Peruvian drug runners hide in Amazon maze

By Jason Webb

LIMA (Reuter) Hounded out of the sky by a U.S.backed
interdiction program, Peruvian drug runners are taking cover in
an impenetrable maze of Amazon jungle rivers to smuggle their
goods into Colombia and Brazil.

``They are switching, the traffickers, to the rivers and
waterways, and that's our next major offensive in support of the
Peruvian effort,'' said an official at the U.S. Embassy in Lima,
who did not want to be named.

Peru is by far the world's largest producer of the raw
material of cocaine, coca leaf, growing about as much as the
other two major producers, Colombia and Bolivia, combined. But,
rather than being refined locally, most of Peru's raw material
is smuggled across the border as leaf or coca paste to be turned
into cocaine in Colombian laboratories.

The northern Amazon jungle's bewilderingly complex river
system, winding through 5,000 miles, is a smuggler's dream.
''They obviously can't be patrolled at random,'' the official
said, ``Intelligence is a very important part of what will
become the riverine counterdrug initiative.''

Even now, he said, the Peruvian air force's interdiction
program had made it so hard to smuggle coca leaf that prices had
tumbled in Peru over the last two years. Peasant farmers were at
last beginning to be tempted by U.S.supported programs to
switch to crops like coffee, cocoa or rice.

``Interdiction has kept the price of coca down sufficiently
that for the first time ever in the history of all of our
efforts in this region a significant alternative development
project has a chance,'' the official said. ``Despite all of our
good work and good efforts within this region over the last 25
years the only sustained success we've enjoyed is here in
Peru.''

COCA PRICES BELOW BREAKEVEN

The price of a 25pound sack of coca leaves paid to Peruvian
farmers has slipped to about $10, a fraction of what it was a
few years ago and way below the breakeven price of $2025, the
official said. ``The potential for production is already
verifiably down,'' he said. ``Our satellite imagery survey,
which is done on a yearly basis, has shown a reduction of 18
percent in the amount of cultivation.''

Ricardo Soberon, an analyst for the Commission of Andean
Jurists, which is linked to Peruvian opposition groups, agreed
interdiction was forcing the drug runners into rivers such as
the Ucayali and Maranon and their myriad tributaries. But he
said he believed the number of drug routes had actually
multiplied since the aerial crackdown.

``Aerial interdiction to squeeze out the Colombians the
only thing that does is to make drug boats appear. When the navy
gets round to going after the boats, the drugs will go by bus,
and so on ad infinitum,'' he said.

``Mark my words, when there is supply and demand nothing can
stop drug trafficking,'' Soberon said. ``I would say coca leaf
cultivation stabilized in Peru between 1990 and 1996,'' he
added, but a larger area is involved with cultivation of coca,
refining coca paste and transporting drugs.

Peru's coca leaf cultivation covered 277,000 acres in
1996, according to the commission, down slightly from 285,000
acres the year before, but still more than in 1994. Peru's
government said that 1996 cultivation fell to 242,000 acres.

Soberon said elements within Peru's security forces had a
vested interest in keeping the cocaine trade ticking over. ``I
believe there are individual cases but I also understand that
there is an institutional predisposition to accept money from
drug traffickers,'' he said.

SECURITY FORCES IMPLICATED

A rash of recent drug hauls have confirmed suspicions that
security forces were involved in the illegal drugs trade. The
armed forces control large swathes of drug cultivating territory
under emergency laws designed to combat the Maoist Shining Path
leftwing guerrilla group.

One of President Alberto Fujimori's own pilots was arrested
last year after 383 pounds of cocaine was found on a military
plane, and a captured drug baron alleged that Fukimori's top
security adviser protected smugglers.

The U.S. Embassy official said the United States did not
consider Peruvian corruption to be at problematic levels.

``The U.S. government is concerned with corruption all over,
but we don't see any major amount of it here in Peru, not to the
extent that it's impeding our ability to help them make the
(antidrug) program work,'' the official said.

The Peruvian government also defends its record, arguing
that it has stepped up its seizures of illegal drugs, which rose
sixfold in 1996 to a record 171 tons.

Washington at the end of February patted Peru on the back
and renewed annual certification of its antidrug efforts. The
United States, the world's leading narcotics consumer, is
spending about $23 million in Peru to fight drugs this year, a
tiny part of its likely total antidrug spending of $16 billion.

The announcement of recertification came shortly after a
judge sentenced Luis Otoya, a former head of Lima airport's
antidrug squad, to 12 years in prison for alleged involvement
in a bid to smuggle more than 440 pounds of cocaine.