Just Say Yes to Colombia and Peru

The Bush Administration has been showing flexibility lately in the tactics it is using to wage the war on drugs. In Colombia, that may bring progress in the government’s effort to control the biggest cocaine rings. But in Peru more must be done to discourage peasants from growing the coca leaves that are made into the deadly narcotic.

During a recent state visit by Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, Washington and Bogota signed a series of cooperative agreements that will keep the legal pressure on the Colombian drug rings. They include $41 million in police aid and a joint effort to control the production of chemicals used to process coca into cocaine, many of which are manufactured and sold in the United States.

But the most significant agreements involve more U.S. cooperation with the Colombian legal system, including the sharing of information and evidence. That should make it easier for Colombia to put drug suspects on trial in their homeland rather than trying to extradite them to the United States. That has been a politically controversial tactic in Colombia, and has been used by the most violent drug rings to justify a bloody campaign of terrorism against the government that has claimed many innocent lives. If it works out as hoped, the agreement could reassure the Colombian people that the terror may soon be over.

Unfortunately, the same week the Colombian cooperation agreements were signed, a series of anti-drug plans drawn up by the Peruvian government were turned down by Washington--although the rejection wasn’t permanent. Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori had hoped to receive $90 million in drug-war aid, some for his police but a significant amount also for some innovative economic development programs to wean Peruvian peasants from their dependence on coca as a cash crop.

Washington said that it needs assurances that Peru’s military, which has not been enthusiastic about cooperating with the drug war, will do more to help. Lima must move rapidly to provide those assurances. Fujimori’s anti-coca campaign is potentially important, and must not be allowed to flounder before it even gets a chance to work.