Pubdate: Wed, 02 May 2001 Source: Detroit Free Press (MI) Copyright: 2001 Detroit Free Press Contact: http://www.freep.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125 Author: Craig Linder PERU ATTACK STIRS DEBATE ON ANTIDRUG MISSIONS WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers questioned Tuesday whether American forces should continue to be involved with the type of antidrug-smuggling efforts that claimed the lives of a Muskegon woman and her infant daughter. Veronica (Roni) Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed April 20 when a Peruvian air force jet opened fire on their missionary plane, mistaking it for a drug runner. "We must carefully consider whether we should continue to embrace a policy that can and has resulted in unnecessary, unwarranted and totally unacceptable loss of life," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. Hoekstra's western Michigan congressional district includes Muskegon, where the Bowers family lived before moving to Peru to do missionary work in 1993. At a House subcommittee hearing into the attack, Hoekstra of Holland and Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., said the American and Peruvian governments are both accountable for the incident. A team of U.S. officials from the agencies involved in the government's Latin America antidrug efforts are currently evaluating whether the Peruvian pilots and the CIA crew members guiding them from a surveillance aircraft followed proper procedures before the Peruvians opened fire. John Crow, who heads the Latin American operations of the State Department's narcotics and law enforcement bureau, said the U.S. inquiry into the attack could be completed this week. Pointing to a 68-percent reduction in Peruvian cocaine production since the antidrug flights began in 1995, Robert Brown Jr., of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the U.S.-Peruvian drug interdiction flights are important in the war on drugs. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe