Pubdate: Sun, 24 Mar 2002
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2002 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: Star News Services

ON PERU VISIT, BUSH EMPHASIZES WAR ON TERRORISM, DRUGS

LIMA, Peru - Extending a hand to a jittery nation, President Bush declared 
Saturday that the United States will work with Peru to fight terrorism.

He said the two nations share a common perspective on the problem: "We must 
stop it."

In a joint news conference with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, Bush 
said: "Security is impossible in a world with terrorists. Our nations 
understand that political and economic progress depends on security."

Toledo said he and Bush share "the energy and the stubbornness" to combat 
terrorism without wavering. He called it "a war with no ambiguities 
whatsoever against terrorism and drug trafficking."

Bush, the first U.S. president to visit Peru, arrived three days after a 
car bombing near the U.S. Embassy killed nine persons and embarrassed the 
Peruvian government.

Unprecedented security greeted Bush as he arrived in Lima to meet with the 
leaders of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia about expanding trade, 
coordinating anti-terrorism efforts and curbing drug flow.

With sharpshooters perched on rooftops and heavily armed soldiers and 
police lining every corner, terrorism dominated the news conference. But 
anti-drug efforts were not far behind.

Bush stressed that curtailing drug trafficking requires cutting back 
production, but also reducing demand in the United States. Toledo, skirting 
a question about his commitment to coca eradication, said both countries 
had a responsibility to counter narcotics.

"We have a long path ahead of us, and we have to walk it together," Toledo 
said.

Bush and Toledo made a strong pitch on behalf of trade as an antidote to 
poverty. Bush called on the U.S. Senate to pass an expanded renewal of an 
Andean Trade Preferences Act, which expired in December. The law gives 
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru duty-free access to U.S. markets for a 
wide range of products.

Bush and Toledo also announced the renewal of the Peace Corps program in 
Peru, which was abandoned in 1975 under an anti-American military dictatorship.

Bush also said that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "is not doing all he 
can do to fight off terror," but that no decision had been made about 
whether to send Vice President Dick Cheney back to the Middle East to hold 
talks with Arafat.

A meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials today could 
determine whether Cheney goes to Egypt this week for talks with Arafat. The 
meeting also might help the American mediator, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, 
decide whether Arafat has accepted U.S. conditions for a cease-fire and 
will work to implement them.

Shortly before Bush's arrival, a few dozen protesters, some waving large 
red flags with the image of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, tried to 
rally in front of the Palace of Justice, not far from where Bush was to 
meet with Toledo.

Police fired tear gas and swarmed the protesters, making several arrests.

Peru's historic center near the presidential palace was sealed, and 
Peruvian naval vessels patrolled the waters off the coast of the port city 
of Callao and along the coastline of Lima, the capital. Peruvian press 
reports said 7,000 to 22,000 police officers had been deployed throughout Lima.

Adding to the tension, at least six homemade bombs exploded in a suburb 
east of Lima. The devices, which did little damage, were thrown from a 
passing car, according to Peruvian radio station RPP Noticias.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga 
arrived before dawn to keep would-be terrorists guessing. Quiroga said he 
expected the leaders to discuss terrorism.

"It's a theme that has been the agenda of the whole world since the 11th of 
September," Quiroga said. "Bolivia has said for some time that terrorism 
and drug trafficking are twin brothers, or two sides of the same coin. One 
feeds the other.

"You saw that in Afghanistan. When the presence of the state fades, drug 
trafficking and terrorism appeared."

Bush said the United States had tripled assistance to Peru for fighting 
drugs but also had an obligation to reduce U.S. demand for illegal drugs.

"We've got to do a better job at home of convincing Americans to stop using 
drugs," he said. "That will, in turn, help the region."

The president came out of his meeting with Toledo having made no decision 
on whether to resume drug surveillance flights over Peru.

They were suspended after a Peruvian military jet shot down a plane 
carrying American missionaries, killing Veronica Bowers, 35, and her infant 
daughter, Charity. A CIA-operated surveillance plane had mistakenly 
identified the aircraft as a possible drug-smuggling flight.

"We are reviewing all avenues toward an effective policy of interdiction," 
Bush said. He said the incident had caused the United States to step back 
and study how best to combat the trafficking of narcotics.

"We want to make sure that when we work with countries like Peru, we 
achieve the common objective, we make it hard for narcotraffickers to move 
through their lands and cross their oceans," he said.

Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the world's leading growers of coca, the 
plant from which cocaine is made.

The three countries face some form of drug-related insurgency and want Bush 
to open U.S. markets to their farm products to provide alternative crops to 
coca growers.

Colombia is battling Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, both of 
which buy arms with money earned protecting drug traffickers. There are 
fears that Bolivian coca farmers, financed by drug lords, might be taking 
up arms against government troops. In Peru, the Wednesday blast is 
refocusing attention on the link between drugs and terror.

The Shining Path terrorized Peru for more that a decade until its leader 
was captured in 1992. The Shining Path has regrouped and is flush with cash 
to rearm because guerrillas are paid to shepherd coca paste through the 
Andean highlands.

Bush pledged last week to help Peru fight terrorism. For weeks, the 
Peruvian media have speculated that the United States wants to place a 
military base in the country to fight drug traffickers and the guerrilla 
groups in Colombia and Peru that protect them. The United States and 
Peruvian governments have denied that.

One issue left unaddressed by the two leaders was the fate of Lori 
Berenson, an American sentenced to 20 years in prison for collaborating 
with a terrorist group. Berenson's supporters have been lobbying Bush to 
intervene on her behalf, but the administration has been wary of doing so 
since Peru's high court upheld the sentencing.

Bush was scheduled to travel today to El Salvador, where he again will tout 
the benefits of free trade.
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MAP posted-by: Beth