May 29 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Colombian exports rose 17 percent in March as trade benefits that the U.S. granted for help in its war on drugs spurred shipments of manufactured and semi-manufactured goods such as clothing and plastic parts.

Exports rose to $1 billion worth of goods from $859 million in the same month a year earlier, the government's statistics agency in Bogota said.

Sales of Colombian goods abroad may help the country sustain an economy that had its fastest growth since 1998 in the first quarter, analysts said. Higher oil prices before the war in Iraq boosted the value of Colombia's biggest export while shipments to the U.S. helped counter a decline in sales to Venezuela, Colombia's second-biggest trade partner before a devaluation and strike that led to a record contraction in its economy.

This is very, very positive,'' said Alberto Bernal, who covers Colombia for research company IDEAglobal.com. The growth in manufactured and semi-manufactured goods means trade benefits granted by the U.S. are giving better-than-expected results.''

Colombian exports of non-traditional goods, ranging from textiles to steel, leather goods, pearls and precious metals, rose 25 percent to $559 million, while exports of oil rose 16 percent to $285 million, the agency said.

Exports to the U.S. rose 19 percent to $256 million after the U.S. last year extended and expanded reductions in duties in exchange for Colombia's help in promoting legal alternatives drug trafficking.

Exports to Venezuela fell 21 percent to less than $1 million, because of currency controls implemented in the neighboring country and a 29 percent contraction of its economy in the first quarter that crippled purchasing power.

Last Updated: May 29, 2003 16:17 EDT

Posted on Thu, May. 29, 2003 Associated Press

LIMA, Peru - A Peruvian court sentenced fallen spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos to eight years in prison on embezzlement charges Thursday for giving a mayoral candidate $25,000 in public funds for a 1998 campaign.

Late Wednesday, Congress approved a charge of treason against exiled former President Alberto Fujimori, accusing him of authorizing the purchase of obsolete fighter planes in 1996, a year after Peru fought a border war with Ecuador.

A corruption scandal involving Montesinos triggered the November 2000 collapse of Fujimori's decade-long rule. Montesinos was captured in Venezuela in June 2001. Fujimori fled to Japan where he lives and is protected from extradition because he holds Japanese citizenship.

Peruvian prosecutors are piling up charges against Fujimori in hopes of persuading Tokyo to turn him over. The treason charge carries a 20-to-30 year sentence.

Prosecutors have already filed an array of charges against Fujimori, including the illegal wiretapping of journalists and political enemies, corruption, abandoning office and authorizing death squad killings. In March, Interpol placed Fujimori on its most wanted list.

The latest charge, which Congress approved 46-9, alleges that Fujimori put Peruvian soldiers' lives at risk by authorizing the purchase of outdated fighter jets from Belorussia.

By approving the charges, Congress lifted the immunity granted to Fujimori as a former president. It is now up to the Attorney General's office to file the charge and for courts to decide whether to open a trial.

Fujimori has denied any wrongdoing. He claims to be the target of political persecution and says the accusations lack proof and credible witnesses.

Montesinos conviction was the third for the one-feared spymaster, who faces some 70 trials.

The mayoral candidate, Luis Bedoya, received a five-year sentence, while former presidential aide Tomas Gonzales got three years for setting up the meeting between the two men.

The court fined the three a total of $571,500 and ordered Bedoya to return the illegal campaign contribution.

The offense was minor compared with other charges Montesinos faces that range from corruption to drug trafficking, arms dealing and directing a death squad.

Montesinos, 58, has already received a nine-year sentence in July for illegally taking control of Peru's intelligence agency. In March, he was sentenced to five years on influence peddling charges for helping to get his former mistress' brother out of jail.

With prison terms served concurrently in Peru, Thursday's sentence will not lead to more prison time.

Reuters, 05.29.03, 3:47 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, May 29 (Reuters) - Venezuela's Central Bank Thursday lowered its discount rate for local banks seeking to borrow money to meet reserve requirements to 32 percent from 36 percent, the bank's Web page said.

The discount rate cut was effective Thursday. The Central Bank on April 10 had lowered the rate to 36 percent from 39 percent.

The latest reduction came as leftist President Hugo Chavez's government continued to apply tight currency controls and price curbs to shore up international reserves and the bolivar currency. (Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; editing by Gunna Dickson; Reuters messaging:

CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer Thursday, May 29, 2003
(05-29) 12:48 PDT CARACAS, Venezuela (<a href=www.sfgate.com>AP) --

Venezuela's government and opposition signed an agreement Thursday that requires them not to seek changes to election laws as they prepare for a referendum on the rule of President Hugo Chavez.

The agreement ended six months of negotiations sponsored by the Organization of American States between rivals engaged in a power struggle that produced a short-lived coup and a crippling general strike.

Opposition leaders feared pro-Chavez lawmakers would amend election laws to put obstacles in way of the referendum.

Chavez said he hoped the agreement would compel "those who have taken the path of violence and coups" to abide by the constitution.

"I feel happy," Chavez said in a nationally televised address. "There are no winners and losers. The government won't say we've won, and I hope the opposition won't either. Let's say the country won."

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria called on political rivals to "make every effort" to see that the agreement is respected. Gaviria said he would return to Venezuela "if the sides require him to do so."

"The two sides should resolve any impasse that could present itself," Gaviria said.

Diplomats from countries that supported the talks -- the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Spain -- witnessed the signing ceremony.

Both sides agreed the best way to resolve their differences over Chavez's continued rule would be a binding referendum on whether the president should step down.

Venezuela's constitution allows the vote if citizens gather signatures from 20 percent of the electorate, or 2.5 million people.

It can take place midway through a president's six-year term -- August, in Chavez's case. The next scheduled elections are in 2006.

