Inside the CIA cockpit, a voice recorder catches the low beat of pop music and the English and Spanish radio conversations of two American pilots and the Peruvian official aboard as they guide a Peruvian A37B toward the suspected drug flight.

But to each other, and in pidgin Spanish to the Peruvian official, the Americans mention their rising doubts that the plane contains a drug smuggler. Busy on his radio as the fighter closes in, the Peruvian turns to them and says, "What?"

Suddenly a loud voice breaks into the tape, screaming, "Me estan matando! Me estan matando!" They are killing me. They are killing me.

"No!" yells one of the CIA pilots to the Peruvian. "Don't shoot! No mas, no mas."

The Peruvian, in turn, shouts into his radio to the fighter pilot. "Stop! No mas! No mas!" No more.

The other CIA pilot expels a breath. "God," he murmurs.

The dramatic recording ends minutes later, as the small plane is seen drifting toward the Amazon River below. The tape was released yesterday by the State Department, along with a report from the joint U.S.-Peruvian investigation into the mistaken April 20 shootdown of a plane carrying American missionaries.

The report does not assign blame for the incident, which resulted in the deaths of a missionary woman, Veronica "Roni" Bowers, and her infant daughter, as well as the severe wounding of pilot Kevin Donaldson. But its description of the program under which the United States helped Peru to shoot down drug planes is of a tragedy waiting to happen.

When the program began in 1994, President Bill Clinton certified that Peru had rigorous procedures to prevent the loss of innocent lives. But those procedures "became less detailed and explicit" over the years, the report says.

According to Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, who headed the investigation, the original procedures were "abbreviated," both in joint training for the missions and in subsequent written agreements. What began as a careful, four-step process to identify and warn an aircraft before opening fire became three rapid phases: "Radio. Warning. Use of deadly force." Investigators, Beers said, "are not aware that anyone in Washington knew that these were the phases and that they had been abbreviated."

Donaldson, the missionary pilot, had not turned on the VHF radio that the Peruvian jet used in three warnings, all in the final 10 minutes of the incident. Donaldson was using a separate, high-frequency radio to call his wife in his home city of Iquitos, and to tell the Iquitos airport control tower he would arrive soon. The CIA plane heard his screams over that radio.

Although the registration number of Donaldson's plane was clearly written on its tail and on the fixed wing above the fuselage, it was not checked before the shootdown.

The jet pilot made no attempt to fly in front of Donaldson and waggle his wings, instructing him to land as prescribed by international aviation accords. Flying behind, where Donaldson could not see him, he fired warning shots above the missionary plane. But the fighter's nose was pointed toward the sky, as the pilot tried to avoid stalling at Donaldson's slow speed, so the missionaries never saw the shots passing above their plane.

Among the report's other conclusions:

• Key U.S. and Peruvian participants "narrowly viewed their respective command and control roles." Although the Americans raised questions in the final minutes, they were "out of the line of [Peruvian] command" -- a provision the United States had sought at the outset of the program so that U.S. liability for mistakes would be limited.

• The missionary plane was heading west into Peru, uncharacteristic of a drug flight. But Donaldson's flight path along the meandering Amazon River, and his failure to file a formal flight plan for the return portion of his trip to the Colombia-Brazil border, were interpreted as suspect. Donaldson, with years of flying experience in the area, maintained he was following standard procedure. Beers pointedly noted that the report "did not conclude that Mr. Donaldson was at fault."

• "Language limitations of Peruvian and American participants" aboard the CIA Cessna Citation V prevented them from communicating effectively with each other.

• "Communications systems overload" -- simultaneous conversations among the Americans and their ground stations in Peru and Florida; among the Peruvian official aboard the plane, his ground station and the jet fighter; and among those on the CIA plane, as well as extraneous radio noise and music in the cockpit -- also played a role in the tragedy.

The United States has credited the shootdown program with reducing drug exports. But it suspended the program in Peru, as well as a similar effort in Colombia, pending completion of the State Department investigation and a separate policy review. Beers said yesterday that the policy review, by former U.S. Ambassador Morris D. Busby, is complete. But he said he had no information on whether, or when, the Bush administration would resume the program.

Note: Lax Procedures Are Cited in Peru Shootdown.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
Published: Friday, August 3, 2001; Page A02
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letters@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Related Articles & Web Site:

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Casualties of The Drug Wars
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10513.shtml

Report: Errors Led to Plane Downing
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10511.shtml

Report Shows Why Peru Shot Down Plane
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10508.shtml

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Like I said, been hiding my head in the sand out of fear and did not know that a bracelet already existed!!! I like freedom fighters hemp ID bracelet idea. I wear a necklace made from hemp rope/string. This material lasts for years and years before it wears out. Now I understand why the synthetic fabric industry lobbied so hard to make hemp illegal. Eventually culminating in the current war on drugs and people. Sorta like what has happened to all the invented carburetors that get 80 miles to the gallon. What carburetors many of you ask? Exactly

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Dan B

• Drug War POW ID Bracelets

What a frustrating day it has been.

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La Viva Libtre!

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Mitchum

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Our system of government, as conceived by the Founders, should presently be comprised of fifty experiments in democracy, and exciting and inspiring form of government in which all could truly participate. And though this program would be fraught with error and misstep those errors could be quickly corrected and, I believe, we would live in a gloden age of material and cultural opulance. But so long as debate is stifled, so long as dissent is met by personal annihilation, so long as patriotic presidential candidates are barred from even entering the debate hall, as long as the broadcast media are controlled by government and corporate advertisers, we shall have to make do with strong character, high standards and our love for children.

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Yes, sadly, antis are human...too human. Prone to the same self-delusions we all are. The bad thing is, they are able to indulge those self-delusions with our tax dollars, and murder infants as a result of such indulgences.

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So obviously the people in control of this program knew that deaths of "innocents" would result, sooner or later, and they didn't care. It's like Ford and the Pinto. It's cheaper to tough out the bad publicity than to worry about a few deaths. This is a chilling reminder that these people are no longer human.

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Beers is a scary man, he still doesn't get it, the ends justify the means he keeps on parroting.

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If history does repeat...then this WAR like Prohibition will eventually end.

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• Media Awareness Project

If you do not think Big Brother is trying to keep tabs on everyone and everything...think again my friends.

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It also states that all air traffic controllers must know English, since that is the official language of Airplane pilots EVERYWHERE -- so I find it funny that they didn't even assign a peruvian on the CIA plane that knew english.

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I saw the video on my local ABC station last nite at 11. It was truly unbeliveable to watch the shooting down of this civilan airplane. They never knew what was happening. I don't see how much trouble it would be for these antis to just follow the plane till they land and then make sure they are smugglers before they are simply shot out of the sky without provoking anything. Can you imagine it if some other country was doing what we are doing? If it would have been, say a russian plane that guided the peruvian plane the US would freak out..

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I believe that, in retrospect, the Bowers Incident may just be the long awaited straw that breaks the camel's back. But that damn camel is a hardy monster; he'll keep on trampling people until the wound he received in the Amazon gets so infected it brings him down.

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Hopefully, someone somewhere outside the Post will get a copy of this thing and put it where it belongs, on Pot-TV or elsewhere on the 'net in downloadable video format so we can all judge for ourselves... after all, we paid for it, right?

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