LOSING THE WAR ON TERRORISM IN PERU

The U.S. Government Has Undermined The War On Terrorism In Peru.

Saturday, President Bush will visit Peru, to bolster the war on drugs and
the war on terrorism. Congress has tripled antidrug aid to Peru this year,
providing $156 million. Yet Peru's past and present troubles demonstrate
how the war on drugs has undermined the war on terrorism and will continue
to do so. The drug war has created an environment ripe for narco-terrorism,
enriched insurgent guerillas, and hindered rather than helped Andean
government anti-insurgency efforts.

In Peru, the Maoist "Shining Path" (Sendero Luminoso) terrorists,
perpetrators of thousands of murders in the 198s and 9s, are making a
comeback in the coca-rich Upper Huallaga Valley and in Lima. The Shining
Path is being joined there by the far-left FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia) terrorists. The FARC and Shining Path come bearing gifts of
poppy seeds, money, and protection to recruit Peruvian farmer into their
drug-running racket.

Peru is also in the midst of a government-corruption scandal uncovering
decades of misdeeds by some of our closest drug-war partners 97 including
bribery, drug running, arms dealing, and death squads. This corruption has
bolstered the image of anti-government guerillas.

Over the last two decades, Peru fought a bloody and brutal war against the
Shining Path guerilla terrorists, with 3, Peruvians killed by one side or
the other. The goal of Shining Path was the destruction of the existing
government and replacing it with a totalitarian socialist utopia; being
Maoist, the Shining Path had no hesitation about slaughtering peasants who
got in the way.

The war culminated in the 199s during the early days of the presidency of
Alberto Fujimori, when thousands of suspected Shining Path were captured,
including, with CIA help, Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman.

The success against Shining Path was accompanied by the destruction of
Peru's constitutional democracy. In 199 Fujimori launched a coup, dissolved
the courts and Congress, erased constitutional protections, and instituted
military tribunals. The results were what one would expect in a country
with a tradition of corrupt and brutal government. Of the over 3,9
Peruvians convicted in the secret courts, more than 6 have since been
released by a review commission.

The Fujimori government proved to be as vicious as the Shining Path. The
U.S. State Department's human-rights reports on Peru explained: the
military and the police continue to be responsible for numerous
extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, rape and
disappearances - Besides beatings, common methods of torture include
electric shock, water torture and asphyxiation - Credible reports indicate
the total number of female detainees raped in the past few years (by police
and military forces) to be in the hundreds - Violence against women and
children are continuing problems.

At the time, Fujimori enjoyed popular support for his extreme measures, as
Peru was under siege from the Shining Path. But he continued to abuse
dictatorial power; he was eventually forced from office, and has fled to
Japan to avoid being put on trial in Peru.

Another prong of Fujimori's war on Shining Path was to call off U.S.-backed
coca-eradication programs. The Shining Path was thus deprived of income
from drug-trade protection rackets and deprived of peasant support.

Fujimori had learned the lessons of the previous decade in Peru. As a 1991
Cato Institute report details, counter-insurgency efforts against the
Shining Path in the 1980's were undermined by the U.S.-driven
counter-narcotics efforts: In 1984, President Belaunde Terry declared the
Upper Huallaga Valley an emergency zone and dispatched the military with
the mission not to fight drugs but to fight Shining Path - With no reason
to oppose security personnel and no need for guerilla protection, coca
growers withdrew their support and even revealed the identity of Shining
Path members. The guerillas retreated and the coca industry in the valley
boomed (ironically enough resulting in a lowering of coca prices, a goal of
U.S. drug strategy).

From 1985-1989 the new (leftist and populist) government of President
Garcia cooperated closely with U.S. DEA officials to carry out successive
eradication and interdiction campaigns, and Shining Path gained control of
as much as 9% of the Huallaga Valley.

The resurgence of Shining Path prompted President Garcia to prioritize
counter-insurgency over counter-narcotics. He left coca farmers unhindered
and even promoted a coca-growers cooperative.

At the same time, the Peru military "conducted at least 3 offenses against
Shining Path Guerillas, killing 7 guerillas (more than half the number
killed nationwide that year) and greatly improved security in the towns of
the upper Huallaga Valley. But U.S. officials, concerned that (General
Alberto Arciniega) had done nothing to fight coca cultivation, pressed the
Peruvian government for his transfer."

