Peru's Maoist guerrilla movement, the Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path, is reinventing itself as an international drugs gang, police say. The group, dormant for almost 10 years, is regaining momentum in the rugged highlands. Last spring, Colombian drug barons, who lose acres of supplies each time US-donated helicopters spray their crops with herbicides, were quick to seize an unexpected opportunity to move into Peru. Washington had stopped using its aircraft to prevent drug flights between Colombia and Peru after a CIA blunder led to the shooting down of an American missionary's plane. Border surveillance was badly affected, and within months world attention turned to Afghanistan. [continues 534 words]
U.S. drug patrols over Peru will resume in 2002, the Peruvian government said. "There's no fixed date, but we do know that they will resume next year," Vice President Raul Diez Canseco said. The flights were suspended in April after a Peruvian military jet, acting on intelligence provided by Americans, mistook a hydroplane for a drug-running aircraft and shot it down. Two Americans were killed. [end]
As Coffee Prices Keep Plunging, Many Farmers Are Looking To Their Only Viable Cash Crop. APURIMAC-ENE VALLEY, Peru - For 10 hours a day in a field in Peru's southern jungle, Lucia Huarca strips green coca leaves off bushes with calloused hands and collects her harvest in her wide blue skirt. Her day's haul - typically 66 pounds, for which she is paid around $3 - will probably end up in the hands of drug traffickers to be transformed into cocaine. [continues 730 words]
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. [continues 450 words]
LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru plans to urge Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to resume the U.S.-backed antidrug flights suspended after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down an American missionary plane this spring. Powell is scheduled to visit Lima on Monday and Tuesday for an assembly of the Organization of American States. Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said Peruvian officials would ask for clarification of "the dates and conditions in which aerial drug-interdiction flights could restart." The missionary plane was shot from the sky April 20 after it was initially identified as a possible drug flight by a CIA-operated surveillance plane and then fired on by a Peruvian military jet. A Baptist missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed. [continues 177 words]
LIMA, Peru - Peru plans to urge Secretary of State Colin Powell to resume the U.S.-backed antidrug flights suspended after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down an American missionary plane this spring. Powell is scheduled to visit Lima on Monday and Tuesday for an assembly of the Organization of American States. [end]
LIMA, Peru -- Peru plans to urge Secretary of State Colin Powell to resume the U.S.-backed anti-drug flights suspended after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down an American missionary plane this spring. Powell is scheduled to visit Lima on Monday and Tuesday for an assembly of the Organization of American States. Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said that Peruvian officials would use the opportunity to ask for clarification of "the dates and conditions in which aerial drug interdiction flights could restart." [continues 451 words]
LIMA, Peru -- An air force jet fighter carrying a Peruvian pilot and an American instructor has crashed off Peru's northern coast during a training mission, the air force said Friday. The A-37B jet went down Thursday afternoon in the Pacific Ocean between the coastal towns of Paita and Bayovar, about 535 miles northwest of Lima, the air force said. A Peruvian air force spokesman said that navy ships, air force planes and police helicopters were searching for the plane Friday and authorities were investigating the accident. The flight was being conducted under the joint U.S.-Peruvian program to fight drug trafficking, the air force said. A U.S. Embassy spokesman, citing U.S. privacy laws, refused to release the name of the American instructor. [end]
Traffickers Are Moving Outside Drug War Areas WASHINGTON -- The opium poppy, the raw ingredient for heroin, has now been found in Peru, where it has spread from Colombia, underscoring the difficulty of containing the boundaries of the drug war. "We're finding it in high altitudes in Peru," said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and narcotics affairs. Drug traffickers introduced the poppy to Colombia a decade ago, seeking to diversify from cocaine to heroin. Drug enforcement experts now say Colombia is the source of as much as 75 percent of the heroin found along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. [continues 180 words]
WASHINGTON - The opium poppy, the raw ingredient for heroin, has been found in Peru, where it has spread from Colombia, underscoring the difficulty of containing the boundaries of the drug war. "We're finding it in high altitudes in Peru," said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and narcotics affairs. Drug traffickers introduced poppy to Colombia a decade ago, seeking to diversify from cocaine to heroin. Drug-enforcement experts say Colombia is the source of as much as 75 percent of the heroin found along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. [continues 206 words]
