Word: andean
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Bennett's plan is part of a broader Andean initiative that would expand economic and military aid not only to Peru -- source of more than half of the world's coca -- but also to Bolivia and Colombia. That initiative, in turn, is part of an overall antidrug plan that calls for stiffer penalties against casual users, such as loss of a driver's license or of federal student loans. Already the plan is raising questions in Congress and even parts of the Administration. As the battle against drugs escalates, so will the complicating side effects, particularly in U.S. foreign policy...
...first complication is cost. Bennett proposes to increase antidrug expenditures about $1 billion, with $100 million to $270 million going into a superfund to finance the Andean initiative. Bush last week embraced Bennett's plan in broad outline, calling it "balanced, decisive, effective and achievable." The President was vague about where he would get the money, though he spoke of "reallocation of resources," meaning shifting funds from other programs...
Even if Bush does find the money, critics in and outside of the Administration wonder whether the Andean initiative will accomplish much. Peru will find it difficult to wean or bully its farmers from the cocaine trade unless economic growth opens markets for alternative products. But Peru's gross domestic product shrank 28% in the first quarter of 1989, and inflation has been running at 25% a month. In Bolivia officials contend that they need & $300 million to $500 million a year to develop legitimate alternatives for coca-farming peasants. That is considerably more than Bennett proposes to spend...
...chemicals seized during Operation Primavera were stored in standing tanks or 55-gal. drums. In some cases the drums were stacked 15 ft. high, creating Andean peaks of testimony to the proportions of the smuggling operation. Ethyl ether, for example, is essential to the final processing of cocaine base into a white hydrochloride powder. The manufacture of ethyl ether has been outlawed in Colombia, and importation is closely regulated. A 55-gal. drum of ethyl ether that sells for $500 in the U.S. fetches more than $12,000 in Colombia. Says Alfonso Barragan, president of the Colombian Society of Chemical...
Their contribution to later Andean civilizations, however, is believed to have been substantial, perhaps even comparable to the influence of the Egyptians on Mediterranean cultures. Moche experts ranked the Peruvian find with the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. Said Anthropologist Christopher B. Donnan of the University of California, Los Angeles: "This is the richest tomb ever excavated in the Western Hemisphere...