13 February 2002

State Department Says Peru to Get Major Boost in Anti-Drug Funding

Washington -- The United States will increase counter-narcotics funding to Peru, one of the world's largest producers of cocaine, to $156 million in fiscal year 2002 from the previous level of about $50 million in FY 2001, according to a State Department official in Washington.

The official, backing up figures used by the U.S. envoy to Peru, John Hamilton, said about $82 million of that money will go toward alternative development programs aimed at encouraging farmers to stop growing the coca plant, the raw material for cocaine. The total funding package also includes money for repairing helicopters in the anti-drug fight and for regular economic development assistance to strengthen Peru's national economy, said the official.

In a February 10 interview with the Peruvian newspaper, El Comercio, Hamilton said that counter-narcotics funding "is going to see a tremendous increase. In the case of Peru, it will mean tripling the funding in the fight against anti-narcotics."

Asked how much coca was in Peru, Hamilton indicated new figures will be in shortly. At the end of 2000, he said, the country had produced 34,000 hectares of coca, and that the results for 2001 will be on about that level, making the country the world's second largest producer of coca after Colombia. [Note: 2001 estimates subsequently released show a net decline of 200 hectares.]

Hamilton indicated that U.S. counter-narcotics funds will be used to upgrade Peru's fleet of helicopters to enable them to monitor Peru's higher regions, where much of the poppy cultivation takes place.

U.S. counter-drug funding for Colombia in fiscal year 2002 is $380.5 million, the State Department official in Washington said. For Bolivia, another nation where cocaine production is a major problem, U.S. counter-narcotics funding is $93 million in fiscal year 2002 if regular economic development aid is counted in the tally, the official said.

Hamilton indicated that the United States is considering the feasibility of resuming support of an anti-drug air interdiction program over Peru, suspended in 2001 An announcement of a decision could be made by the time of President Bush's visit to Lima March 23, Hamilton said, if agreement on new safeguards is reached. That visit comes between the president's March 22 trip to Mexico where he will meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox and a March 24 visit to El Salvador where Bush will confer with Salvadoran President Francisco Flores.

The air interdiction program was suspended when the Peruvian air force shot down a plane carrying a U.S. missionary and her infant in the mistaken belief that the plane was being used for drug-running.