I read the government's report on the shooting down of the missionary plane in the Andes (8/1, A-4, "U.S., Peru faulted for plane tragedy"). There was discussion of various procedural rules violated, implying that if we only follow the rules in the future, this would not happen again. Only those dastardly drug dealers will get shot out of the sky. Well the rule to follow was written more than 200 years ago. It is part of the U.S. Constitution where it says that no one will be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. You do not shoot a plane out of the sky, no matter what you think it is carrying, unless it is shooting at you. Shooting down a plane is premeditated murder. It also doesn't matter that we hired the Peruvian Air Force to do the dirty work for us. People who hire hit men go to jail in our country. [continues 59 words]
Washington Vows To Send $22 Million LIMA, Peru--Peru will receive $22 million from Washington to buy equipment for its anti-narcotics police, the U.S. ambassador to Peru announced on Friday. Ambassador John R. Hamilton and Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan signed the agreement to fund coca plant eradication and coca-growing prevention programs, which are run by the anti-narcotics police. These new funds come two months after Washington sent $25 million to Peru to promote alternative crops in the jungle area. [continues 601 words]
WASHINGTON -- In the black-and-white video the single-engine Cessna flies along the clouds in northern Peru, and it's easy to imagine 7- month-old passenger Charity Bowers wrapped in her mother's arms, sound asleep or perhaps crying for want of a bottle. The infant had been recently adopted in the United States. You know her folks are beaming. In fact, they're traveling by air from their houseboat on the banks of the Amazon River, where they are missionaries, to get a residence visa for their baby to allow her to stay with them in Peru. [continues 961 words]
Colombia Says Drug Lords Are Using Smear Tactics BOGOTA, Colombia -- Battle lines are being drawn over the massive fumigation of drug crops in Colombia, with opponents saying it poses health risks while the U.S. ambassador warns that aid could be withheld if the Washington-backed plan is scrapped. The country's top anti-narcotics enforcer, meanwhile, is accusing drug traffickers -- who have lost millions of dollars in profits -- of waging a smear campaign against Washington's $1.3 billion counterdrug offensive. [continues 363 words]
LIMA, Peru -- The Central Intelligence Agency paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, Knight Ridder has learned. Montesinos, 56 and in jail near Lima on corruption charges, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles. He is asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges that he helped smuggle guns to guerrillas who allegedly provided protection to big drug cartels. [continues 485 words]
Language Split U.S., Peru Crews Washington -- Peruvian officers involved in the downing of an American missionary plane did not hear or could not understand warnings from a CIA-hired crew that might have saved the lives of a missionary and her infant daughter, a videotape showed. The American pilots expressed doubts that the missionary's Cessna float plane was a drug flight, as they had initially suspected, but didn't explicitly try to stop the Peruvians until the shooting began. [continues 410 words]
LIMA, Peru - The Central Intelligence Agency paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, Knight Ridder has learned. Montesinos, 56 and in jail near Lima on corruption charges, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles, asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges that he helped smuggle guns to guerrillas who allegedly provide protection to big drug cartels. [continues 432 words]
LIMA, Peru -- The CIA paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spy-master Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, the Mercury News has learned. Montesinos, 56 and in jail near Lima on corruption charges after his capture June 23 in Venezuela, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles, asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges that he helped smuggle guns to guerrillas who allegedly provide protection to big drug cartels. [continues 1016 words]
LIMA, Peru - The Central Intelligence Agency paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, Knight Ridder has learned. Montesinos, 56 and in jail near Lima on corruption charges, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles, asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges of smuggling guns to guerrillas who allegedly provide protection to big drug cartels. [continues 926 words]
CIA Pursued Anti-Drug Ties, Despite Possible Links To Cartels LIMA, Peru -- The CIA paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, Knight Ridder has learned. Montesinos, in jail near Lima on corruption charges, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles, asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges that he helped smuggle guns to guerrillas who allegedly provide protection to drug cartels. [continues 1271 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Peruvian officers involved in the downing of an American missionary plane did not hear or could not understand warnings from a CIA-hired crew that might have saved the lives of a missionary and her infant daughter, a videotape released Thursday showed. The American pilots repeatedly expressed doubts that the missionary's Cessna float plane was a drug flight, as they had initially suspected, but didn't explicitly try to stop the Peruvians until the shooting began. ''No! Don't shoot! No mas! No mas!'' - no more - the unidentified American co-pilot shouted after the Cessna was fired on. [continues 771 words]
