DEAD MISSIONARIES IN PERU ARE VICTIMS OF U.S. DRUG POLICY

It came as a shock: the news 10 days ago that two American citizens, a
35-year-old missionary woman and her infant daughter, were killed when
a Peruvian air force jet shot down their unarmed Cessna seaplane over
the Amazon jungle.

The woman's husband and 7-year-old son survived, as did the pilot, who
was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg. They were casualties
of the war on drugs.

In this instance a U.S. government tracking aircraft, piloted by
contract employees of the CIA, notified the Peruvian military that an
allegedly suspicious plane was in the area. After hasty consultation,
a Peruvian A-37 fighter went up to investigate. Less than an hour
later, the jet pilot opened fire on what turned out to be an innocent
civilian aircraft.

Under a program dating back to 1994, the CIA and other U.S. agencies
are authorized to assist Peru in the interdiction of aircraft when
there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are trafficking in drugs.
The purpose has been to interrupt the flow of cocaine paste from Peru
to Colombia, where it is transformed into cocaine powder and then
exported to U.S. and other markets.

As word of the disaster spread, exculpation and finger-pointing
predictably ensued.

The U.S. Department of Defense made clear that it was not
involved.

The CIA asserted that the surveillance plane was under contract
employees, not full-time agents, and that they were not involved in
the shoot-down. American authorities claimed that Peruvians had failed
to take appropriate precautionary measures before authorizing the attack.

Peruvian officials expressed regret for the loss of life but claimed
that their pilot had fired only "as a final recourse." The two
governments have agreed to suspend the interdiction program, pending a
thorough review.

Presumably, the investigation will determine who was at fault and why.
One or more Peruvian officers might be cashiered.

Then, perhaps with stronger safeguards, aerial interdiction will
probably resume. It will be lamentable if this is all that happens.

Precisely because it is so gruesome, the tragedy calls for a
reevaluation of its ultimate cause: the U.S. war on drugs.

Since the early 1980s, U.S. policy has placed inordinate emphasis on
reducing the supply of illicit drugs, mainly through eradication of
crops and interdiction of shipments.

Reduce the supply, according to this logic, and prices will climb to
the point where would-be consumers can no longer afford them. Demand
will decline, and all will be well. That is the basis for U.S. action
in Peru and for massive aid, mostly military, to neighboring Colombia.
Since 1994, the aerial interdiction program in Peru has led to the
downing of at least 30 planes and to the grounding of dozens more.
Proponents hail these efforts as a major reason for a two-thirds
decline in coca production in Peru. They usually fail to note that
Colombia has picked up almost all the slack, and that cocaine is as
available on the U.S. market as it ever was. The evidence is clear: As
long as demand is strong, suppression of supply in one location leads
to an increase somewhere else. In pursuit of its strategy, the United
States has made a second mistake: reliance upon the military, its own
and (especially) that of other countries.

One justification for this tactic, widely challenged by fact, is that
military forces are less susceptible to corruption than the police.

Another argument is that only force, rather than careful investigation
and intelligence, will disrupt the trafficking rings. Shoot now, ask
later--almost by definition this results in human rights abuses, as it
leads to attacks on people who have been neither charged with nor
convicted of criminal activity.

In collaborating with Peru, the U.S. has made a third mistake: allying
itself with one of the most unsavory militaries in all Latin America.
This is not to impugn individuals involved in last week's incident.

But under the autocratic Alberto Fujimori and his mysterious henchman,
Vladimiro Montesinos, the Peruvian military became notorious for its
corruption, impunity and abuse of human rights.

It would have been hard to pick a less desirable partner. Add these
elements together, and this is what you get: A shoot-down of innocent
civilians.

It was not an "isolated incident," as the White House recently
claimed.

It was a logical outcome of flawed and shortsighted policy. Is there
an alternative? Most serious analysts of the drug trade argue that the
U.S. government should give top priority to the reduction of demand,
rather than supply.

This means not only prevention and education for children, but also
treatment and rehabilitation for addicts.

It would require a serious reallocation of the federal drug budget,
nearly two-thirds of which is now devoted to law enforcement. Second,
the United States should concentrate law enforcement on key aspects of
the trade--especially money laundering--rather than possession or
street-level distribution. Like other entrepreneurs, drug traffickers
are in search of profits. Bust their profits and you bust their operation.

Third, the United States should engage countries of Latin
America--including Colombia and Peru--in a multilateral effort to
reduce the growing consumption of dangerous drugs throughout the
hemisphere. Instead of recruiting them as allies in a semi-military
war against supply, we could bring these nations together in a
collaborative effort to reduce demand.

An approach of this kind could save lives at home and spare them
abroad.

If such steps are adopted, the death of a mother and child might not
have been entirely in vain.