Posted on 03/20/2002 7:38:07 PM PST by TLBSHOW
— LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -
Four people were killed on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Lima three days before a visit by President Bush, police said.
"At the moment all we know is that it appears a car bomb exploded four blocks from the U.S. Embassy, killing four people," a spokesman for the bomb squad told Reuters.
It was not immediately known who planted the bomb.
Police at the scene said seven people were killed in the blast.
Officials said the car exploded outside a bank in a shopping center near the U.S. Embassy, which is a heavily secured fortress-style building in an upscale district of the capital.
Radio reports said several buildings were badly damaged and three cars were on fire.
Bush, who leaves Washington Thursday for a U.N. development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, was due to arrive in Lima Saturday for his first visit to South America.
U.S. officials were not immediately available to comment on the attack.
Peru was rocked by leftist rebel violence by the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, guerrilla groups in the 1980s and 1990s whose wars on the state cost 30,000 lives.
Peruvian authorities said late last year it had foiled a Shining Path attack on the embassy and other U.S. missions.
Those Shining Path Maoist nutballs are back. You've been to Lima and are suprised at terrorism there? Peru has been one of the most terrorism-ridden countries in the world for the past couple decades...declined a bit after the commander of the Shining Path was arrested, but they seem to becoming back. Tupac Amaru is another leftist whacko terrorist group they have.
http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
Taxpayer money funding this?
According to non-governmental human rights groups like Amnesty International, the Peruvian government itself is implicated in a record of vicious repression and human rights abuses that dwarfs even the terrorist actions of the MRTA(Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement). The bleak reality of the situation in Peru may explain the surprisingly sympathetic coverage being given the "terrorists" in much of the foreign press, which has reported a more balanced picture of conditions in Peru than the U.S. mainstream media.
And more: "Rather than addressing the needs of the poor majority of Peruvians, President Fujimori has guided the country down an authoritarian neo-liberal road, enforcing policies designed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Neo-liberal policies aimed at privatization of national industries, opening up the economy to transnational corporate investment, and increasing exports and corporate exploitation of natural resources have provided impressive economic statistics for Japanese and U.S.-based investors."
For more info, go here: http://www.neravt.com/left/gaal.htm
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