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Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 16:17:31 CST
Reply-To: nicanet@blythe.org
Sender: Activists Mailing List <ACTIV-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
From: NY Transfer News Collective <nyt@nyxfer.blythe.org>
Subject: Wkly News Update on the Americas #266 3/5/95
To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L <ACTIV-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Issue #266, 5 March 1995

US scolds uncooperative partners in war on drugs

The New York Times, 4 March 1995

US President Clinton decided on Mar. 1 that even though Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay had not satisfied US conditions as cooperative partners in the US war on drug traffickers, for vital reasons of national interest they would not be decertified. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/2/95 from AP, AFP] Decertification would have led the administration to halt US aid and opposed development loans from international lending agencies. US Congress has the power to overturn the president's decision within 30 days. Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had recommended that Clinton should decertify Colombia. [Washington Post 3/2/95]

The Colombian government announced two days later on Mar. 3 that it had arrested Jorge Eliezer Rodriguez Orejuela, whose older brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela are suspected leaders of the Cali drug cartel. Colombia claims the younger brother is one of the cartel's leading members, though US Embassy officials called him a mid-level lieutenant who was believed to have been a liaison for the cartel in the US. [New York Times 3/4/95]