Attacking The Source

Meeting with Latin American police officials last spring, George Bush vowed to pursue drug traffickers "to the ends of the earth." If the Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru can be considered one of the ends of the earth -- and as an area of mostly trackless jungle, it qualifies -- the President was speaking literally. Today two U.S. State Department bulldozers are cutting a landing strip on the banks of the Huallaga River 300 miles northeast of Lima. From this base, the Peruvian National Police and U.S. drug-enforcement agents will mount paramilitary strikes on the valley's coca-processing centers and the airstrips used to fly out cocaine.

Later, the Drug Enforcement Administration people may be joined by U.S. military advisers. Under a plan promoted by William Bennett, director of national drug-control policy, the advisers are to train Peruvian soldiers in the art of "low-intensity" warfare against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas who control the Upper Huallaga. The insurgents finance their rebellion in part with fees from coca growers and refiners in the valley; U.S. intelligence reports say that lately they have directly gone into the coca-refining business.

Bennett's plan is part of a broader Andean initiative that would expand economic and military aid not only to Peru -- source of more than half of the world's coca -- but also to Bolivia and Colombia. That initiative, in turn, is part of an overall antidrug plan that calls for stiffer penalties against casual users, such as loss of a driver's license or of federal student loans. Already the plan is raising questions in Congress and even parts of the Administration. As the battle against drugs escalates, so will the complicating side effects, particularly in U.S. foreign policy.

The first complication is cost. Bennett proposes to increase antidrug expenditures about $1 billion, with $100 million to $270 million going into a superfund to finance the Andean initiative. Bush last week embraced Bennett's plan in broad outline, calling it "balanced, decisive, effective and achievable." The President was vague about where he would get the money, though he spoke of "reallocation of resources," meaning shifting funds from other programs.

Even if Bush does find the money, critics in and outside of the Administration wonder whether the Andean initiative will accomplish much. Peru will find it difficult to wean or bully its farmers from the cocaine trade unless economic growth opens markets for alternative products. But Peru's gross domestic product shrank 28% in the first quarter of 1989, and inflation has been running at 25% a month. In Bolivia officials contend that they need & $300 million to $500 million a year to develop legitimate alternatives for coca-farming peasants. That is considerably more than Bennett proposes to spend on the whole region. Democratic Congressman Larry Smith of Florida voices a typical congressional opinion: "I'm wary of sending large chunks of money to any country that doesn't demonstrate the capability of being able to use it properly."