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| Yahoo! News Tue, Apr 27, 2004 |
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Protesters Kill Mayor in Peruvian Town
By DREW BENSON, Associated Press Writer LIMA, Peru - Angry highland Indians beat their town's mayor to death after he refused to resign in the face of protests, then the mob attacked the police station, trapping dozens of officers.
Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi ordered the cornered police to hold off the attackers late Monday in Ilave, a town 565 miles southeast of Lima near Lake Titicaca.
A policeman interviewed on Radioprogramas radio station said about a thousand rioters had begun throwing molotov cocktails at the station, where 50 policemen, some of them injured, had run out of tear gas grenades.
"Don't let them take hostages or take your weapons," Rospigliosi told the unidentified police officer during the Radioprogramas interview. Phone service to the police station was cut minutes later.
Earlier Monday, the mob had broken into the house of Mayor Cirilo Fernando Robles and dragged him and three other municipal workers into the street and began beating them.
The tensions escalated after Robles had vowed not to step down following a week of peaceful protests demanding his resignation because of corruption allegations. The mob then beat Robles to death, Rospigliosi said.
Congressman Gustavo Pacheco, who represents the region, said that a total of 19 municipal workers had been kidnapped.
About 10,000 people, mostly Aymara Indians from surrounding villages, had been demanding Robles resignation on the grounds that he was corrupt and had failed to deliver on campaign promises.
Rospigliosi said it was unclear why the violence had continued to escalate following the mayor's killing. Radio reporters who tried to enter the town said the rioters turned them away.
The protesters had apparently became impatient with election officials, who had said they needed to follow legal channels to oust Robles.
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Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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