From: clarinews@clarinet.com (LAURENCE ILIFF)
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.politics,clari.news.fighting,clari.news.issues.civil_rights,biz.clarinet.sample
Followup-to: biz.clarinet.sample
Subject: Suspension of democracy may strengthen Maoist rebels
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, politics, fighting,
	civil rights, social issues
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 17:07:50 PDT
Location: peru
ACategory: international
Slugword: peru-rebels
Priority: regular
Format: regular
ANPA: Wc: 658; Id: z5218; Sel: xxigf; Adate: 4-12-810ped
Codes: yigfrxx., yip.rpu., yif.rpu., yixhrpu.

	LIMA, Peru (UPI) -- Not a day has gone by since President Alberto
Fujimori suspended democracy without a killing by Maoist rebels and
analysts say the Peruvian president may have given rebels an excuse for
stepped-up attacks.
	``Personally I feel that they will seek to exploit the situation,''
said a Western diplomat familiar with rebel tactics.
	A professor was killed by suspected Shining Path rebels in the
central Peruvian city of Ayacucho Sunday afternoon in the latest slaying
blamed on the clandestine group since Fujimori's surprise dissolution of
Congress and closure of the judiciary April 5.
	A legislator associated with the president's Cambio 90 movement
Saturday was gunned down in a Lima restaurant along with a customer at
an adjoining table. Four suspected rebels, one of whom was arrested,
were blamed for the attack that left several people seriously injured.
	Attacks earlier in the week against police, a union official and a
businessman took another nine lives. Two suspected rebels were also
killed in a shootout with police.
	An estimated 25,000 Peruvians, mostly civilians, have died in the
conflict since the estimated 7,000-strong group took up arms in 1980.
Economic damage from the revolt in this impoverished nation is estimated
at $22 billion during the last 12 years, equal to the nation's
oppressive foreign debt.
	Lima residents awoke Sunday to find Shining Path anti-government
pamphlets littering the streets and graffiti denouncing Fujimori's
suspension of the constitution with the backing of the military.
	``Down with the emergency government of national reconstruction,''
said one pamphlet signed PCP for Communist Party of Peru, the name used
by the rebels.
	The highly secretive group, which unlike other rebel movements only
meets to carry out attacks while members otherwise carry on normal
lives, has stepped up its attacks over the years. But the recent
outbreaks could be an precursor to a new wave of violence.
	``The reason to exist for any subversive movement, or whatever one
wants to call it, is based on the questioning of the legitimacy of the
current government,'' said an influential Peruvian think-tank this week
in criticizing Fujimori's action.
	``If we do not have institutional mechanisms nor a legal opposition
that operates within the system ... the majority poor sectors will have
less legal options to redress their grievances and the attraction of the
violent alternative will increase,'' said the Institute for Liberty and
Democracy in a statement Thursday.
	So far, Peruvians seem to be strongly in support of Fujimori because
most citizens accuse the opposition-dominated legislature and the
judiciary of blocking the popular president's attempts to battle the
economic crisis, the Shining Path movement and drug traffickers.
	Fujimori has promised to wipe out Shining Path before his five-year
term is over in 1995 and issued new decrees Saturday to strengthen the
ability of the police and the military to crack down on rebels and
traffickers.
	Less clear is how long Fujimori's actions will remain popular,
especially if he is unable to deliver on his promises for a new
democracy and improved conditions in the nation of 22 million, perhaps
the most troubled in Latin America. Some 13 million Peruvians live in
extreme poverty.
	``He has started to clear out the stables, that will be popular,''
said the Western diplomat of Fujimori's removal of legislators and
judges, many of whom were considered corrupt or self-serving by the
population.
	But his popularity may wither under possible economic sanctions by
the international community or worsening economic conditions, and that
may play into Shining Path's hands despite Fujimori's promise of a
crackdown.
	``I don't think the people of Peru have thought this through
properly,'' the diplomat said.
Xref: sparky clari.tw.science:4 clari.news.interest.people:26 clari.news.issues.conflict:14 clari.news.election:282 biz.clarinet.sample:1264