WAR ON DRUGS GOES AWRY: SHARING THE BLAME FOR PERU TRAGEDY

Washington - The war on drugs has claimed two more victims: a Baptist
missionary and her infant daughter. The two were killed when a Peruvian
fighter shot down the single-engine plane in which they were traveling,
believing the aircraft carried drugs, not missionaries.

Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were returning to
Iquitos, Peru, from a short trip up the Amazon River to the border of
Colombia. Traveling with Veronica were her husband, James, her 6-year-old
son, Cory, and a pilot, Kevin Donaldson, who was also injured.

Both the Bowerses and Donaldson were members of the Association of Baptists
for World Evangelism, a group active in missionary work in the Andean
nations. But most horrifying of all, the accident occurred in what was a
joint U.S.-Peruvian operation in which American tracking planes identify
potential drug runners, and the Peruvian military intercept the planes,
force them to land and shoot them down when necessary. This time the
Americans and the Peruvians were dead wrong.

Is it fair to think of this tragic mistake as a casualty of the drug war?
And if so, who is to blame? For years, the United States has tried to stop
drugs at their source: in the coca and poppy fields of South America and
Asia, where the crops grow and are later turned into cocaine and heroin.
The United States provides about $48 million to Peru to stop illicit drugs
from that country from ending up on American streets, part of $1.8 billion
in such assistance to all Latin American nations.

Among U.S. programs is one that aids the Peruvian military to intercept
drug traffickers who often operate small, single-engine planes such as the
ones carrying the Baptist missionaries. According to the New York Times,
for many years the United States refused to participate in the Peruvian
program because government officials were concerned that Americans could be
held accountable if innocent lives were lost.

But in 1995, Congress passed a law absolving Americans or their contractors
for liability so long as there were "appropriate procedures in place to
protect against innocent loss of life," which included, at a minimum,
warning aircraft before the use of force.

In the latest case, three American crewmen - on contract to the CIA -
and a Peruvian officer were flying surveillance when they spotted the
missionaries' Cessna as it headed over the Amazon jungle. According to
newspaper accounts, the American crew accuse the Peruvian officer of
failing to follow proper procedures before giving the order to an
accompanying Peruvian Air Force jet to shoot down the small plane.
Apparently, the Peruvians shot first and asked questions later.

It's hard to know whom to blame. We've engaged the Peruvians in our drug
war because Peruvians grow, harvest and process the crops that, when turned
into cocaine, ruin millions of American lives. But if the demand for
cocaine - or heroin, or any of the dozens of other illicit drugs -
wasn't there, there would be no need to enlist the Peruvians in our war or
send Americans to ferret out drug smugglers thousands of miles from U.S.
borders.

In 1998, the last year for which statistics are available, Americans spent
$66 billion on illegal drugs, including almost $40 billion on cocaine
alone. That represents about 291 metric tons of cocaine.

To subsistence farmers in Latin America and Asia, whose families barely eke
out a living as it is, the American appetite for drugs presents an almost
irresistible market for their crops. Of course they earn only a tiny
fraction of the billions the drug trade represents, with others further up
the distribution chain earning the most money.

I am not one who believes the sale and consumption of cocaine and other
mind-altering drugs should be decriminalized, if not outright legalized. To
do so would undoubtedly dramatically increase drug consumption, which would
wreak further pain and suffering on millions of individuals and their families.

But I find it problematic that we have been unable to do much to control
the demand for drugs in the United States, which virtually drives the drug
trade worldwide. Until we can effectively help curb the appetite for drugs
here, we're going to continue to lose innocent lives like the Bowerses.