DRUG AGENCIES WANT SURVEILLANCE BY U.S. RESUMED

Members of Peru's anti-narcotics agency expressed frustration yesterday at
their failure to persuade the United States to resume air surveillance of
the Andean region, which was halted more than a year ago.

The withdrawal of U.S. AWACS and other surveillance aircraft has left air
lanes into Colombia virtually open to drug traffickers, hamstringing Peru's
ability to halt the trade, said the visitors to Washington for an
international anti-drug conference.

"All of our success is in jeopardy if we do not get the return of the AWACs
and the Orions," said Maria Teresa Hart, counselor at the Peruvian Embassy.

The government of Peru has for two years been writing letters to U.S. drug
policy chief Barry McCaffrey's office and the State Department's narcotics
bureau, but without result.

"We have been very open with our concerns," said Alejandro Aguinaga,
director of Peru's anti-drug force Contradrogas, and Peru's chief delegate
to the 34-nation drug summit that convened in Washington yesterday.

He said the price of coca paste -- once driven to the point where it was
unprofitable -- is rising again with the increasing ease of shipping it out
of the country.

"We do not know why the surveillance flights stopped in May 1998. We were
told there were other priorities," Mr. Aguinaga said. The return of the
AWACS will be a primary issue when we speak with Gen. McCaffrey."

A Clinton administration official said yesterday that the United States was
aware of Peru's concerns, and that changing drug trafficking patterns were
being reassessed. "Over-the-horizon" radar, with the ability to see for
2,000 miles, will go on line in Puerto Rico in January 2000, he said.

"If that works as well as it has in the Caribbean, that should help a lot,"
he said. "If not, it may well be that sending AWACS back down may be the
answer."

Republican critics of President Clinton's commitment to the war on drugs
say the United States should step up air surveillance in the region, which
has been seriously diminished with the loss of Howard Air Force Base in
Panama.

"The Clinton administration has given the drug traffickers an undeserved
break by failing to provide timely intelligence to Peru to shoot down
airplanes," said Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, New York Republican and chairman
of the International Relations Committee yesterday. "President Clinton
needs to give Peru the 'real time' tracking information that only P-3s and
AWACS can provide."

With U.S. aerial intelligence, the Peruvian government shot down some 100
drug trafficking airplanes between 1992 and 1998, closing the "air bridge"
between Peru and Colombia, where Peruvian paste was processed into cocaine.

"We have the airplanes to do the job, but without intelligence, we can't
always find [the traffickers]," said Gen. Dennis del Castillo, director of
the Peru's national drug police.

With the air lanes shut down, the market dried up and the price plummeted
from $2 a pound to 30 cents a pound, prompting the farmers to abandon their
fields or plant alternative crops such as coffee.

But with the halt in U.S. surveillance, the price has crept back up to a
profitable $1.25 a pound. Peruvian officials fear that with a better profit
margin, farmers will be drawn back into production and abandoned fields
will be replanted.

As in Colombia today, 10 years ago Peru was at war with brutal Marxist
guerrillas, who "taxed" and protected drug growers in their war against the
government.

When Alberto Fujimori was elected president in 1990, ignoring international
opinion, he dismissed most of the government in what critics called a
"self-coup" and went after the guerillas with the full force of the army.

While the international community howled over human rights abuses, he
eventually brought the guerrillas to heel. Then his government went after
the drug growers. In that time, drug production in Peru has dropped by 56
percent.