SHOOTDOWNS IN PERU EXPECTED TO RESUME

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Even Though A Missionary And Her Baby Died, The
Drug-War Policy Apparently Is Too Effective To Give Up

Antidrug warriors involved in a U.S.- Peruvian airborne interdiction effort
that has slashed the South American nation's cocaine production had a
warning for smugglers: "You fly, you die."

That warlike motto governed the zone of low-intensity conflict into which a
Cessna seaplane carrying American Baptist missionaries flew last week with
disastrous results: A Peruvian air force jet assisted by a CIA surveillance
plane shot down the Cessna, killing a mother and her infant daughter.

In the aftermath, the shoot-down policy will be scrutinized by a team of
investigators involving the CIA, National Transportation Safety Board, Drug
Enforcement Administration and other U.S. agencies expected in the coming
days in Lima, Peru's capital. The United States has suspended its aerial
interdiction operations in Peru.

"Smuggling flights are going to get through now, but that's the price you
pay," said a former official with the U.S. Embassy in Lima. "It's critical
they get the answer to why this happened and make sure it's never repeated.
But I don't think they'll kill the shoot-down policy: It's a
national-security question."

Friday's shoot-down was the first time innocent victims were harmed in the
8-year-old program, according to U.S. officials. And former Embassy
officials say the safeguards they built in contributed to a success story
in the war on drugs in the Andes region.

The numbers are impressive. Peru has reduced cultivation of the coca plant
by about 70 percent since 1996. The drop resulted from eradication efforts
on the ground combined with the aerial offensive- against smugglers who fly
coca paste into Colombia, where it is refined into cocaine and smuggled to
the United States.

The joint effort'm Peru disrupted coca production, drove up coca prices and
served as a general deterrent as exemplified by this underworld market
indicator: In the early 1990s, smuggling pilots charged $30,000 per flight
into the nation. After the air force interceptions began, the pilots' fee
jumped to $180,000 - in advance.

Success had its costs in Peru. President Alberto Fujimori drifted into
authoritarianism in the 1990s, he retained U.S. support largely because of
his antidrug performance.

That weakened Peruvian institutions, leading inevitably to the crisis that
toppled him, critics say. And the priorities of the drug war turned the
U.S. national-security apparatus into a shadow that hovers over most
important events in Peru, including Friday's shoot-down.

The CIA has made a strong, specific case that its contract employees aboard
the surveillance plane urge Peruvian officers to refrain from firing on the
missionaries' plane, which U.S. radar operators had detected and identified
as a suspicious aircraft.

Still, the CIA's role reminds Peruvians of the agency's longtime influence
here, according to critics.

"A great deal of what happened in Peru in these years was resolved in
negotiations with the U.S. Embassy and especially with the CIA" said Carlos
Tapia, a Peruvian political analyst.

The drug-interdiction proposal during the Fujimori administration, similar
to a program adopted in Colombia, called for the United States to use its
intelligence-gathering might, including aerial tracking radar and radio and
telephone interception technology, to help Peru shoot down airborne
smugglers. The take-no-prisoners approach appealed to Fujimori.

The idea provoked internal debate in the U.S. government, however. Lawyers
for the State and justice departments warned that "mistakes are likely to
occur under any policy that contemplates the use of weapons against civil
aircraft in flight," and "a shoot-down leading to the death of innocent
persons would likely be a serious diplomatic embarrassment," according to
declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, a private
group in Washington.

In total, Peru's air force has shot down, forced down or strafed more than
30 suspected smuggling planes and seized more than a dozen aircraft on the
ground, according to U.S. Embassy officials.

It is hard to confirm the assertion that all of those who died were
involved in drug smuggling. Former U.S. Ambassador Dennis Jett and two
other former U.S. Embassy officials interviewed by the Los Angeles Times
said they did not know of any mistaken shoot-downs. In all the incidents of
which one former embassy official was aware, authorities found evidence of
trafficking - such as residue of coca paste or cash - in the wreckage.

Meanwhile, skeptics question whether the interdiction program has been an
unqualified success.

Tapia said the failure to provide alternative sources of income has
worsened the hardships of about 200,000 families who had depended on coca.

"This policy will continue because the importance of the drug war for the
United States is too powerful," he said. "But this has not brought
well-being to the Peruvian people."