POWELL IN PERU FOR OAS SESSION

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.

In Peru, Powell was joining 33 foreign ministers and ambassadors at a
special session of the Organization of American States. The two-day session
is expected to culminate Tuesday with the enactment of the Inter-American
Democracy Charter.

The OAS democracy charter is designed not only to deter military coups, but
also to ostracize elected leaders who dissolve legislatures, interfere with
courts, rewrite constitutions, resort to political coercion and rig
elections to perpetuate power.

"We're essentially putting down membership rules," Powell told reporters on
his plane Monday, shortly before landing in this Pacific coast capital.

"If you want to be a democratic nation in this hemisphere," he said, the
charter will serve as a guide to "how the other democratic nations expect
you to behave and what the standards are with respect to elections and
representative government."

Peru first proposed the accord in April, five months after ex-President
Alberto Fujimori's decade-long authoritarian rule fell under the weight of
mounting corruption scandals.

Fujimori, first elected in 1990, seized near dictatorial powers in 1992, a
"self-coup" he said was necessary to fight leftist rebels and end economic
chaos.

Pressure from the OAS forced him to call elections in November 1992.

But there was scant international follow-up to prevent Fujimori from
rewriting the constitution to his benefit and using a legislature stacked
with supporters and an obedient judiciary to run roughshod over Peru's
democracy for the next eight years.

"In 1992 there was tolerance in the face of the April 5 self-coup, which
provided oxygen to an illegitimate regime," Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego
Garcia Sayan said Monday during opening remarks.

Peru "has proposed that its painful experience serve to contribute to the
fortification of hemispheric mechanisms in defense of democracy," he said.

Powell is expected to meet with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to
discuss, among other issues, alternative crop development to stem
production of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine.

Hours before Powell's arrival Monday, Toledo appointed businessman Ricardo
Vega Llona, a former conservative congressman, as Peru's national drug
czar. Peru is second only to Colombia in the production of cocaine.

Officials of both countries are expected to urge Powell to resume
U.S.-backed anti-drug flights that were suspended after the Peruvian air
force mistakenly shot down a civilian plane on April 20, killing an
American missionary and her infant daughter.

Peru and Colombia rely on U.S. ground radar stations and aircraft to
support a surveillance system to spot unauthorized planes.

Powell said Monday he has "the expectation and hope" that the United States
will resume the drug surveillance effort with both countries.