda will include
ensuring that no one criticizes the U.S. war on drugs.

Other governments must speak out. Canada is Washington's friend and ally,
and should stop giving American tactics unstinting support. Before more
innocents die in a misguided war.