An inquiry has found that the downing of an American missionary plane over Peru was caused by an array of problems--and U.S. and Peruvian officials, as well as the plane's pilot, share responsibility, officials said. Peru's air force shot down the Cessna on April 20 after a CIA-operated surveillance aircraft initially identified it as a possible drug plane. An American missionary, Veronica Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed, and pilot Kevin Donaldson, 42, was seriously injured. The report is not expected to be released until late this week. [end]
LIMA, Peru -- Last July 28, Alejandro Toledo donned a gas mask, put his life on the line and marched into street chaos. Peru's capital was ablaze in protest of President Alberto Fujimori's third inauguration after a rigged election. Saturday, one year to the day later, Toledo donned the presidential sash as the first elected Indian-blood president of an Andean nation, after Fujimori resigned and left the country last fall. "What we said in the campaign is true. After 500 years a person of this ethnicity is elected to lead the destiny of Peru," Toledo said Thursday at a news conference. [continues 902 words]
LIMA, Peru -- Police have arrested two former high-level officials from disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori's administration on corruption charges. Former Attorney General Blanca Nelida Colan was arrested Wednesday on charges of cover-up, perjury, official negligence and illicit enrichment, a judicial spokeswoman said. Jose Portillo, former head of Peru's election board, was arrested in connection with the alleged forgery of 1 million signatures to help Fujimori's coalition qualify to run in elections last year, the spokeswoman said. [continues 131 words]
Neighbor's Ambassador Asks U.S. For More Anti-Drug Funds. WASHINGTON -- Peru has seen a huge increase in crops of heroin-producing opium poppies as a result of U.S.-backed efforts to fight drugs in neighboring Colombia, Peru's ambassador said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers. In the letter, Ambassador Carlos Alzamora said that "the situation is a clear indication of the first effects of the spillover of Plan Colombia: Intelligence information shows that Colombian criminal cartels are relocating their opium poppy operations in Peru." [continues 576 words]
CIA Gave Millions To Peru's Anti-Drug Chief The Central Intelligence Agency gave ex-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos at least $10 million in cash over the last decade and high-tech surveillance equipment that he used for personal gain. Montesinos, who now faces trial on murder, arms and drug trafficking charges, as well as murder, among others, had founded and personally controlled a counter-drug unit within Peru's National Intelligence Service, known by its Spanish acronym SIN. It was to that Narcotics Intelligence Division, known as DIN, that the CIA directed at least $10 million in cash payments from 1990 until September 2000, according to U.S. officials. Most of the money was to have financed intelligence activities in the drug war, though officials acknowledged a small part was for antiterrorist activities. [continues 723 words]
LIMA, Peru, July 11 -- Vladimiro L. Montesinos, the former spy chief who dominated Peru from the shadows for a decade and lived a life gilded with beachside mansions and diamond-crusted watches, is now spending his nights on a skimpy foam mattress over a cold slab of concrete. Food is delivered to him through a trapdoor in his tiny cell in the prison block inside the naval base in the port of Callao near Lima. There is a single spigot of cold water for washing up. He spends his time reading law books and a dogeared copy of the Peruvian Constitution under a single naked light bulb and a thin stream of light from a tiny skylight, according to senior law enforcement officials. [continues 1253 words]
Montesinos Returns Home To Face A List Of Criminal Charges LIMA, Peru -- Vladimiro Montesinos, Latin America's most-wanted fugitive and the shadowy Peruvian spy chief, came home in handcuffs Monday to face a slew of charges ranging from drug and arms trafficking to leading death squads. Montesinos, 56, who was captured in Venezuela on Saturday night reportedly with crucial help from the FBI, returned in a Peruvian police plane Monday morning. Hundreds of heavily armed security personnel shielded Montesinos from a crush of media photographers and prevented Peruvians from getting a view of the man many believed the real and unelected ruler of Peru from 1990 to 2000. [continues 439 words]
BUENOS AIRES -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief who evaded an international manhunt for eight months before his arrest last weekend, was flown to Lima today in handcuffs and a bulletproof vest and began what promises to be months of questioning and legal processing. Once a top aide to former President Alberto K. Fujimori who had cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Montesinos was evicted early this morning from Venezuela, where he had been hiding. Peruvian prosecutors say he faces a possible life sentence on charges he was involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, death squad activities, torture, the purchasing of faulty armaments for kickbacks, and the bribing of officials to fix the election last year for Mr. Fujimori, who is now in exile in Japan. [continues 654 words]
