Peru eyes backing bill to resume shooting down drug planes
Source: Reuters
Peru eyes backing bill to resume shooting down drug planes
LIMA Tue Mar 10, 2015 6:01pm EDT
(Reuters) - The government of President Ollanta Humala said on Tuesday it might back a bill that would lift a 14-year-old ban on shooting down aircraft suspected of carrying drugs, even though the U.S. government opposes the practice.
The legislation should garner enough votes to pass Congress as early as this week. Passage threatens joint anti-narcotics efforts with the United States and possibly millions of dollars in aid.
The U.S. government prohibited funding linked to shoot-down activities abroad after a 2001 incident in which a Peruvian military jet mistakenly fired at a plane carrying missionaries, killing a U.S. woman and her baby.
Humala, a former military officer, has not yet revealed whether he will resume lethal aerial interdictions as he beefs up efforts to stop a growing number of planes from smuggling cocaine to neighboring Bolivia and Brazil.
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