Car Bomb Kills 9; Peru Tightens Security for Bush
Mar 21 4:09am ET
By Missy Ryan
LIMA (Reuters) - Peru announced a security clampdown Thursday after nine people
were killed and 30 injured in a powerful car bomb explosion near the U.S. Embassy in
Lima three days before a visit by President Bush.
Vice President Raul Diez Canseco said after an emergency early morning cabinet
meeting that Lima's historic center would be sealed off and police patrols stepped up
after Wednesday night's blast "that leaves Peru in mourning."
He said nine people died and 30 were injured in the blast.
It was not immediately known who planted the bomb, which exploded around 10:45
p.m. (10:45 p.m. EST) across the street from the embassy, recalling scenes of
carnage from a decade ago when Peru was gripped by leftist rebel violence.
The blast was so powerful one body was blown about 165 feet (50 meters) across a
dual carriage way separating the scene of the explosion from the embassy. The victim
had a leg and clothes blown off. Part of a car engine lay nearby.
Diez Canseco said President Alejandro Toledo would fly home later Thursday from a
U.N. development summit in Monterrey, Mexico. Toldeo, speaking to RPP radio hours
after the blast, vowed: "We will not yield even a centimeter to terrorism."
The president condemned the bomb attack and guaranteed full safety for Bush during
a 17-hour visit this weekend.
"My deepest condolences to the families of the victims who have been hit in such a
cowardly way by a terrorist attack," Toledo said. "I want to express my strongest
condemnation."
The dead included one police officer and an 18-year-old man, who had been
roller-blading.
"It looks like there were around 66 pounds of explosives," Juan Piperis, deputy
commander of Lima's firefighters, told reporters. The blast left a large dent in the
ground. A green Toyota at the scene was barely recognizable and other nearby
vehicles were torched.
BODIES COVERED IN PLASTIC
Bodies covered by orange plastic sheets lay strewn on the sidewalk amid broken
glass, mangled metal, shattered tiles and crushed cinder blocks.
The blast occurred outside a Banco de Credito bank in a shopping center across a
wide avenue in front of the main entrance to the U.S. Embassy, a heavily secured
fortress-style building in an upscale district of the capital.
The blast blew out all the bank's windows, destroyed its signs and scattered chairs.
The bank was on the ground floor of a five-star hotel and was next to a movie theater,
which was closed for refurbishment.
Other stores in the shopping center were open, however, and there were people and
cars around at the time of the blast.
Relatives of some of the victims, weeping hysterically, came to the scene.
Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi appealed for calm and said: "They're not going to
intimidate us."
No one claimed responsibility but Piperis said the explosion bore the hallmarks of the
leftist rebel bomb attacks that scarred Peru in the 1980s and 1990s when the Shining
Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, guerrilla groups waged war
on the state. Their insurgencies cost 30,000 lives.
Although both rebel movements have been largely dormant for nearly a decade, Peru
said late last year it had foiled a Shining Path attack on the embassy in Lima.
BUSH'S FIRST SOUTH AMERICAN TRIP
Bush, who leaves Thursday for the Monterrey summit, was due in Lima Saturday for
his first visit to South America. Neither the embassy nor the State Department in
Washington had any immediate reaction to the blast or comment on his plans.
The visit is the first to Peru by a sitting U.S. president. Bush was due to hold talks
with his counterparts from Peru, Colombia and Bolivia and the vice president of
Ecuador on regional trade issues and the wars on terror and drugs.
Rospigliosi said he was certain the U.S. president, who has vowed to give no quarter
to terrorists since the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington, would
still come.
Even before the bomb, Peru had been planning to deploy 7,000 police to guard the
capital and Toledo said "security is guaranteed ... Terrorism will not survive in my
government."
The Peruvian government already said it would ban flights over Lima and shoot down
unauthorized air traffic during Bush's trip. Streets in central Lima usually clogged with
honking minibuses and street vendors would also be sealed off.
Diez Canseco appealed to the leftist groups who have said they will stage protests
during Bush's visit to stay home. "We think it's a time to all pull together," he said.
But signs have been posted on walls in central Lima saying "Bush -- go away,"
"Yankee go home" and "You won't make it to Peru alive." |
