U.S. BACKS COLOMBIA ON ATTACKING DRUG PLANES

BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 19 -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a one-day
visit to Colombia, said today that the United States would support Colombia in
resuming a policy that allows Colombian fighter pilots to shoot down planes
suspected of ferrying drugs or force them to land.

Such a policy, which has been criticized by human rights groups, was suspended
in Colombia and Peru after a Peruvian jet fighter mistakenly shot down a
private plane carrying American missionaries, killing two people, one an
infant, in 2001.

A White House statement said President Bush had determined that Colombia had
since "put in place appropriate procedures to protect against loss of innocent
life."

The announcement did not specify those safeguards, but American officials said
they would include radio or visual contact, first trying to force suspect
planes to land, and then firing warning shots. Only as a last resort, American
officials said, would a plane be downed.

"Some of these procedures existed in the old program," one American official
said, "but they were not enforced."

A more limited program, still being developed, may be put in place in coming
months in Peru, officials said.

The announcement was timed as part of a visit to Colombia by Mr. Rumsfeld, who
arrived in Bogota, the capital, this morning under tight security to underscore
American support for President Alvaro Uribe.

Colombia has received $2.5 billion from Washington, largely in military aid,
since 2000 as it battles leftist rebels and drug traffickers. Colombia is
likely to get $700 million more this year.

The Colombian drug trade, which supplies most of the cocaine entering the
United States, has been increasingly tied to both the leftist insurgency and
right-wing paramilitary groups.

Under the new policy, coordinates from United States and Colombian radar
stations will be passed on to Colombian crews flying Cessna Citation
surveillance planes. The surveillance planes will then direct Colombian Air
Force jets toward the suspect aircraft.

Officials said orders to shoot down a plane could come only from Colombia's air
force commander, Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco, and planes would have to be within
Colombian airspace.

The policy is already being harshly criticized by human rights groups and some
American congressmen who say it violates international law.

"To shoot civilian planes in cases that are not in self-defense or in cases
where you're not in a war... is equivalent to an extra-judicial execution
regardless of the cargo," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights
Watch.