PERU SEES DRUG FLIGHTS RELAUNCH, WASHINGTON MUM

Fri, 26 Apr 2002

China Daily (China)

Peru expects the United States soon to announce it will resume a program to catch drug flights in the Latin American country that was halted after the shooting of an American missionary plane, officials said on Thursday, but Washington said no decision had been made.

"The information we have received from a good source is that a high- ranking US official is apparently set to make the announcement ( to relaunch drug flights ) on Monday," said Ricardo Vega Llona, who handed his job as Peru's first anti-drug "czar" to successor Nils Ericsson on Thursday.

The United States until last year sponsored an aerial drugs interdiction program, supported by the CIA, in conjunction with the Peruvian military, over Peru and Colombia, the world's top two cocaine producing nations.

Americans helped staff surveillance planes and alerted Peruvian forces to suspected drug-trafficking flights.

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