Word: barco
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With the extradition of Martinez, President Virgilio Barco Vargas proved his resolve in the battle against Colombia's drug traffickers. Barco vowed to drive the dealers out of his country after the Aug. 18 murder of Senator Luis Carlos Galan, one of Colombia's leading presidential candidates. Martinez, 34, a reputed money manager for the Medellin cocaine cartel, was the first victim of Barco's executive order reviving a U.S.-Colombia extradition treaty invalidated by the Colombian Supreme Court...
...preliminary hearing U.S. Magistrate Joel M. Feldman read a thick list of charges accusing him of laundering millions of dollars for the cartel. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison. In Washington officials were exultant. "I applaud the extraordinary courage of President Virgilio Barco and the government of Colombia in their effort to restore the rule of law," said Attorney General Dick Thornburgh...
...Italian toilet paper on which were printed copies of classic artworks. Escobar's prize possession, a 1,000-acre ranch known as El Napoles, even had a private zoo stocked with giraffes, dwarf elephants, rhinoceroses and some 2,000 other exotic animals, many imported illegally from Africa. President Barco decreed that the drug lords can get their property back only if they claim it in person and prove it was acquired with profits from legitimate business, not drugs...
Most important, Barco proclaimed a state of siege that will allow him to extradite to the U.S. any of the 80 drug thugs indicted by American prosecutors without getting a judge's signature on the order. That end-runs one of the biggest barriers to punishment of the gangsters: an intimidated Colombian Supreme Court in 1987 declared a U.S.-Colombia extradition treaty invalid on the flimsiest of technicalities. Both Washington and Bogota officials declare that the drug lords fear extradition more than anything else because they cannot terrorize judges and juries in the U.S. as readily as they can those...
Though the U.S. has a big stake in the battle in Colombia, it cannot do much besides send materiel and cheer for Barco. Washington's antidrug policy is moving away from interdiction of supply to cutting down demand at home. Bush's program will propose shifting funds to expanded drug-education and -treatment programs, and stiffer penalties for casual users. Such an emphasis on curtailing the U.S. appetite for cocaine and other drugs is fine by the Colombians. As President Barco told TIME, "Every time a North American youngster pays for his vice in the streets of New York, Miami...