TIME TO CHANGE STRATEGIES

Sunday, May 13, 2001 - Roni Bowers and her baby Charity were killed not by
drug dealing gangs or criminal thugs, but instead by government agents.
They were "collateral damage" in the war on drugs.

In late April, a United States spotter aircraft, flying with a Peruvian air
force officer on board, thought a civilian plane might have been
transporting drugs. However, the only cargo was a human one of Baptist
missionaries and their children, including 7-month-old Charity and her mother.

After spotting the civilian aircraft, the U.S. jet contacted the Peruvian
air force, which then scrambled fighters to shoot at the helpless civilians.

A bullet went through Roni and into her baby, killing them both instantly.

Witnessing this horror were Roni's husband, Jim, and their 6-year-old son,
Cory, who were passengers on the plane. During the attack, the pilot of the
civilian plane continued contact with civilian Peruvian air traffic
controllers. According to press reports he said repeatedly, "They are
killing us! They are killing us!"

After the plane was strafed, the American pilot working for the Baptist
church was able to crash the burning plane into a river. The injured pilot
together with Jim and Cory were able to escape the wreckage and float down
the river grasping dislodged pieces of aircraft. One fighter plane
continued to shoot at them. Reuters reported that the U.S. plane watched
the incident from about a mile away.

We shouldn't be surprised that this occurred. Mad as hell maybe, but not
surprised. After all, we are in a war, a war on drugs. And during times of
war innocent people get in the way.

This tragedy has played itself out scores of times in recent years.

U.S. Marines shot and killed teenage goat herder Esequiel Hernandez in 1997
near his home in Texas, mistaking him for a drug runner.

Drug agents flew over 62-year-old Donald Scott's ranch and claimed they saw
marijuana growing on his property. They raided his home, pushed his wife to
the ground and shot him to death. No drugs were found.

Police, acting on false information about a $30 drug deal, raided the home
of 84-year-old, bed-ridden Anna Rae Dixon and shot her with a 12-gauge
shotgun, killing her instantly.

In Denver, Ismael Mena was killed in September 1999 after a cop filed a
false search warrant affidavit and the SWAT team raided the wrong home.
Reportedly the last word from the father of nine was a questioning
"Policia?" as the dressed-in-black SWAT team stormed into his small room.

The list goes on and on. It includes children, mothers, fathers, elderly
ladies and teenage goat herders. All "collateral damage," according to
common military parlance.

The increasing militarization of the drug war and our local police forces
is a dangerous trend. Today most of the tactical and firearms training for
"peace" officers comes straight out of military doctrine. The tactics
taught are not of negotiations or individual bravery but of concentration
of forces and firepower.

In our own state, the legislature has passed laws requiring the governor
"as commander in chief" to use the soldiers of the Colorado National Guard
for drug interdiction and enforcement.

To that end, the soldiers are providing "aviation assets and ground
assistance units trained for the specific mission of cannabis suppression
and eradication." They are available to local law enforcement in
"narcotics-centered investigations with surveillance platforms, thermal
imagery and night vision equipment, case support and intelligence analysis."

The soldiers are also training local officers at the County Sheriffs of
Colorado facility in Douglas County on issues like "non-urban tactical
operations" and "airmobile drug enforcement operations."

It is only a matter of time before our increasingly militarized tactics
will result in more unintended deaths like those in Peru. I question
whether it is worth it.

Policing and blaming Peru, Colombia or Mexico for our nation's drug
problems is a little like blaming Saudi Arabia for traffic jams. This is a
demand problem, not a supply problem.

We shut off the cocaine supply, then some people start cooking meth in
their homes. We stop the meth and many will get high on Ecstasy, booze, the
doctor's pills or whatever. Controlling the drug supply is like holding
water in a fist, it just leaks out and goes on to something else.

Eventually we will realize a fist won't work against what is fundamentally
a spiritual problem.

Before we suffer more innocent deaths at the hands of those sworn to
protect us, before we lose touch with our local peace officers, and before
more children overdose because we haven't identified or addressed the
demand problem, we must rethink the drug war. We must change strategies.