Attacking The Source

By Elaine Shannon

Meeting with Latin American police officials last spring, George Bush vowed to pursue drug traffickers "to the ends of the earth." If the Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru can be considered one of the ends of the earth -- and as an area of mostly trackless jungle, it qualifies -- the President was speaking literally. Today two U.S. State Department bulldozers are cutting a landing strip on the banks of the Huallaga River 300 miles northeast of Lima. From this base, the Peruvian National Police and U.S. drug-enforcement agents will mount paramilitary strikes on the valley's coca-processing centers and the airstrips used to fly out cocaine.

Later, the Drug Enforcement Administration people may be joined by U.S. military advisers. Under a plan promoted by William Bennett, director of national drug-control policy, the advisers are to train Peruvian soldiers in the art of "low-intensity" warfare against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas who control the Upper Huallaga. The insurgents finance their rebellion in part with fees from coca growers and refiners in the valley; U.S. intelligence reports say that lately they have directly gone into the coca-refining business.

Bennett's plan is part of a broader Andean initiative that would expand economic and military aid not only to Peru -- source of more than half of the world's coca -- but also to Bolivia and Colombia. That initiative, in turn, is part of an overall antidrug plan that calls for stiffer penalties against casual users, such as loss of a driver's license or of federal student loans. Already the plan is raising questions in Congress and even parts of the Administration. As the battle against drugs escalates, so will the complicating side effects, particularly in U.S. foreign policy.

The first complication is cost. Bennett proposes to increase antidrug expenditures about $1 billion, with $100 million to $270 million going into a superfund to finance the Andean initiative. Bush last week embraced Bennett's plan in broad outline, calling it "balanced, decisive, effective and achievable." The President was vague about where he would get the money, though he spoke of "reallocation of resources," meaning shifting funds from other programs.

Even if Bush does find the money, critics in and outside of the Administration wonder whether the Andean initiative will accomplish much. Peru will find it difficult to wean or bully its farmers from the cocaine trade unless economic growth opens markets for alternative products. But Peru's gross domestic product shrank 28% in the first quarter of 1989, and inflation has been running at 25% a month. In Bolivia officials contend that they need & $300 million to $500 million a year to develop legitimate alternatives for coca-farming peasants. That is considerably more than Bennett proposes to spend on the whole region. Democratic Congressman Larry Smith of Florida voices a typical congressional opinion: "I'm wary of sending large chunks of money to any country that doesn't demonstrate the capability of being able to use it properly."

The military aspects of the plan, however, are stirring the most misgivings. To fulfill Bush's campaign promise to "attack drugs at the source," more and heavier U.S. weapons would be dispatched to Colombia, and more arms and men to Peru and Bolivia. In Colombia drug gangsters killed three officials last week: gunmen assassinated Senator Luis Carlos Galan, a leading presidential candidate; the Medellin provincial police chief, and a local judge. The focus of the U.S. effort, though, would be on Peru, where attempts to eradicate the coca crop have been stalled since February because of attacks by guerrillas and traffickers. Some 34 eradication workers have been killed in the Upper Huallaga Valley since 1983. In May a DEA agent, five State Department contract employees and two Peruvian eradication officials died in a plane crash there. Until six months ago, the Peruvian army kept to its barracks in the Upper Huallaga, leaving Sendero insurgents free to terrorize the local populace. Now the army, trying to fight the guerrillas first, is ignoring the traffickers.

While the presence of U.S. military personnel in any Latin American nation is always a sensitive issue, Peruvian military leaders are desperate to turn back Sendero guerrillas. "I will take help from anyone who offers it," says a top Peruvian officer. In fact, contingents of American Green Berets have already been sent to Peru and Bolivia to train antinarcotics police units in countersubversion and jungle warfare.

Even so, Bennett's plan has stirred qualms within the Administration. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh worries about militarizing antidrug operations abroad. Says a Justice Department official: "Law-enforcement officers are trained to extract criminals from society, to think about the rights of innocent people and to be mindful of the sovereignty of other nations. Military forces are trained to take on whatever gets in the way, to destroy the enemy."

Secretary of State James Baker is said to have expressed concern that American soldiers will be easy targets for terrorists. When aid to Peru came up at a Cabinet meeting, Baker reportedly asked his aides to pick another country, where the U.S. would not have to worry about casualties (they could not find one).

And at the Pentagon, the Andean initiative raises inevitable whispers about another endless war in the jungle against elusive guerrillas. Bennett aides reply that the American soldiers will not go out on raids or act as field commanders in the manner of U.S. military advisers in Viet Nam. Says an official: "Viet Nam showed us that we can't do in a country what a country doesn't want to do for itself. That doesn't mean we can't help democracies that are young and fragile to solve a problem."

The initiative may run into obstacles on the scene too. For one thing, Peruvian army officials say their primary mission is to defeat the Sendero movement. "Wherever drug traffickers get close to the guerrillas, we will get them," says one. "But don't ask us to go against the people growing coca." Another obstacle is corruption. DEA agents and Upper Huallaga residents say traffickers pay "landing fees" to certain police officials to use local airstrips.

Nonetheless, the DEA is already plunging ahead with Operation Snowcap, a hemisphere-wide program that shifts emphasis from crop eradication to search- and-destroy missions against clandestine labs, airstrips, riverboats and warehouses. Last year DEA chief John Lawn, U.S. Ambassador Alexander Watson and Peruvian officials agreed to build a secure base for Snowcap activities in the Upper Huallaga. The deal called for the U.S. to haul bulldozers to a settlement called Santa Lucia, where an airstrip would be cleared so that cargo planes could land supplies. The State Department, however, objected to having U.S. Army Engineers air-drop the bulldozers; diplomats warned against political backlash if American military personnel were spotted in the valley. The final deal, worked out after Lawn brought the impasse to Bush's attention: State borrowed two bulldozers from a U.S. Agency for International Development project and had the Santa Lucia airstrip under way by early July.

South America is not the only place where the U.S. is putting pressure on friendly governments to crack down on the drug trade. But where the drug fight runs counter to other foreign policy objectives, the record is decidedly mixed. Standout example: in Burma the State Department last fall suspended support for Burma's antiopium campaign and ordered the DEA not to deal with Burmese officials. The action was meant to register displeasure with a repressive military regime, but some DEA agents contend that it disrupted still productive DEA-Burmese operations.

In Thailand DEA agents and consular officials based in the northern city of Chiangmai said the U.S. should seriously consider shutting down an antidrug program. Reason: official corruption had gone so far that heroin was sometimes being transported in Thai police vehicles or even army helicopters, making the program a joke. The embassy, however, decided to live with the problem because it could see no alternative.

Prospects have brightened in Pakistan and Mexico. Haji Mirza Iqbal Baig, described as a heroin kingpin, surrendered to Pakistani police in early August; they hope he will help convict other powerful smugglers. In Mexico President Carlos Salinas de Gortari is prosecuting some formerly untouchable drug lords and officials, notably Jose Antonio Zorrilla Perez, the feared former chief of the Federal Security Directorate. But the State Department and the DEA are split over what to do about Cuba. State officials dismiss the executions of General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez and three other officers, allegedly for drug trafficking, as being really intended to destroy Fidel Castro's rivals. DEA officials argue that whatever Castro's motives, his antidrug posturing should be exploited.

Where U.S. geopolitical interests collide with drug policy, geopolitics usually wins. Bennett's plan may change that. After years of complaining that Washington was not serious about the drug fight, the public may soon learn the cost of fighting a full-scale war -- at home and abroad.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: THE BIG SUPPLIERS

With reporting by Sharon Stevenson/Lima, and other bureaus