U.S. SET TO HELP COLOMBIA INTERCEPT PLANES

BOGOTA - In less than two days, the United States will start helping the
Colombian Air Force to force down planes suspected of flying drugs and
weapons, using a new safety checklist designed to prevent deadly mishaps,
officials from both countries said Wednesday.

The program in which U.S. government contractors assisted the Colombian and
Peruvian air forces to track and force or shoot down suspect planes was
suspended April 2001 after the Peruvian jet shot down a missionary flight
mistaken for a drug smuggling plane. A Michigan woman and her infant
daughter were killed, revealing a series of sloppy procedures that caused
the tragedy.

For now, the program remains halted in Peru. After a nearly 2 1/2-year
study, however, the tracking will resume in Colombia with modifications to
protect legal civilian aircraft and make lethal force the last resort, U.S.
officials said Wednesday.

=95 Authorities have written a three-phase safety checklist to ensure all
warnings have been delivered before a suspect plane is shot down.

=95 A U.S. contractor -- fluent in Spanish -- will be aboard the
radar-equipped tracking plane to make sure the checklist is followed.
Another U.S. monitor will be on the ground. The monitors will not have the
authority to halt the operation, but can object.

=95 The tracking planes, provided by the United States, will be flown by a
Colombian crew, which would prevent communication problems with central
command on the ground.

In the Peru case, the American contractors flying the tracking plane didn't
speak much Spanish -- and the Peruvians piloting the attack aircraft were
not fluent in English.

''Now everyone on the plane will all speak the same language: Spanish,'' a
U.S. official said.

The Colombian Air Force maintained the program without U.S. help these past
two years, but was woefully in need of the more advanced radars carried by
the U.S. airplanes, Colombian Air Force Commander Hector Velasco said at a
press conference.

In the last year the U.S. airplanes were used, 25 planes were forced to
land or shot down. The following year: four. Another four were intercepted
so far this year, a jump Velasco attributes to drug traffickers' desperate
rush to get drugs out before interceptions resume.

''The benefits of this program are not just for the air force,'' Velasco
said. ``They're for the whole country.''

Nobody believes the intercept program -- costing Washington $50 million
over four years -- will dissuade the pilots who smuggle out drugs and fly
in weapons for Colombia's guerrilla groups.

''They are going to test it to see how good the interception is,'' the U.S.
official said.

The official stressed the crews tracking the planes will have to go through
a three-phase process before shooting a plane out of the sky.

First, they must take all steps to identify the plane through its tail
numbers, radio calls, or visual signs. Phase two, which requires permission
from a Colombian air force commander, allows warning shots. The third
phase, which requires permission again, is to shoot at the plane with the
aim of forcing it to land safely.

''The objective here is not to shoot down planes,'' Colombian Vice Defense
Minister Andres Soto told The Herald. ``It's intercepting air corridors
that are being used for drugs.''

Despite the modifications, the program came under attack from human rights
groups that accuse Americans of designing a program they could never
implement at home, where deadly force can only be used in self- defense.

''They are authoring and supporting a policy they wouldn't be able to use
in the United States, because it is simply illegal,'' said Jose Miguel
Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division.