In other words, the U.S. government under the first Bush administration
pressured Peru to get rid of the general who was smashing the Shining Path
terrorists.

Stated another way, in order to protect foolish Americans from putting the
wrong substance up their noses, the American government undermined the war
on terrorism in Peru.

In recent years, Peru has acceded American demands to prioritize coca
eradication. A flood of American money has attempted to convince Peruvians
not to cultivate coca. From 1995-1, USAID alone provided $17 million to
Peru in alternative development funding.

Yet these efforts are hindered by the laws of economics. The Americans have
provided alternative crop subsidies for coffee, a crop whose production
costs exceed market value. In contrast, the price farmers get for coca
leaves is at an all time high of $3.5 per kilo compared to 4 cents per kilo
in 1995. (The Economist, "Spectres stir in Peru", Feb. 14, 2002.)

Half the population of Peru lives in poverty. Not the American "below the
poverty level" lifestyle of color television and so much food that obesity
is a serious problem. Peru has Third World poverty, with starvation and
abject desperation.

The hard reality is that farmers in Peru are being starved out by a
militarized anti-narcotics strategy. They can't see why they should be
prevented from growing an export crop that feeds their families. In Peru,
coca consumption dates back to the days of the Incas, with coca consumed by
chewing coca leaves. The effect is not all that different from caffeine
consumption. In the United States, though, the illegality of coca forces
sellers to sell the product in a much more concentrated (and, therefore,
much more concealable) forms: powder cocaine and crack cocaine. The
psychoactive effects and dangers are much greater, of course. Similarly,
American prohibition of alcohol caused a consumption shift away from beer
(large volume, low "kick") to gin (low volume, high "kick").

It is unrealistic to expect that Peruvian farmers trying to feed their
families are going to care much about how American drug laws change the way
that coca in consumed in North America. The farmers are ideal targets for
terrorists who offer to protect the coca crop and to buy it. Now, the
terrorists are convincing the farmers to plant poppy seeds too.

The "starve a Peruvian peasant to save an American coke-head" strategy has
been largely unsuccessful. According to the U.S. State Department, from
1995 to , coca cultivation in Peru was reduced from over 1, hectares to
around 34, hectares. The Peruvian Center for Social Studies disputes this,
claiming about 7, hectares under cultivation in 1. Peru's new drug czar,
Ricardo Vega Llona, suggests that the previous estimates of acres under
production may have been far too low. In any case, it is undisputed that
coca production is thriving, partly because producers have learned how to
plant more crop per acre.

As has been the case for decades, prohibition makes cocaine amazingly
profitable, which in turn allows narco-traffickers to move their operations
with relative ease in response to eradication and interdiction efforts.

Why on earth, then, would we continue with policies that virtually
guarantee income for the narco-traffickers and the terrorists who tax them,
while eradicating and fumigating the incomes of farmers who then have to
turn to those same terrorists for protection?

And if starving farmers in a country full of narco-dollars and insurgents
seems ripe ground for recruitment, a country where farmers starve for the
drug war while corrupt government officials use the drug war to line their
pockets is even riper.

The U.S. State Department's 1999 narcotics report on Peru claimed: The
government of Peru has denounced all forms of public corruption - There
have been no known cases of systemic institutional, narcotics related
corruption within government entities in the last few years, nor are there
any senior level government officials known to be engaged in drug
production, distribution or money laundering.

Apparently someone forgot to tell this to our longtime drug war partner
Vladimiro Montesinos, the de facto head of the Peruvian National
Intelligence Service (SIN) and the director of his own anti-narcotics
division (DIN).

While a panel of judges views hundreds of videotapes (or vladitapes as they
are known in Peru) of Montesinos bribing government officials and
politicians, Montesinos currently sits in a Lima jail cell charged with
over 8 crimes ranging from money laundering, organizing death squads,
protecting drug traffickers, and illegal-arms trafficking (selling ten
thousand AK-47s to the Colombian FARC terrorists). So far over $ million
(including over $5 million in U.S. banks) of Montesinos's illicit fortune
has been tracked down and seized.

Among the more than 7 high-ranking military and intelligence officials
arrested in association with the scandal is retired General Nicolas
Hermoza, Chief of the Armed Forces Joint Command through most of the
nineties. Hermoza has pled guilty to profiting from illegal arms deals, and
is fighting charges of running a drug-flight protection racket.

General Hermoza was America's partner in "Airbridge Denial" 97 the program
to shoot down planes suspected to be carrying drugs. It turns out that
General Hermoza was making sure that his favored traffickers got through
unhindered. Not so fortunate was an airplane full of American missionaries,
who were killed in a shootdown last summer. Although bad publicity from
killing a plane of innocent Americans led to a cessation of the shootdown
program, resumption is being planned.

What about Mr. Montesinos, the man who shipped AK-47s to the FARC
terrorists? He was the cornerstone of the American drug war in Peru. He was
also the prime support keeping Fujimori's dictatorship in power long after
it had lost popular support. In January, at the request of the new Peruvian
government, the U.S. released a decade's worth of diplomatic cables on the
relationship between the U.S. and Montesinos: Like it or not, he is the go
to guy, short of the president himself, on any
key issue, particularly any counter-narcotics issue (1999) "Nothing that
the government does on intelligence, enforcement and security issues occurs
without his blessing."

It has been reported that the CIA gave $1 million to Montesinos for his
Narcotics Intelligence Division (DIN) from 1990-2000.

Yet as the declassified documents show, Washington was aware as far back as
ten years that our "go to" guy might be working both sides of the street as
a narco-trafficker and a supporter of the "Colina" death squads in the
nineties. A 1991 embassy cable acknowledged, Fujimori's "senior advisor on
national security matters (Montesinos) is however linked to past narcotics
corruption."

A 1993 document details a Peruvian army officer who could "identify
officers who belonged to the special group (an army intelligence/SIN death
squad) testify about the group's killings and link (Montesinos) to the
Barrios Altos (in which 15 people were murdered) and other killings."

U.S. officials have justified the ongoing relationship with the known
murder, drug smuggler, and terrorist gunrunner on the grounds that although
"Montesinos carries a significant amount of baggage with him," he is "A
valued ally in the drug fight."

But of course, he was only valuable insomuch as Washington, D.C., made the
drug war in Peru a priority over human rights and antiterrorism.

Fujimori was ousted by the Congress in for "moral incapacity." Peru's new
president, Alejandro Toledo, is a Stanford-educated economist who worked
for both the World Bank and the United Nations. Mr. Toledo will have to
deal not just with homegrown Peruvian guerillas but migrating Colombian
insurgents as well.

On March 13, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on "Narco-Terror:
The worldwide connection between drugs and terrorism." At the hearings,
America's top drug warriors emphasized the relationship between drug
trafficking and terrorism.

Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement Affairs, testified that Shining Path's ability to "cut a
brutal swath" through Peru in the past was "largely funded by levies it
imposed on cocaine trafficking." He continued: "in 1 the SL (Shining Path)
had a slight resurgence in areas like the Huallaga and Apurimac Valleys,
where cocaine is cultivated and processed, indicating that the remnants of
the group are probably financing operations with drug profits from security
and taxation services."

A February 8 STRATFOR Intelligence brief reports that, thanks to an
expanding alliance with Colombian drug traffickers and the FARC, "Shining
Path is trying to re-build its numbers and weaponry by working in the
heroin trade. Peru is poised to become one of the world's heroin producers."

STRATFOR continues: "Although it is a shadow of its former self and does
not present a major threat to the Peruvian armed forces or government,
Shining Path is starting to build up its capacity to carry out low
intensity urban bomb attacks, kidnappings and political assassinations."

If history is any indication, a further expansion of U.S. law enforcement
and military anti-narcotics in Peru will only drive traffickers and growers
under the wing of both the Shining Path and FARC, allowing them the
resources to become a major threat again in Peru. A vicious cycle requiring
more and more U.S. involvement appears very possible.

Terrorists in the United States cannot overthrow our government, but they
are far stronger in South America. The drug war in the United States
attempts to protect American consumers from the consequences of their own
bad choices, but the effect of this effort to protect North American fools
is to put fragile South American governments in danger of being destroyed
by terrorists.

After September 11, it is time for the destruction of terrorism to be
America's foreign policy. No other goal should be allowed to interfere. It
is time to stop letting the drug war hinder the war on terrorism.