The deal prohibits the Chavez-dominated Congress from amending electoral laws ahead of the vote. To deter political violence, it calls on authorities to disarm the population ahead of balloting and obliges the government to finance the vote. It also urges Congress to swiftly name an elections council.

The agreement provides for referendums on the terms of other elected officials. Chavez supporters plan to seek the ouster of several opposition legislators to increase the government's slim majority in Congress.

In a statement from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, former president Jimmy Carter said the period leading up to a possible vote will be the toughest yet.

"The implementation of the agreement will be the most important and most difficult phase in the process of lessening the crisis in Venezuela," Carter said in the statement.

Election authorities must be named, signature and voter rolls verified, ballots printed and a date chosen before any referendum can be held. Gaviria said Wednesday he expects the presidential referendum to take place in November if those requirements were met.

Several opposition political parties and business groups endorsed the agreement reluctantly, saying there was no guarantee the vote would take place.

Opponents argue Chavez can no longer govern a country bitterly divided between those who fear he is becoming increasingly authoritarian and those who consider him a champion of the poor.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 29, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: The 'conuco' is a small patch of land traditionally cultivated in some Latin American countries by very poor farmers ... not for commercial purposes but for the subsistence of the family.  It usually consists of 2-5 acres of land on which the farmer, assisted by wife and/or children, cultivate basic crops such as corn, plantains, cassava and the like. In addition, there are a few chickens running around, a couple of pigs and a few mango trees.

The conuco is one of the most primitive forms of farming, and is related to the Arawak tribes found by the Spaniards when arriving to the new world. Later on, the conuco also became the patch of land given by large plantation owners to their slaves for personal usufruct (Merriam-Webster: the right to use or enjoy something).

The conuco is a backward form of farming because it often entails burning and clearing hillside slopes, which promotes soil erosion. As such it is an enemy of sustainable agriculture and of environmental protection, which are basic concepts of the new Law of Lands and Agrarian Development (Articles 1 and 2).

However, Article 19 of this law recognizes the conuco as the historical source of biodiversity (really?) and as the object of government protection and promotion. The "ancestral" technique, reads the Article, will be made known and disseminated by the government, as well as its techniques of "soil preservation."

In Article 20, the 'conuquero' is said to be guaranteed his/her patch of land ... in parallel, however, the current 1999 Constitution (Article 307) makes guaranteed food security a fundamental right for Venezuelans.

How to reconcile this Constitutional mandate with the objectives of conuco promotion contained in the lesser law is beyond my understanding.

The chicken coop is the second vertebra of the revolutionary spinal column. It aims at replacing commercial egg and chicken production with domestic chicken coops located on flat terrain or ... if need be ... flat rooftops, a variation which has been baptized as the "vertical chicken coop."

Many Venezuelan families have had chicken coops in their backyards for decades or even centuries. When I was 15, I took a course in aviculture in my spare time, learning about the different types of chickens and hens, those good for eating and those good for eggs. I even learned how to kill a chicken efficiently, by snapping its head backwards, although I never got to do it.

When we moved to Sabana del Medio (where we have almost 4 acres) we decided to install a chicken coop, much before the Presidential directive ... I felt that my theoretical knowledge of aviculture would allow us to produce the best eggs in the neighborhood.

We came to have about 20 hens and 2 roosters, but the hens were moody and stopped laying eggs without notice ... either due to sentimental problems or to the type of feed they got. After my calculations indicated that the eggs had a cost three times more than the ones we could buy in the market, we dissolved the coop ... to my great relief. The hens were greedy and wanton creatures...  If this experience of ours is a common one, I'm afraid that the Presidential plan is going to diminish the national GDP even further ... his initiative might well become what, in colloquial English, is known as "to lay an egg."

And now we come to the third component of the revolutionary economic program ... the so called "Ruta de las Empanadas" ... the Empanada highway, an almost military plan to establish a national grid of 'empanada' stations. The empanada is almost as popular as 'arepas' in Venezuela ... especially along the coastal towns, less so in the hinterland. The empanada is made of corn flour, not wheat flour as in Chile and Argentina. The dough is filled with shredded meat or black beans or cheese or 'cazon' ... a marine fish of the family of squalids ... the non-political variety ... in short, a small shark.

The empanada is a big favorite in the early mornings, and is eaten mostly standing up at a street corner or in popular markets such as Conejeros in Porlamar, Guaicaipuro in Caracas or La Marina in Maracaibo. It is also common at the small town fairs, where they compete with arepas and diverse meats, served from cauldrons, grills and spits by a swarm of women, all chanting the excellences of their offerings, while mumbling depreciatively about their neighbor's.

Traditionally, empanada stands crop up here and there, without discipline. As of now, however, the revolution will impose an impressive grid of some 4,000 empanada stations all over the country ... or so the government says ... in order to generate some 400,000 new jobs.

Although details are yet somewhat sketchy, the impression I get is that the country will be divided by imaginary lines intersecting at right angles, with an empanada station at every intersection ... something like an enormous bingo card. This would facilitate comparing the quality of, say, the empanadas at O-5 with those at M-9...

This bold and visionary initiative could generate some new jobs ... but it might destroy, among many others, the quaint, personalized, empanada stand of Misia Luisa in Puerto La Cruz ... the individual empanada site will be sacrificed to a large scale, impersonal, revolutionary empanada blitz.

I get the impression that the rather melancholy Chavez revolution is falling short of the answers required by the mounting social, economic and political problems of the country. In the manner of T. S. Elliot, one could say that:

This is the way the revolution ends This is the way the revolution ends... not with a bang, but a whimper...

History will talk about a failed experiment which tried to base Venezuelan society on pride in poverty and backwardness, in going back to Zamora and to being half naked...

People would not go for it...

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com