Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 Source: The Herald-Sun (NC) Copyright: 2001 The Herald-Sun Contact: http://www.herald-sun.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1428 Author: Rick Veccio, Associated Press Writer POWELL IN PERU FOR OAS SESSION LIMA, Peru (AP) -- On his first official visit to South America, Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Peru to help push through a pact he said would help nations learn how to behave like democracies. Peru is the first stop on a trip that takes Powell to Colombia on Tuesday and Wednesday to show support for President Andres Pastrana. Leading up to the visit, the Bush administration on Monday blacklisted a right-wing Colombian group as a terrorist organization and banned financial support for it. The administration says the group is responsible for hundreds of massacres in its war against leftist rebels. In Peru, Powell was joining 33 foreign ministers and ambassadors at a special session of the Organization of American States. The two-day session is expected to culminate Tuesday with the enactment of the Inter-American Democracy Charter. The OAS democracy charter is designed not only to deter military coups, but also to ostracize elected leaders who dissolve legislatures, interfere with courts, rewrite constitutions, resort to political coercion and rig elections to perpetuate power. "We're essentially putting down membership rules," Powell told reporters on his plane Monday, shortly before landing in this Pacific coast capital. "If you want to be a democratic nation in this hemisphere," he said, the charter will serve as a guide to "how the other democratic nations expect you to behave and what the standards are with respect to elections and representative government." Peru first proposed the accord in April, five months after ex-President Alberto Fujimori's decade-long authoritarian rule fell under the weight of mounting corruption scandals. Fujimori, first elected in 1990, seized near dictatorial powers in 1992, a "self-coup" he said was necessary to fight leftist rebels and end economic chaos. Pressure from the OAS forced him to call elections in November 1992. But there was scant international follow-up to prevent Fujimori from rewriting the constitution to his benefit and using a legislature stacked with supporters and an obedient judiciary to run roughshod over Peru's democracy for the next eight years. "In 1992 there was tolerance in the face of the April 5 self-coup, which provided oxygen to an illegitimate regime," Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said Monday during opening remarks. Peru "has proposed that its painful experience serve to contribute to the fortification of hemispheric mechanisms in defense of democracy," he said. Powell is expected to meet with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to discuss, among other issues, alternative crop development to stem production of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine. Hours before Powell's arrival Monday, Toledo appointed businessman Ricardo Vega Llona, a former conservative congressman, as Peru's national drug czar. Peru is second only to Colombia in the production of cocaine. Officials of both countries are expected to urge Powell to resume U.S.-backed anti-drug flights that were suspended after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down a civilian plane on April 20, killing an American missionary and her infant daughter. Peru and Colombia rely on U.S. ground radar stations and aircraft to support a surveillance system to spot unauthorized planes. Powell said Monday he has "the expectation and hope" that the United States will resume the drug surveillance effort with both countries. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens