From: [C reuters] at [clari.net] (Reuter / Andrew Cawthorne)
Newsgroups: clari.world.americas.peru,clari.news.alcohol+drugs,clari.world.americas.south
Subject: Peru says drug traffickers may have infiltrated army
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Reuters
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:10:05 PDT
Expires: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 14:10:05 PDT
                                         
         LIMA, Peru (Reuter) - President Alberto Fujimori implicitly  
admitted Tuesday that drug traffickers were infiltrating Peru's 
armed forces. 
         ``We do not doubt that drugs-traffickers are capable of  
infiltrating and corrupting some bad elements,'' Fujimori said 
at a ceremony at an air force base in Lima. He promised tough 
action against those caught but insisted that isolated cases 
should not be allowed to stain the military's reputation. 
         His remarks came in the wake of a string of recent drug  
hauls that confirmed widely held suspicions that security forces 
are heavily implicated in the illegal drugs trade. 
         ``It is the state's obligation to redouble its vigilance  
efforts and punish in an exemplary manner (those who are 
responsible),'' Fujimori said. ``No one in uniform, nor any 
member of the government, is beyond the law.'' 
         But he attacked the media for making ``absurd  
generalizations'' about widespread corruption based on the 
''criminal attitude of some members'' of the armed forces. He 
also pledged his full backing for the armed forces, telling 
them: ``Know that I am identified with you.'' 
         In May, the air force arrested four officers including one  
of Fujimori's pilots after 383 pounds of cocaine was found on a 
military plane. This month, there have been four seizures of a 
total 220 pounds of cocaine on navy ships, resulting in the 
arrest of four mechanics. 
         Two policemen including a former anti-narcotics agent were  
among 25 members of a major drug ring busted last weekend. And 
the ongoing case against captured drug lord Demetrio Chavez is 
implicating army officers who patrol drug-growing areas. 
         A report this week by a Lima-based think-tank, the Andean  
Jurors' Commission, warned that not only Peru's armed forces but 
Latin America's in general were highly vulnerable to 
infiltration by drugs traders. 
         The report attributed this to low wages in the military, a  
rigid hierarchical structure that protects top officials and the 
need by traffickers to find new transport modes. 
         Peru is the world's largest producer of coca leaf, the raw  
product for cocaine. In what is believed to be just the tip of 
the iceberg, police seized 17.5 tons of illegal drugs and 
arrested 5,883 traffickers and consumers in the first six months 
of 1996.