PERU'S SHOOTDOWN IN QUESTION

Peru's downing of an unarmed airplane, which killed an American
missionary and her infant daughter, was a preventable tragedy that
demands serious answers from both Peru and the U.S. government. Peru
should end its reckless shootdown policy or lose U.S. technical and
financial assistance for its war on drugs. The Bush administration,
meanwhile, needs to explain what role a CIA surveillance flight played
in the incident to ensure American taxpayers are not supporting the
barbarity of blowing suspects out of the sky.

The missionaries' plane, a single-engine Cessna, was shot down Friday,
killing Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. The
pilot, though seriously wounded, managed to land the plane without
further loss of life. Peru said it suspected the aircraft was ferrying
drugs. According to the military, the pilot failed to file a flight
plan and failed to respond to radio communications.

But relatives and friends of the pilot and of the missionaries aboard
claim the military overreacted and is now trying to whitewash the
case. They claim the pilot flew a regular route, filed a flight path
and maintained radio communications. The pilot's father said the plane
had received landing instructions only minutes before being downed by
a Peruvian air force jet.

U.S. officials said Sunday the Peruvian jet apparently failed to relay
the Cessna's tail number to authorities on the ground. Such a routine
check could have provided assurance the Cessna was not a trafficking
plane. It has not been determined whether the military jet fired
warning shots.

The CIA surveillance plane monitoring the area had notified Peru's
military the Cessna might be trafficking drugs, but later "voiced
objections" to downing the craft, U.S. officials said. Authorities in
Washington suggested Peru violated the rules of engagement, which call
for military planes to establish radio contact, signal for suspects to
land and fire warning shots before attacking. But the policies are
meaningless if U.S. crews and advisers are powerless to stop the
firing on airborne craft. The United States is still complicit. That's
why a fuller picture of what the CIA crew said and did is necessary.

President Bush was right to suspend the surveillance flights "until we
get to the bottom of the situation." The U.S. government should make
that suspension permanent if Peru fails to establish a responsible
policy for intercepting suspect planes. The presumption of innocence
and the right to counsel and to a fair and public trial are principles
that should follow U.S. participation in the drug war, both at home
and overseas. We can't imagine the U.S. military shooting down
suspected drug planes within its own air space, and we don't believe
the United States should help Peru or any other nation shoot airplanes
out of the sky, whether they are carrying drug suspects or
missionaries.