PERU SEES DRUG FLIGHTS RELAUNCH, WASHINGTON MUM

Peru expects the United States soon to announce it will resume a
program to catch drug flights in the Latin American country that was
halted after the shooting of an American missionary plane, officials
said on Thursday, but Washington said no decision had been made.

"The information we have received from a good source is that a high-
ranking US official is apparently set to make the announcement (to
relaunch drug flights) on Monday," said Ricardo Vega Llona, who
handed his job as Peru's first anti-drug "czar" to successor Nils
Ericsson on Thursday.

The United States until last year sponsored an aerial drugs
interdiction program, supported by the CIA, in conjunction with the
Peruvian military, over Peru and Colombia, the world's top two
cocaine producing nations.

Americans helped staff surveillance planes and alerted Peruvian
forces to suspected drug-trafficking flights.

But the surveillance program came to a dramatic halt in April 2001
after a Peruvian Air Force jet mistakenly shot down a civilian plane,
killing an American missionary and her baby.

Vega Llona called the information on resumption of the program
"preliminary" and said, "We still need final confirmation."

A State Department official in Washington, however, said, "No final
decision has been made on resuming the interdiction program in Peru
and Colombia." Only US President George W. Bush can make the
decision, officials said.

Peru has been pushing for resumption of the CIA-backed program, which
has been criticized by US lawmakers but which Peru says is vital for
fighting drugs. Vega Llona's comments came a month after the Bush
administration said it wanted to see those planes in the air again,
fast.

In connection with last year's shootdown, the White House has said it
would pay the dead missionary's family compensation but would not
admit liability.

According to Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, the surveillance
program is an essential weapon for this cash-strapped nation in
curbing the illegal drugs trade. Peru was praised in the 1990s for
cracking down on drugs, but officials are warning cultivation figures
could creep back up.

Vega Llona leaves his drugs czar post to head a new agency designed
to boost private investment and privatization plans.

His replacement, Ericsson, comes from the National Coca Company,
which sells coca leaf -- the raw material for cocaine -- for
traditional, legal uses like chewing and in teas.