4 Officers Die as Nationalists in Peru Fight...

[Red Squirrel]

4 Officers Die as Nationalists in Peru Fight to Control Town

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/internat...cas/03peru.html

LIMA, Peru, Jan. 2 (Reuters) - Four Peruvian police officers died Sunday after security forces battled to retake parts of a southern town seized early Saturday by an armed group to demand the resignation of President Alejandro Toledo.

A former army major, Antauro Humala, said in a telephone interview from the poor Andean town, Andahuaylas, that he and his group had taken control of several blocks since they burst into the town more than 30 hours earlier.

"Toledo must go," he said. "If Toledo doesn't go, then we won't go from here, either."

Two hospitals confirmed the four officers' deaths, and Mr. Humala said three more officers and a member of his military-inspired nationalist group had been wounded.

On Saturday night, Mr. Toledo declared a state of emergency in Andahuaylas, 560 miles southeast of Lima, and ordered the siege quashed.

Mr. Humala, shown in news photographs at the scene in olive army fatigues with two pistols tucked in his belt, stormed a police station in Andahuaylas with about 160 supporters in the early hours of New Year's Day and took 10 hostages.

He said Sunday that they were safe and that the police had captured seven of his men.

Mr. Humala said the deaths occurred when state security forces tried to retake a bridge held by his "reservists" - former members of the military or national police who fought in Peru's wars with Ecuador and with leftist rebels in the 1990's.

He said that calm had returned but that about 800 police officers and 700 troops were massed in the town.

There was no comment on Sunday from the government, which says Mr. Humala leads a subversive fringe group financed by drug trafficking.

Mr. Humala gained notoriety in 2000 when he joined his brother, Ollanta, in a failed uprising against President Alberto Fujimori. They eventually surrendered after Mr. Fujimori was ousted for corruption, and were jailed briefly but later pardoned.

Mr. Humala said he staged the siege to get rid of Mr. Toledo, whom he called corrupt.

"The government has provoked this," he said. "This rebellion can grow and become a revolution."

Mr. Toledo's popularity is just 9 percent in polls, and many Peruvians are fed up with influence-peddling scandals and unemployment more than three and a half years into his five-year term.

Mr. Humala said that more supporters had joined him since the group marched into the police station in predawn darkness on Saturday and that they now numbered more than 200, including 7 women.

Mr. Humala, whose agenda includes nationalizing industry and legalizing the coca crops that make cocaine, has criticized a recent government-ordered military reshuffling, which included the retirement of his brother, who had been military attaché at the Peruvian Embassy in South Korea.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1595, old post ID:21098

[MrSelf]

Hmm, a friend of mine, ex-bassist, is from Peru. I wonder how he feels about this.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1595, old post ID:21162

[Delvok]

This isn't going to be preety, a string a terrorist attacks are mabye going to follow this along with the goverment killing "terrorists" it could turn into one helleva ugly bloodbath.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1595, old post ID:21692