Toward a New Foreign Policy.

In March 2001, Gen. Peter Pace, the commander of U.S. military forces in the Andean region, told a congressional committee that the "ability to execute effective [counternarcotics] operations is often hampered by restrictions on sharing data with our partner nations." Pace suggested that the U.S. "streamline sharing procedures that are currently used for time sensitive counterdrug information." The shoot-down of the missionary aircraft in Peru less than a month after Pace's testimony suggests, however, that such procedures should be tightened rather than relaxed.

Prior to the Clinton administration's decision to support the shoot-down policy, the U.S. had long opposed the use of weapons against unarmed civil aircraft. The U.S. vigorously condemned the Soviet Union's shoot-down of a Korean jet in 1984 and the Cuban air force's downing of aircraft piloted by a Cuban-American group in 1996. Indeed, the international convention on civil aviation could not be clearer on this point: "Every state must refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and that, in the case of interception, the lives of persons onboard and the safety of aircraft must not be endangered."

A State Department position paper, drawn up in 1989 to oppose an effort by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to authorize a counterdrug shoot-down policy for the U.S., made the following points:

   The U.S. could not adopt such a policy without signalling [sic] its
   appropriateness for other nations, some that would be far less careful than
   the United States ... Once such a practice begins, it will have dangerous
   and widespread consequences that could affect the safety of innocent U.S.
   citizens. As the world leader in civil aviation, the United States would
   have more to lose than any other country in the development of such a
   practice.

The Department of Justice expressed concern that the policy "would obviate many of the procedural safeguards fundamental to our system of criminal jurisprudence," questioning whether "the taking of lives without due process of law would be held constitutional by the courts." Aside from being illegal under domestic and international law, the policy undermines U.S. efforts to protect its own civil aircraft, subjects the U.S. to international criticism, and has now resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens.

The Bush administration should reject the use of weapons against civil aircraft under any circumstances. Congress should approve legislation recently introduced by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) that would ban the U.S. from providing information to help foreign countries in forcing or shooting down aircraft suspected of drug-related operations. The provision of real-time aerial tracking assistance should be suspended until Peru and Colombia abandon the policy.

Second, the U.S. should clarify its policy toward Colombia, and deal openly and honestly with the complexities of that country's internal conflict. The GAO noted in 1999 that "the sharing of intelligence information with the Colombian military creates an operational and policy dilemma for U.S. officials in drawing a distinction between support for counternarcotics versus counterinsurgency activities." If the U.S. intends to support the counterinsurgency operations of the Colombian army, then this should be openly acknowledged so that Congress and the public can debate the merits of U.S. involvement. To continue to provide guerrilla-related intelligence under the guise of counterdrug assistance only confuses the issue and mischaracterizes the essentially political nature of a decades-old armed conflict that has only recently crossed paths with the drug trade.

Finally, President Bush should order the immediate declassification of documents pertaining to Peruvian officials now under investigation for corruption, terrorism, and other human rights crimes. The declassification process would shed much-needed light on the history of the U.S. intelligence program in Peru, and also demonstrate how the U.S. might in the future avoid developing cooperative intelligence relationships with individuals likely to use that information in violation of international law or human rights. Noted one Peruvian congressman, "If U.S. intelligence did not know what was going on, it certainly should have. You can't just offer that kind of assistance to a government like Fujimori's and then take no responsibility for the consequences."

Key Recommendations

* The U.S. should not resume the sharing of intelligence in support of the shoot-down policy employed by Peru and Colombia.

* The U.S. should cease providing guerrilla-related intelligence to Colombia under the guise of counterdrug intelligence.

* President Bush should order the immediate declassification of documents pertaining to Colombian and Peruvian officials now under investigation for corruption, terrorism, or other human rights crimes.

Michael L. Evans <[e-mail]> is the director of the Colombia Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research organization located at George Washington University that works for the declassification of documents under the Freedom of Information Act. He is author of several National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Books. The views expressed here are his alone and do not reflect those of the National Security Archive.