U.S. BACKS PLAN TO BRING DOWN DRUG PLANES

Rumsfeld Restarts Interdiction Policy In Visit To Colombia

Bogota, Colombia -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a one-day visit
to Colombia, said Tuesday that the United States would support that nation
in resuming a policy that allows Colombian fighter pilots to force or shoot
down planes suspected of ferrying drugs.

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

A White House statement said that 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 U.S. 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, U.S.
officials said, would a plane be downed.

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

A much 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 the visit by Rumsfeld, who arrived in
Bogota on Tuesday morning under tight security to underscore U.S. support
for President Alvaro Uribe.

The Uribe government has received $2.5 billion from Washington in mostly
military aid since 2000 for its battles against leftist rebels and drug
traffickers. Colombia is likely to get another $700 million 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. To move the drug, traffickers have
often relied on private aircraft.

"There are plenty of ways that illegal trade can move -- land, sea or air --

and if you're not attentive to the air, it becomes a preferred method,"
said Rumsfeld, who was traveling with reporters.

As in the past, the U.S. role in the drug interdiction plan will consist of
working closely with Colombian officials to identify suspect planes,
officials said.

Under the new policy, coordinates from U.S. 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.

The surveillance planes will have at least one bilingual observer, most
likely an American, to maintain contact with radar operators and Colombian
air force commanders, U.S. officials said. The pilots have also undergone
extensive language training.

This U.S. role will be overseen by the State Department, which has taken
over the program from the CIA. The State Department has contracted with
Arinc Inc., a Maryland-based aviation company, to train Colombian pilots
for the surveillance aircraft and other technicians. Previously, the work
was conducted by Dyncorp, another company with close links to the CIA.

Officials said that 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.

Human Rights Watch officials, who have met with U.S. and Colombian
officials to raise concerns, say the program violates America's own
use-of-force principles, which in law enforcement are limited to imminent
threats.

"To use force is equivalent to an extra-judicial execution," said Jose
Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.

Vivanco also criticized Velasco's role. Some U.S. officials have been
prodding Uribe to cashier Velasco because of the air force's role in the
1998 bombing of the village of Santo Domingo, in which 18 civilians were
killed.

The United States has banned aid to the air force unit responsible for the
bombing.

The air interdiction effort began in Peru in 1995 and quickly had a crucial
effect in the drug war in the Andes.

Drug traffickers had used small private planes to ferry coca paste, the
main ingredient for cocaine, from Peru to the Colombian jungle labs that
manufacture cocaine. About 40 planes were shot or forced down in Peru, and
others were seized on the ground. Increasingly, traffickers shifted to
ground or river transportation.

But on April 20, 2001, a Peruvian fighter shot down a plane carrying a
group of American missionaries, killing Veronica Bowers and her baby
daughter, Charity. A State Department report later found that the shooting
had been caused, in part, by a language barrier, lack of oversight and the
use of short cuts and improvisation during missions.