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Peru's president declares state of emergency
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru - Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo declared a 30-day state of
emergency in a remote Andean province where a group of nationalist
dissidents seized a police station and took officers hostage, demanding
Toledo's resignation.
"In the supreme decree we are declaring a state of emergency in the
department of Apurimac,'' Toledo said at the government palace, after
cutting short a holiday trip for an urgent cabinet meeting on the situation.
At least seven people were wounded in a shootout during the takeover
Saturday. The dissidents are followers of a retired army major who, along
with his brother, seeks to establish a nationalist indigenous movement
modelled on the ancient Incan Empire.
"This is a military protest and we are willing to lay down our arms and
surrender when Toledo resigns from office,'' Antauro Humala told
Radioprogramas Radio from the captured police station in Andahuaylas, 440
kilometres southeast of the capital Lima.
A state of emergency suspends basic constitutional rights such as freedom of
assembly, permits authorities to enter homes without search warrants and
authorizes the president to charge the armed forces with maintaining order.
Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero said Humala and fewer than 100 followers, most
of them army reservists, seized the police station after the police
commander refused to sell them weapons.
He dismissed Humala's group as fringe subversives with links to
drug-trafficking who are out of touch with Peru's population and said the
government will not negotiate with them.
"This is an isolated act that, of course, is going to fail,'' Ferrero told
CPN radio.
"The population is absolutely tranquil. Nobody supports these violent
acts.''
Toledo cut short a vacation on Peru's northern coast and flew back to Lima
for the cabinet meeting. Peruvian news media reported Toledo and his cabinet
met for about an hour and a half Saturday. Officials haven't yet commented
on the outcome of the meeting.
Five police officers and two civilians, probably followers of Humala, were
being treated for gunshot wounds in the town's hospital, officials told
Radioprogramas.
National Police chief Felix Murazo said Humala was holding 10 officers
hostage in the station and reinforcements were on their way to the town to
restore order.
Humala is the brother of Ollanta Humala, an army commander stationed in
South Korea whom the government retired last week.
In October 2000, Lt.-Col. Ollanta Humala and his brother led 50 followers in
a short-lived military uprising, a month before the collapse of former
president Alberto Fujimori's corruption-ridden, 10-year regime. Antauro
Humala had been forced to retire from the army three years earlier.
The revolt failed to spark the wider rebellion the brothers had hoped for in
barracks across the country to establish their nationalist indigenous
movement.
Peru's Congress granted the brothers and their followers amnesty in December
2000.
While Ollanta Humala was transferred for overseas duty, Antauro Humala
forged a small but vocal political movement in his brother's name that has
accused Toledo of selling out Peru to business interests in Chile, an
historic rival.
Antauro Humala said Saturday his brother was en route to Peru to retake
leadership of the movement.
But Ollanta Humala said in a telephone interview with Radioprogramas Radio
he was still in South Korea and the military was delaying his departure with
administrative matters.
Hours later he called the station and read a statement urging Peruvians to
take to the streets to force Toledo from power.
Toledo, who took office in July 2001 with a popularity rating of nearly 60
per cent, has tried to disassociate himself from a series of corruption
scandals over the last year involving relatives and members of his cabinet.
His approval rating is around nine per cent.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1104639715435_10/?hub=World
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