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Subject: The Battle in 'Cocaine Valley'<By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak<
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 04:45:04 EST
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The Battle in 'Cocaine Valley'<By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak<

 SANTA LUCIA, Peru - Viewed from this U.S.-built military base
cut out of the jungles of the Upper Huallaga Valley, there is no
doubt the war against the drug traffickers is being lost - and
lost badly.

 The brave men, Peruvians and Americans, at this isolated,
dangerous outpost in the "cocaine valley" are engaged in a futile
struggle to interdict source material for 60 percent of the
world's cocaine production. At best, operations from Santa Lucia
are cutting off one percent of the coca crop. "The way this is
being fought is ...  not effective," President Alberto Fujimori
told us.

 That challenges President-elect Clinton. He can continue
President Bush's cold shoulder to Fujimori because of the
Peruvian's authoritarian methods. Or Clinton can sit down to
resume the aborted U.S.-Peru dialogue about what is in both coun-
tries' interest: getting the peasants of the Upper Huallaga out
of coca production.  The situation is described by retired Maj.
F. Andy Messing, an expert on low-intensity warfare, as entering
the worst stage of narco-guerrilla conflict when drug traffickers
pay off both sides. Shining Path terrorists are financed by the
drug cartels, which have also corrupted substantial elements of
Peru's armed forces. American advisers here confirmed to us a
hostile attitude by the Army and Marines. Underpaid Peruvian off-
icers rotate rapidly in assignments here to get on the gravy
train.

 Although Peruvian National Police at Santa Lucia seem free of
corruption, their problem is the futility of trying to cover
720,000 acres of coca grown in what used to be triple-canopy jun-
gle. As we flew over the valley in an armed Peruvian Air Force
helicopter, we could see the drying pads for coca plants and lit-
tle roads used as runways by the cartel's planes carrying coca
paste into Colombia.

 What to do about them is another matter. A helicopter carrying
drug police will spot a coca paste laboratory. Before the chopper
can land, campesinos (peasants) have fled and thrown coca paste
into the underbrush. The police have less than 20 minutes' rotor
time left on the helicopter to find a needle in a haystack. They
seldom do.

 One success was scored recently at Saposoa with the capture of
1,800 kilos of coca paste, worth more than $100,000 but bringing
far more when transformed into cocaine across the border in
Colombia. It was an unusual catch, as reflected in the attitude
of the drug policemen who accompanied us and the huge bags of
contraband on a Corsair cargo plane over the "hump" of the Andes
into Lima. "It's a token," said Messing, who was with us. "If
they brought in 1,800 kilos every day, I would be impressed."

 Authorities' bragging about drug captures is reminiscent of
claimed body counts in Vietnam over two decades ago, just as San-
ta Lucia recalls the strategic hamlets of that ill-fought war. It
too contains Americans dressed in camouflage fatigues without in-
signia and carrying sidearms, earnestly training local forces.
Drug traffickers have moved laboratories out of the base's hel-
icopter range, but there is no sign that production has been re-
duced one iota. It would be highly dangerous to wander outside
Santa Lucia's fortified walls. That there is never even a harass-
ing attack on the base suggests the narco-guerrillas do not con-
sider it much of a threat.

 A dozen more such bases throughout the valley might dent the
problem. But that would have to be in combination with 24-hour
radar to intercept aircraft and, more important, a development
plan to give the campesinos an alternative way to make a living.

 Any chance the United States would spend that kind of money was
crushed April 5, when a frustrated Fujimori dissolved Peru's net-
tlesome congress and assumed personal rule. Last Sunday's elec-
tions will not assuage the hostility of the U.S.  Congress.

 Even before Fujimori's seizure of power, negotiations between
him and President Bush to get 250,000 coca farmers into other
crops had collapsed.  World-renowned economist Hernando de Soto,
author of this scheme, had resigned as Fujimori's drug adviser
amid mutual recriminations between him and the U.S.  Embassy. De
Soto insisted to us in Lima that campesinos want to be free of
depending on drug gangsters, and he sees the chance for multina-
tional corporations to invest here if the governments in Lima and
Washington are behind the plan.

 However, much would be required in contributions from U.S.  tax-
payers; what they are spending here now is money down the drain
as far as stanching the drug supply is concerned. Fujimori told
us he wants to see Clinton to develop an international plan to
eradicate Peru's poison. Indeed, if coca is grown in the Upper
Huallaga Valley, it will continue to corrupt this country and in-
fect the world.

  1992, Creators Syndicate Inc.=02:09 11-25C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
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