Pubdate: Mon, 28 May 2001
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2001 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.herald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Juan O. Tamayo

NARCOTICS FLIGHTS SWARMING COLOMBIA

Suspension Of U.S. Radar Opens Skies To Traffickers

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Drug smuggling airplanes have been swarming into 
Colombia since U.S. radar planes stopped assisting with air interdictions 
after the mistaken downing of an American missionary's plane in Peru, 
according to the commander of the Colombian air force.

Ten to 12 flights a week are dashing in from Brazil and Venezuela, 
"significantly higher" than before U.S. radar assistance was halted April 
20, said Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco. On May 1-3 alone, 13 flights were 
spotted, he added.

"The narcos are trying to take out as much cocaine as they can now that 
they know the Americans have suspended their operations," Velasco told The 
Herald in an interview.

Since each aircraft -- usually a single-engine airplane -- can carry at 
least 500 pounds of cocaine, the May 1-3 flights alone could add up to 
three tons of cocaine exported from Colombia, said one U.S. 
counter-narcotics expert.

Velasco said he relayed the alarming figures recently to U.S. Ambassador 
Anne Patterson in hopes of quickly persuading Washington to resume 
providing radar-tracking data to Colombia's air force.

"What I told the ambassador was that they have to take into account -- I 
don't judge Peru, I don't know how they operate -- that we have been 
operating very responsibly to avoid accidents," Velasco said.

Washington stopped sharing radar tracks with Peru and Colombia after a 
CIA-run radar plane guided the Peruvian air force to the shoot-down of a 
small aircraft mistaken for a drug runner. An American missionary and her 
baby daughter were killed.

The accident caused an uproar in Washington, with some members of Congress 
calling for a thorough reassessment of the tracking program and the role of 
Aviation Development Corp., the private firm contracted by the CIA to 
operate its Cessna Citation V surveillance jets.

A joint U.S.-Peruvian investigation of the shoot-down is expected to end 
next month, but U.S. officials are making no promises that the tracking 
program will be resumed.

"This is a very key issue for us to get right," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, 
head of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, said when asked last week 
when U.S. radar planes would start again to help Colombia.

"The decision is pending in Washington," added Patterson, who accompanied 
Pace to the graduation of the third Colombian army counter-narcotics 
battalion trained by U.S. Special Forces under a $1.3 billion aid package.

Cautious Approach

Velasco argued, however, that Colombia's air interdiction program is 
different from Peru's -- more cautious and less reliant on U.S. radar for 
the final phases of the interceptions.

Colombia has used its own radar to continue interdicting suspected drug 
planes since April 20. Last week it forced three small aircraft carrying 
semi-processed coca base to land at military bases, he said. Velasco said 
Colombia has six ground-based radars around the nation, is planning to add 
two or three more and will soon receive two turbo-prop planes equipped with 
sophisticated F-16 radars for counter-drug surveillance.

But Colombia needs help quickly from the more powerful U.S. radar, he 
added, because Colombia's interceptor aircraft are based far from its 
borders and require the earliest warnings possible to be able to intercept 
more of the suspect planes.

Most of the smuggling flights spotted in the last month have been landing 
in the far eastern jungles of Colombia, Velasco said, less than 150 miles 
from the borders of Brazil and Venezuela to the east and Peru to the south.

The Colombian radars have maximum ranges of only 100-200 miles, he added, 
and the base for the air force's A-37, OV-10 and T-27 interceptors is in 
the town of Apiay, some 300 miles from the nearest frontier.

"The big U.S. radar planes, like the AWACs out over the Atlantic or over 
Peru, used to give us early warning of the incoming planes so that we could 
meet them at the borders," said Velasco. "Now, by the time we get out there 
most of the smugglers have landed and sometimes even left already."

Less Reliance On U.S.

He added that because Colombia has enough radars for the latter phases of 
an interdiction -- shoot-down or force-down -- the air force relied less on 
CIA radar aircraft that also flew from Apiay.

The CIA Citation involved in the Peru incident was within sight of the 
missionaries' plane, using its radio to guide in the Peruvian A-37B 
interceptor that shot down the slow-flying single-engine Cessna with a 
burst from its machine guns.

"The big American planes help us in the initial phase -- that's what we're 
asking for -- but the second phase of the operation, the approach phase, is 
almost always totally ours," Velasco said.

Velasco said the CIA Citations that operated from Apiay had left the air 
base after the Peru incident. "They are gone now, very quiet," he said.

While repeatedly saying that he did not want to compare Colombia's air 
interdiction program with Peru's, Velasco also made it clear he considered 
Colombia's far more cautious when it comes to shooting down planes.

"We almost always get them on the ground . . . because we're much more 
careful," he said, adding that his pilots had shot or forced down 23 planes 
since the interdiction program began in 1998 and seized 17 on the ground.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager