cannabisnews.com: U.S. Plane Monitored Peru's Shooting U.S. Plane Monitored Peru's Shooting Posted by FoM on April 21, 2001 at 16:40:45 PT By Monte Hayes, The Associated Press Source: Associated Press A U.S. surveillance plane monitored the Peruvian air force's downing of a plane carrying American missionaries mistaken for drug smugglers, a U.S. Embassy official said Saturday. A woman and her infant daughter from Michigan were killed in the shooting and crash. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say whether the U.S. aircraft provided the position of the single-engine floater plane shot down Friday. But he said U.S. tracking planes routinely pass along information to Peruvian authorities about suspicious aircraft in the northern jungle region bordering Colombia and Brazil, a common route for cocaine trafficking. Since the early 1990s, Peru has been a key South American ally in the United States' war on drug trafficking. Once the world's leading producer of coca leaf, the raw material used to make cocaine, Peru supplied Colombia's Medellin and Cali drug organizations. Much of that cocaine went to the United States, the world's biggest consumer of the drug. U.S. officials have hailed Peru's coca eradication efforts as a success. CIA data released in January showed Peru's coca production fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2000. The Embassy official's statement came after one of the three survivors reportedly said that an American aircraft was flying nearby when the Peruvian jet shot down the missionaries' plane Friday morning. The survivors told of how their pilot, a second-generation missionary, was shot in the leg during the flight. He then lost control of the flaming plane before managing to guide it into Amazon River, where they floated on the craft's pontoons for a half-hour before being rescued by local villagers. The missionaries' plane was en route from the Brazil-Peru border to the city of Iquitos, about 625 miles northeast of Lima, when it was attacked, said the Rev. E.C. Haskell, spokesman for the New Cumberland, Pa.,-based group, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. Amid conflicting reports about whether the missionaries' plane had a flight plan, the U.S. official in Lima said "a U.S. government tracking aircraft was in the area in support of the Peruvian intercept mission. ... As part of an agreement between the United States and Peru, the United States provides tracking information on planes suspected of smuggling illegal drugs in the region to the Peruvian air force." But, he added, "the U.S. government tracking aircraft used for this purpose are unarmed and do not participate in any way in the shooting down of suspect planes." Peru's air force issued a statement early Saturday confirming that the missionaries' plane was shot down after it was detected at 10:05 a.m. local time by "an air space surveillance and control system" run jointly by Peru and the United States. The statement said the plane entered Peruvian air space from Brazil without filing a flight plan and that it was fired on after the pilot failed to respond to "international procedures of identification and interception." But Mario Justo, chief of Iquitos' airport, said the plane did have a flight plan and that its pilot was in radio contact with Iquitos' airport control tower, offering periodic reports on his position. The plane was expected to land in Iquitos at about 11:10 a.m. local time, but failed to check in with a radio report. He later added that he did not know precisely when the plane was shot down. "The control tower in Iquitos informed the air force and requested assistance," Justo told The Associated Press. "I have information that there was contact with the tower and if there hadn't been a flight plan, we wouldn't have known about the flight's existence." In Quebec, where he was attending the Summit of the Americas, President Bush said Saturday he will "wait to see all the facts" before assigning blame for the deaths. But shootings of aircraft carrying suspected drug traffickers is nothing new. Between 1994 and 1997, Peru shot down about 25 suspected drug planes on their way to Colombian cocaine refineries from coca-growing regions in Peru's Amazon. The actions were the result of former President Alberto Fujimori's tough anti-narcotics policies in an effort to reducing trafficking in coca leaf. In Friday's shooting, Missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old adopted daughter, Charity, were both killed and pilot Kevin Donaldson was wounded, Haskell said. Also on board and unhurt were Bowers' husband, Jim Bowers, 38, and their 6-year-old son Cory, said Haskell. The family is from Muskegon, Mich., and Donaldson is from Morgantown, Pa., Haskell said. The missionary group has worked in Peru since 1939, according to its Web site. It helps found Baptist churches in the Iquitos area and other parts of the upper Amazon, and sends missionaries into remote areas along the river's tributaries. Donaldson's wife, Bobbi, said her husband guided the plane into the river, where it flipped over. Veronica Bowers was holding her daughter on her lap when a bullet struck her in the back and then hit the child, Bobbi Donaldson said in a telephone interview from her home in Iquitos. "There were two rounds of fire," and the Peruvian jet fighter continued to fire as the plane went down, she said. Quoting survivors, Bobbi Donaldson said local villagers brought the three survivors and two dead bodies to shore. After her husband "filled one canoe with blood, they put him a speedboat to take him for help" to a nearby jungle clinic, she said. He remained there Saturday morning. The Bowers had been returning from Leticia, Colombia, where they had picked up a Peruvian residency visa for Charity, Bobbi Donaldson said. She said another Peruvian air force plane -- called in by the jet fighter -- took Jim Bowers, his son, his dead wife and daughter to Iquitos. The Rev. Bill Rudd, the Bowers' minister in Fruitport, Mich., said the family planned to return to the United States on Saturday. Complete Title: U.S. Plane Monitored Peru's Shooting of U.S. Missionaries Over Amazon On the Net: Association of Baptists for World Evangelism: http://www.abwe.org/family/family.htm Source: Associated PressAuthor: Monte Hayes, The Associated PressPublished: April 21, 2001Copyright: 2001 Associated PressRelated Articles:Bush Expresses Sorrow For Americans Killed http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9446.shtmlAccounts Differ On Why Plane Shot Down http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9445.shtmlAmericans Shot Down Over Peru 2 Killedhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9439.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #7 posted by Baaad Bobby Hughes on April 22, 2001 at 15:44:15 PT christians http://www.churchofreality.org/opinion/christian.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by jack torrance on April 22, 2001 at 15:05:50 PT: drugs and abortion i think its funny that the conservative right in the usafight so hard to save the life of an unborn, mindless, unproductive fetus but are perfectly comfortable throwingmature adults who contribute thought and intelligence to society in jail for merely smoking a joint. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by Revolutionary30.06 on April 21, 2001 at 22:21:53 PT Damn evangelists Not surprising this has happened again. The War On Some Drugs killing innocents, although usually when this happens it's in the United States, if it happens in South America we don't normally hear about it. Is there a site that keeps names of the innocent victims of the drug war like the eleven year-old killed in Modesto, CA last September and the 60 year-old man killed by a SWAT team when the wrong house was raided or Ismael Mena of Denver, Co who suffered when a cop lied on a search warrant. I doubt our government will ever accept responsibilty for this recent tragedy.On another note what are Pennsylvania evangelists doing in Peru and Brazil. Haven't the lives of these Native Americans been corrupted enough. "Let's teach them to worship Jesus and then we can give them some food and clothing" Anyone ever see the Simpson's episode when Homer is sent to a tropical island as a missionary?? http://www.gwbush.com [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by The GCW on April 21, 2001 at 18:47:40 PT Write to those editors! Lets do what we can to request that newspaper editors follow up on this story. A few more letters showing support and appreciation for getting this news may help in getting more.If this happens and it makes no difference, what if it happens again, will it then make a difference? What is the line that it would take to make a difference? 10 more planes down? Is it an IGNOIDIAL problem, and there is no line that will make a difference? 20 more planes down will not deter the U.S. militia style machine while it is out of control. Are we commited to IGNOID INSANITY, regardless of what happens! Does this show a seperation from what our true society & citizens want and what the political leaders are capable to ream? Have we lost control of our political leaders? [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Phaedrus on April 21, 2001 at 18:31:11 PT: kaptinemo's In Utero Killing The GOP has already looked at killing the future drug users in utero, but decided that it looked too much like abortion. But there's a bright side. I think they're working on a measure that would allow infants over two months of age to be tried as adults. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on April 21, 2001 at 18:15:50 PT: Pontius Pilate would be proud... "Amid conflicting reports about whether the missionaries' plane had a flight plan, the U.S. official in Lima said "a U.S. government tracking aircraft was in the area in support of the Peruvian intercept mission. ... As part of an agreement between the United States and Peru, the United States provides tracking information on planes suspected of smuggling illegal drugs in the region to the Peruvian air force." But, he added, "the U.S. government tracking aircraft used for this purpose are unarmed and do not participate in any way in the shooting down of suspect planes."Sophistry. Sheer sophistry.The US gave them the money to purchase the aircraft. Money for the fuel. Mercenaries to act as mechanics and armorers. Trained their pilots. Provided 'intelligence' (amazing, though, isn't it, that intelligence seems to have fled the minds of all parties involved in this rank insanity?) and enabled the Peruvian Air Force to track, engage and destroy what was literally a single engine puddle-jumper.And then they have the brass balls to say that they have no responsibility for what happened? It couldn't have happend without the hearty help of the US DrugWarrior establishment - and the money extorted from US taxpayers to pay for it all.I'm waiting. I'm waiting for some arsenloche policy wonk in DC to off-handedly say, oh-so-nonchalantly and dismissively, that we have to expect innocents to die in this 'splendid little war' of theirs. I'm waiting to hear how killing a little baby and her mother who was holding her in her lap is going to advance the cause of the DrugWar one iota. (Oooops! I forgot; they've already established a precedent for murdering innocents. They've killed innocent children before: Esequiel Hernandez and Alberto Sepulveda. And now a 7 month old baby. Getting younger all the time. Soon they'll be killing them in utero in order to 'save' them from the 'terrible scourge of drugs.')Excuse me; I am so angry I don't know whether to s**t or go blind... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Dan Hillman on April 21, 2001 at 17:51:15 PT Golly! Gee Willikers! Innocents getting caught up in drug war crossfire....never saw that one coming. Of course, anyone native to the area getting mistakenly gunned down by trigger-happy drug patrols are mere collateral damage, invisible to the US press. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: