SF Chronicle In Peru, drug trade surging but interdiction funds falling: "Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami, says the White House is trying to paint a rosy picture of a program on which it has spent billions of dollars on training, military equipment, aerial spraying, surveillance and alternative development." My long-distance friend, C.J. Schexnayder, writes that coca growing is rising in Peru and may return to the volume of the mid-1990s. Cliff has also been in Colombia, reporting for three weeks, so he may have some interesting comparisons between the two countries.
He must also be kicking himself for being out of Peru when Fujimori starts to make headlines with his return to South America -- and maybe eventually Peru, once his legal status is determined in the next couple of months. Well, maybe by then, Cliff will be back in Lima.