The development of big-ticket hydroelectric projects in Peru seems to be on a collision course with both Brazilian financial backers and indigenous groups, who object to being displaced and having their land despoiled.
More than two-and-a-half centuries ago, the French explorer Charles Marie de la Condamine crossed the continent of South America. It took his expedition four years to wind its way over the Andes and through the Amazon jungles to reach the Atlantic Ocean. Within this decade, the same trip will take four days. Cliff Schexnayder Parts of the existing unpaved road are impassable in the rainy season. Engineers are currently working on a massive $1.3-billion InterOceanic Highway project slated for completion by 2009. The finished route will create the first paved roadway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on the South
With the election of Peruvian President Alan Garcia last July, one of the key priorities of the new administration was continuing the economic progress and a major aspect of that has been infrastructure. La Republica Zavala grapples with a highway system in a state of disrepair. The $1.3-billion InterOceanic Highway Project is just one of the major infrastructure projects currently underway in Peru. Major road projects in the north and central highlands are under way as well as a massive ongoing upgrade program. Overseeing that is the new Minister of Transportation Vernica Zavala Lombardi. The Harvard-trained lawyer previously served as