United States Foreign Aid Peru

President Bush said Monday he will not revise his formula for a joint U.S.-Soviet military reduction in Europe even though the Soviets have rejected the idea because it would leave U.S. forces with an additional 30,000 troops. Pointing to the geographical advantage the Soviet Union would have in redeploying units to Central and Eastern Europe west of Soviet borders, Bush said that "we've got a big ocean between us and . . . Western Europe" that would delay a speedy redeployment.

In an upcoming U.S. visit, President-elect Alejandro Toledo will seek economic assistance to help quell simmering social unrest that could explode in the economically troubled Andean nation. "We have huge social expectations . . . that, if ignored, could risk undoing all the work we've done in terms of freedom and democracy," Toledo said Friday, warning of "strikes, emigration, discontent." The 55-year-old centrist economist of Andean Indian descent, who takes office July 28, will launch a U.S.

The United States is stepping up its anti-drug efforts in Peru, sending four more helicopters and additional Drug Enforcement Administration agents to help a Peruvian campaign against cocaine trafficking, the State Department said. Spokesman Charles Redman said he has no figures on how many more agents are being sent to assist Peruvian personnel involved in operations in the Upper Huallaga Valley, a major cocaine growing area.

With elections scheduled for October in Peru, the Bush Administration has slightly relaxed its freeze on aid to the government of President Alberto Fujimori, a State Department official said Wednesday. Fujimori angered Washington and other Western Hemisphere governments April 12 when he suspended the Peruvian Congress, ousted the country's judges and suspended all political parties.

President Alan Garcia on Friday called on the United States to funnel billions of dollars to Peruvian peasants to encourage them to replace coca, the raw material for cocaine, with other crops as a way of curbing the drug trade. Saying Washington's anti-drug efforts were misguided, Garcia said the United States should invest in Peruvian agriculture and give seeds and fertilizers to induce farmers to switch from coca to coffee and other crops. "I propose the U.S.

Some Peruvians complained Wednesday that President Bush's new drug policy appears to ignore the urgent need to fund economic development in the world's largest coca-producing nation and instead focuses only on attacking cocaine production. The U.S. policy, outlined by embassy officials here, clearly shifts the anti-drug program's emphasis from eradicating coca fields to intercepting shipments of partially processed coca paste to Colombia.

In an upcoming U.S. visit, President-elect Alejandro Toledo will seek economic assistance to help quell simmering social unrest that could explode in the economically troubled Andean nation. "We have huge social expectations . . . that, if ignored, could risk undoing all the work we've done in terms of freedom and democracy," Toledo said Friday, warning of "strikes, emigration, discontent." The 55-year-old centrist economist of Andean Indian descent, who takes office July 28, will launch a U.S.

With elections scheduled for October in Peru, the Bush Administration has slightly relaxed its freeze on aid to the government of President Alberto Fujimori, a State Department official said Wednesday. Fujimori angered Washington and other Western Hemisphere governments April 12 when he suspended the Peruvian Congress, ousted the country's judges and suspended all political parties.

Two years after President Bush launched his "Andean strategy" to attack the supply of cocaine at its overseas source, the effort is wobbling noticeably and raising questions about whether its multimillion-dollar budget would be better spent elsewhere. The plan, which gives large aid infusions to the Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru to beef up law enforcement and military strength there and to wean the nations' economies from drug production, has enjoyed crucial bipartisan support.

Praising Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for improving his country's human rights record, President Bush urged Congress on Tuesday to release $94 million in U.S. aid to support a crop-substitution plan designed to persuade Peru's peasant farmers to abandon cocaine cultivation. "You have made progress on human rights," Bush told Fujimori after their White House meeting, the first between American and Peruvian presidents since 1942.

Wielding newly seized dictatorial powers Monday, President Alberto Fujimori and the Peruvian armed forces held top congressional leaders prisoner, censored the news media and surrounded key locations with troops and tanks. Fujimori stunned the nation late Sunday by announcing an "emergency" government with military support. He closed the Congress and courts and suspended unspecified constitutional guarantees.

After President Bush's drug summit with Latin American leaders this week, prospects for cutting off the flow of cocaine at its source seem as bleak as ever. Although the six presidents at the Thursday meeting in San Antonio proclaimed a "new spirit of cooperation," Bush obviously was at odds with at least some of the others over anti-drug strategy. Their differences, in essence, are about guns versus butter.

President Bush and the leaders of six Latin American nations proclaimed a "new spirit of cooperation" in the war on drugs Thursday, but they disagreed publicly over how to proceed in an effort that they conceded is far from successful. They also sought to reduce their reliance on Latin American armies to fight the war--a step that appeared to be a retreat from a three-year Bush Administration initiative.

On the eve of a seven-nation drug meeting, Peru has refused to go along with a U.S.-backed plan calling for sharp reductions in cocaine supplies unless the United States provides more money for the counternarcotics fight, senior Administration officials said Wednesday. The demand puts President Bush in an awkward position, because his Administration is under attack by critics who say that the U.S. war on drugs already subsidizes Peruvian corruption and brutality.

Two years after President Bush launched his "Andean strategy" to attack the supply of cocaine at its overseas source, the effort is wobbling noticeably and raising questions about whether its multimillion-dollar budget would be better spent elsewhere. The plan, which gives large aid infusions to the Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru to beef up law enforcement and military strength there and to wean the nations' economies from drug production, has enjoyed crucial bipartisan support.

The Bush Administration's two-year effort to cut off the cocaine supply from three South American countries has been badly managed and has produced few results, government auditors said Wednesday in a searing indictment of the Andean anti-drug strategy.

The Administration's new Andean strategy, which calls for giving more narcotics-fighting aid to Peru and Bolivia, could be slowed by demands of those nations that the program include an immediate increase in economic assistance, officials said Friday. The demands conflict with an Administration timetable that would delay any new economic aid until at least 1992 and furnish that aid only if Bolivia and Peru make significant progress in the anti-drug effort.

Alberto Fujimori, the unexpected front-runner for the Peruvian presidency, says he opposes greater U.S. military and police aid to fight cocaine trafficking unless it is accompanied by a vast program of economic development. Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, said in an interview Wednesday night that the past emphasis on police action against cocaine has shown that "repression has no effectiveness. Just look at the results over the last 10 years."

Ending a prolonged stalemate, the Bush Administration and Congress have reached a compromise that allows release of anti-narcotics assistance to Peru, officials said. The officials said the Administration accepted congressional conditions as the price for release of the aid. As part of the agreement, what had been a proposed $94-million aid package was trimmed to about $87 million, the officials said. A key provision of the agreement is that Peru will receive the funds on a piecemeal basis.

Praising Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for improving his country's human rights record, President Bush urged Congress on Tuesday to release $94 million in U.S. aid to support a crop-substitution plan designed to persuade Peru's peasant farmers to abandon cocaine cultivation. "You have made progress on human rights," Bush told Fujimori after their White House meeting, the first between American and Peruvian presidents since 1942.