BUENOS AIRES, June 25 - Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief and longtime C.I.A. agent wanted on charges of gun running, money laundering and collaborating with drug traffickers, was returned to the Peruvian capital today after being captured in Venezuela on Saturday night with crucial help from the F.B.I. A Peruvian National Police plane that left Caracas early this morning touched down in Lima after a brief refueling stop in a jungle border city, and Mr. Montesinos was whisked to a waiting helicopter. [continues 1335 words]
CARACAS, Venezuela - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons. The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. His scandals led to the downfall in November of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. [continues 99 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, who allegedly amassed a fortune from drug trafficking, arms deals and money laundering while working as the right-hand-man of Peru's leader Alberto Fujimori, was captured in Caracas, officials said Sunday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had been accused by some Peruvian officials of harboring the fugitive, reported the capture at a summit of Andean leaders in Valencia, Venezuela. He said the former spy chief was caught inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday. [continues 836 words]
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons. The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. [continues 369 words]
Latin America: Arrest in Venezuela ends eight months on the run for Vladimiro Montesinos. Officials say the FBI played a key role in the capture of Lima's longtime power broker. CARACAS, Venezuela--Former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, the mysterious spymaster who was the power behind Peru's throne for a decade, was arrested here after a desperate eight months on the run, Venezuelan officials announced Sunday. Venezuelan military intelligence agents captured Montesinos at 10:30 p.m. Saturday at a safe house in a Caracas slum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said. The arrest took place as the fugitive prepared to move to another hide-out with the help of accomplices, authorities said. [continues 1211 words]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has widened its investigation with Peru into the downing of a U.S. missionary plane to include aerial narcotics interception programs in Peru and Colombia, a U.S. State Department official said Monday. U.S. missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in April when a Peruvian air force plane shot down the single-engine Cessna in which they were flying. The aircraft was suspected of carrying drug traffickers; it wasn't. A nearby CIA-contracted surveillance plane had been providing intelligence on the missionary plane to the Peruvians as part of a joint drug interception program. Drug interception flights in Peru and Colombia have been suspended pending the results of the investigation. [continues 198 words]
Ex-Spy Chief Ran A `Narco State,' It Says LIMA, Peru -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and more than 200 of his cronies turned Peru into a ``sort of narco state,'' a congressional commission has concluded. In its final report, excerpts of which were released late Friday, the panel said ``networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had'' about local and international drug figures. The report accused 222 people -- including military chiefs, business leaders and politicians -- with being implicated in Montesinos' network. The panel said Montesinos, who for more than a decade was the right-hand man of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori, should face charges of treason. [continues 352 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and his cronies turned Peru into a "narco state," a congressional commission investigating his alleged web of corruption said after completing seven months of work. In its final report, excerpts of which were released late on Friday, the panel said the previous regime had "turned Peru into a sort of narco state, in which networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had in the SIN (intelligence services)" on local and international drugs figures. [continues 422 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet. ``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday. [continues 409 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet. ``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday. [continues 410 words]
PUNO, Peru, May 28 -- As the former president Alan Garcia campaigned across the Andean highlands, there were flashes of his old populist allure. Aymara and Quechua Indian women herders abandoned their llamas to run and touch him. People poured confetti into his hair and draped him with flowers as his caravan stopped in little towns. Defying the thin mountain air with a few gulps of coca tea, Mr. Garcia rode a bicycle through the streets of one town and danced a torrid huayno with a young Quechua woman in another. [continues 1072 words]
LIMA, Peru, May 25 - The two presidential candidates competing to succeed the ousted President Alberto K. Fujimori have begun a gentle assault on the traditional third force in Peruvian politics - the bloated and politically powerful armed forces - as the military has sunk in prestige after an array of scandals. The military tied its fortunes to the 10-year Fujimori rule, and when that collapsed and the former president fled to Japan late last year, so the officers' fortunes sank too. During the last several months, 18 generals and admirals have been arrested on charges ranging from leading a paramilitary death squad to accepting bribes from drug traffickers and taking kickbacks from purchases of a squadron of overpriced and obsolete MIG-29 fighter jets. [continues 967 words]
