The Limazo Riots

The leftist military revolution in Peru, as President Juan Velasco Alvarado likes to put it, had two pillars of support. One was the armed forces. The other was "the immense majority of Peruvians that have had little or nothing to do with the direction of the country in the past"--in other words, the majority of the civilian population. Last week a surprisingly varied segment of that population seemed to break ranks with the revolution, plunging Peru into its worst outbreak of violence since the military seized power six years ago.

The immediate cause was a strike by the Guardia Civil, Peru's 22,000-man paramilitary police force. The whole force walked off the job after the government offered a wage increase of $8 a month instead of the $40 that the cops had asked for. Most units returned to work when ordered to do so, but the 1,200-man radio-patrol force based in downtown Lima held out. The police locked themselves inside the Victoria barracks and refused to leave. Instead of taking the sensible precaution of sending soldiers to protect the city from unrest, Velasco issued ultimatum after ultimatum to the strikers. Then he sent in tanks--Soviet-built T-55 models that smashed down the barracks doors as rangers trained in anti-guerrilla warfare streamed into the building. The battle was quickly over. Some of the defenders were subdued inside the building; others ran out onto the plaza with their hands in the air.

Much to the surprise of the junta, antigovernment students took to the streets in support of the striking police. Throwing rocks and burning cars in their path, hundreds of students proceeded to the Plaza San Martin, where they fire-bombed and destroyed a military officers' club. Other targets included the government-backed newspaper Correo, which was also bombed.

Diplomatic Silence. While the students were demonstrating, residents of the city's pueblos jovenes (slums), who have been badly hurt by soaring price rises on staples, went on a binge of looting. Along Union Street, center of the department-store district, looters made off with radios, TV sets and vacuum cleaners. One man set up a sidewalk stand a scant 300 yards from the Presidential Palace, where he tried to hawk his wares at bargain prices.

In an effort to restore order, the government declared a nighttime curfew and a state of emergency, and suspended constitutional guarantees for 30 days. At week's end it appeared that at least 100 people had been killed and 300 wounded in two days and a night of fighting and demonstrating. The rioting at times had been so fierce that some Latin American diplomats dubbed it el Limazo, a reference to the bloody riots known as el Bogotazo. which took place in Bogota, Colombia, 27 years ago.

A general who led the 1968 coup that ousted President Fernando Belaunde Terry, Velasco has accomplished much during his six years in power--notably his land and education reform programs--but he has never been particularly popular. Moreover, he has grown increasingly intolerant of criticism and disposed to rule by fiat. In theory the junta does not interfere with political parties, but repression against them has grown during the past year. Some enemies of the regime have been harassed into exile; others, like former President Belaunde, have been forbidden to return. Last July Velasco expropriated all newspapers with a national circulation, thereby eliminating with one blow the only important source of opposition to his policies.

At the moment there is no alternative to a military government in Lima; and, as the success of the tank attack on the police indicated, the junta feels confident that it can effectively put down with brutal swiftness any challenge to its control. Still, with the Peruvian economy in trouble because of rocketing food prices and dwindling foreign loans, Velasco, who is seriously ailing with a circulatory disease, may now be inclined to consider retirement earlier rather than later.

One observer of last week's riots noted the "ecumenical characteristics" of the mob--meaning that its members appeared to range from the far left to the far right. That alone is a sober message for Velasco: namely, that he has managed to alienate Peruvians of every political leaning.

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