Wednesday, May 26, 2004, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

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Restive town in Peru faces crackdown

By Seattle Times news services

LIMA, Peru — Peru is considering declaring a state of emergency in a southern border town where a mob killed the mayor last month and where police and soldiers have struggled to contain violent protests, the government said yesterday.

After nearly two months of unrest, police reopened blocked roads in the impoverished Andean town of Ilave near Lake Titicaca, but army trucks patrolling the streets were attacked by demonstrators near the bridge that links Peru and Bolivia, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

"Ilave has witnessed more than a month of disturbances, and we are considering declaring a state of emergency," an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

A state of emergency would put more troops on the streets, suspend some constitutional rights and allow authorities to enter homes without search warrants.

Some 300 soldiers arrived Monday in Ilave, 825 miles southeast of Lima, to back up about 600 police.

Violent protests erupted over the weekend as mostly Aymara Indians in the town demanded the release of Ilave's deputy mayor, who is accused of organizing the April 26 killing of Mayor Cirilo Robles by a mob.

Thousands of Aymara from Ilave and outlying towns led three weeks of protests in April to demand Robles' resignation, accusing him of embezzling public funds. The protests culminated in a riot during which Robles was beaten to death.

A commission named by President Alejandro Toledo is in the region to try to organize local elections to bring calm. Many Aymara oppose the new mayor who replaced Robles.

The government says drug traffickers are also behind the unrest, stirring up protests to smuggle contraband through the border more easily. Ilave is a key transit point for contraband worth millions of dollars every year.

Toledo said the Aymara around Ilave were being manipulated by "Peruvians and people from other countries," in an apparent reference to Bolivian congressman and Aymara leader, Felipe Quispe.

Quispe rejected Toledo's accusation and said he has never been to Ilave.

It was the second time in recent days that the army has been sent in to help police restore order in the provinces. Saturday, about 360 soldiers were deployed to help an equal number of police clear highways blocked by coca growers protesting the eradication of their cocaine-producing crop.

In Tingo Maria, about 200 miles northeast of Lima, some shops were open Monday and cargo trucks traveled highways cleared by police, although private cars and minivan buses remained off the roads, cable news reported.

People in Ilave say their town descended into barbarism long before the mayor's death. Neglected by Lima, residents have been left on their own to cope with shriveling potato crops, bad roads, corrupt officials and all the other indignities that come with living in one of the poorer corners of Peru.

"We are not drug dealers, smugglers or savages, or any of those other things we have been called," said Rosa Marta Mamani, a peasant leader. "We're only people who are tired of corrupt and centralized government."

Aymara on both sides of the Peruvian-Bolivian border have talked of uniting for the first time since the Spanish Conquest. "Today, Ilave is the capital of the Aymara Republic," Edgar Larijo, a village leader, told a crowd recently. "Today Ilave stands on its own two feet, it does not bow before anyone."

Compiled from Reuters, The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times reports.

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