LIMA, Peru -- In the only scheduled debate before Peru's presidential runoff next month, front-runner Alejandro Toledo focused on former President Alan Garcia's disastrous term in office and Garcia accused Toledo of using cocaine. The televised exchange Saturday night offered Peruvians a chance to see how Toledo, widely viewed as erratic and prone to contradict himself, measured up against Garcia, who is considered one of Latin America's great orators but whose 1985-90 term ended with the country in economic ruin. [continues 277 words]
LIMA, Peru, May 20 - Facing an uphill battle to regain the presidency, former President Alan Garcia has tied his opponent, Alejandro Toledo, to the use of cocaine. In a televised debate on Saturday night, Mr. Garcia said: "Nobody has ever charged me with consuming cocaine. A consumer of cocaine cannot be the leader of a country." He a was referring to published reports that Mr. Toledo, a former business professor and World Bank official, had tested positive for cocaine during a hospital visit in 1998 on the same day he was reportedly consorting with three women. [continues 559 words]
Perils Of Partnership: The Generals Reminisce LIMA: Inside a dilapidated central prison, a gaggle of former President Alberto Fujimori's top generals sulked around a green concrete jail yard on a hot afternoon. The recently arrested generals whittled away their recreation time halfheartedly, playing soccer and reminiscing about the days when Mr. Fujimori's finest could count on at least one steadfast friend: Uncle Sam. General Juan Miguel del Aguila, head of Peru's National Anti-terrorism Bureau until last year and, later, the security chief of the National Police, recalled frequent meetings with American intelligence agents right up to the moment when Mr. Fujimori abandoned the presidency and fled to Japan in November. [continues 1217 words]
WASHINGTON- U.S. and Peruvian investigators are exploring whether a series of errors, rather than a single blunder, led to the mistaken downing of an American missionaries' plane over Peru, one of the investigators says. The investigator also hinted at evidence the Peruvian military jet likely fired a required warning shot before downing the single-engine Cessna it suspected was carrying drugs. One of the missionaries and her child were killed in the April 20 incident. "There were several contributing factors that tragically conspired" leading up to the fatal attack, said the investigator. [continues 630 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. and Peruvian investigators are exploring whether a series of errors, rather than a single blunder, led to the mistaken downing of an American missionaries' plane over Peru, one of the investigators says. The investigator also hinted at evidence the Peruvian military jet likely fired a required warning shot before downing the single-engine Cessna it suspected was carrying drugs. One of the missionaries and her child were killed in the April 20 incident. " There were several contributing factors that tragically conspired" leading up to the fatal attack, said the investigator. [continues 630 words]
Arrests Of Peruvian Officials Expose Corruption, Deceit LIMA, Peru -- Inside a dilapidated downtown prison, a gaggle of former president Alberto Fujimori's top generals sulked around a green cement jail yard on a hot afternoon. The recently arrested generals whittled away their recreation time halfheartedly, playing soccer and reminiscing about the days when Fujimori's finest could count on at least one steadfast friend: Uncle Sam. Gen. Juan Miguel del Aguila, head of Peru's National Anti-terrorism Bureau until last year and, later, security chief of the National Police, recalled frequent meetings with U.S. intelligence agents right up to the moment when Fujimori abandoned the presidency and fled to Japan in November. [continues 1526 words]
LIMA, Peru -- Colombian President Andres Pastrana on Monday met with Peruvian presidential hopeful Alejandro Toledo, as part of a three-day official visit here aimed at strengthening political and commercial ties between the neighboring Latin American nations. The two spoke for 50 minutes on the struggle against illegal drug trafficking, terrorism and trade at Pastrana's hotel El Olivar, located in the capital's affluent San Isidro neighborhood. Toledo arrived at the meeting accompanied by his wife Eliane Karp and members of his campaign team. [continues 131 words]
For Jim and Roni Bowers, the plane ride high above the Amazon River was a welcome respite from their rewarding but rigorous life as missionaries. They'd gone to the border town of Leticia, Colombia, with their 6-year-old son, Cory, to get a Peruvian visa for their newly adopted daughter, 7-month-old Charity. And now they were enjoying a breathtaking view of the rain-forest canopy during a three-hour return trip to their mission base in Iquitos, Peru. For days Jim had been happily anticipating the opportunity to gaze down upon the 56 villages where he had been spreading the Gospel by houseboat. "I'll get a better feel for how they're situated and their full size and location on the river," he e-mailed a friend, Pastor Terry Fulk, back in Fruitport, Mich. He was just where he wanted to be--in the copilot's seat at 4,000 feet, feeding his infant daughter Cheerios. But as he looked out the window to his right, Bowers got a start. There, flying below him on the right side of the Cessna 185, was a Peruvian fighter jet. [continues 1840 words]
Inside Peru
