World

Blame In Peru's Aftermath

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 28, 2000 / 5:09 PM EDT / CBS

A day after rioting left downtown buildings in flames, six people dead and 80 more hurt, President Alberto Fujimori's new prime minister blamed organizers of an anti-Fujimori march for the unrest.

"We hold these organizers directly responsible for all that went on," Federico Salas.

But Fujimori's fiercest political rival blamed the president's supporters for instigating the violence that marred inauguration day.
In a news conference Friday night after the demonstrations turned violent, Alejandro Toledo blamed the unrest on what he said were dozens of pro-Fujimori infiltrators sent to discredit the protesters.

He said Fujimori was "inaugurated behind the tanks and rifles because he does not have the support of the people."

No matter who was at fault, political analysts said, the inauguration foretold a period of polarization in a society increasingly opposed to Fujimori's rule.

Peruvians furious with Fujimori's inauguration to an unprecedented third five-year term battled thousands of police, and tear gas and smoke darkened skies over Lima, the capital.

The demonstrators were protesting Fujimori's victory in a controversial May 28 election boycotted by his main challenger. Toledo, the challenger, said a fair election could not be assured, and international monitors severely questioned the vote.

On Saturday, streetsweepers in orange coveralls scrubbed such slogans as "Down with dictatorship!" off downtown walls and swept away shattered glass.

Police pulled the last two victims of a fire at a state bank from the building, carrying them out in black body bags.

Small squads of riot police stood on major street corners, shields nearby. But tensions had lifted and security was noticeably scaled back from the 40,000 police who countered the protests Friday.

Salas, the new prime minister, did not name the organizers he blamed for the riots, but it was clear who he meant: Toledo, the 54-year-old Stanford-trained economist who had planned for "peaceful resistance" to the inauguration.

Fujimori touts the achievements of his government, including the defeat of leftist insurgencies and an end to economic chaos in the early 1990s.

But many Peruvians say they are tired of Fujimori's blatant disregard for democratic checks and balances and his failure to deliver on promises of jobs. In a country of 26 million, half of the work force fails to make the minimum wage of $120 a month.

Some, like former opposition Congresswoman Lourdes Flores Nano, openly worry about a government increasingly bereft of popular support and whose authority is questioned.

"The inauguration of a new term lacks the one central element for the stability of government: legitimacy," Flores Nano wrote in a column for El Comercio. "This is not a good start and doesn't bode well."