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Lynch-mob justice in Andes

Peruvian mayor's murder emboldens downtrodden peasants

ILAVE, Peru -- The campaign signs of the late, murdered mayor can still be seen outside this town on the grasslands near Lake Titicaca, 11,000 feet above sea level. In green letters painted on the white-washed adobe bricks of a few crumbling hovels, they proclaim his one-word slogan: "Union."

Mayor Fernando Cirilio Robles was killed last month by a lynch mob. His constituents dragged him out of his home, beat and stabbed him to death and dumped his body next to the ruins of the bridge he promised to repair but never did.

It's hard to find anyone in this town who regrets the mayor's murder, part of a pattern of lawlessness here. But in the rest of Peru, there has been widespread revulsion and horror following the broadcast of videotaped scenes of the bloodied Robles being pummeled and paraded through town.

In an act of foolish bravery, Robles returned April 26 to Ilave, three weeks after fleeing in the face of death threats. "His mistake was in coming back," said David Jimenez, president of the Puno region, of which Ilave is a part. "We all warned him, but he took the risk."

Robles was meeting in his home with allies on the town council when a crowd of thousands surrounded the building. The mayor locked himself inside, but the mob broke in through a third-floor window.

"They kicked him, they pushed him, they insulted him, they called him `thief' and `corrupt' and then they stabbed him," said Cristhian Ticona, a reporter for the daily newspaper La Republica who witnessed the attack. The mob took the dying mayor to the steps of City Hall, where he uttered his last words into a microphone placed before his lips: "I ask the forgiveness of the people."

Now three opposition council members, a radio-station owner and the vice mayor are in jail, charged as the "intellectual authors" of his murder. The five arrests triggered a new round of protests, with thousands of Aymara Indian residents of Ilave and its surrounding villages demanding the release of the jailed officials. The peasants have blocked highways and staged sporadic strikes that shut down local schools and government offices.

In Peru's capital, Lima, pundits say the law of the jungle rules in Ilave. "We can't allow Ilave to be an island where a lynching goes unpunished," television commentator Cesar Hildebrandt said. "We can't abandon the rule of law just because there's an enraged mob of 10,000 people on the streets."

People here say their town descended into barbarism long before the mayor's death. Neglected by Lima, they've been left to their own devices to cope with shriveling potato crops, bad roads, corrupt officials and all the other indignities that come with living in one of the poorer corners of Peru.

"We are not drug dealers, smugglers or savages, or any of those other things we have been called," said Rosa Marta Mamani, a peasant leader. "We're are only people who are tired of corrupt and centralized government."

Robles became mayor with just 19 percent of the vote. He was accused by villagers of nepotism and pocketing money budgeted to pave a country road and to repair the old bridge.

In the weeks, days and hours before Robles was killed, his supporters and opponents engaged in pitched, medieval-style battles up and down the town's narrow streets. Residents say the mayor's supporters intimidated residents with crude weapons such as wooden pikes. And when the mob surrounded the mayor's house, he dumped pots filled with boiling water from the windows.

David Inchuta, a young village leader opposed to the mayor's rule, was stabbed to death a few days before the mayor was lynched. Inchuta had tied a dead rat to a poster attacking the mayor. Peruvian police have linked the mayor's supporters to Inchuta's killing.

Still, Inchuta's death has gone all but unnoticed outside Ilave.

"For a murdered campesino (peasant), there is no justice," said Mamani, who wore the traditional bowler hat and woven shawl of Aymara women. "But for a corrupt mayor, they want justice."

Mamani was one of a half-dozen leaders who spoke during a day of defiant, anti-government rallies last week as thousands of peasants from the surrounding villages filled the main plaza. Many carried the rainbow-quilt flag of Aymara nationalism.

One Peruvian newspaper reported sightings in Ilave last week of Felipe Quispe, a Bolivian Aymara leader who has encouraged his followers to engage in armed resistance to the Bolivian government. Aymara on both sides of the Peruvian-Bolivian border have talked of uniting their people for the first time since the Spanish Conquest.

"Today, Ilave is the capital of the Aymara Republic," declared Edgar Larijo, a village leader, to a crowd assembled in the plaza. "Today Ilave stands on its own two feet, it does not bow before anyone."

The thousands of men and women before him began to chant: "This is Ilave, valiant and combative!"

Larijo appeared in public despite a warrant for his arrest in connection with the mayor's death. Two blocks away, some 400 Peruvian police gathered outside their local station, donning riot helmets and shields: none moved to arrest Larijo.

"We've been trying to handle this situation with kid gloves," said police Gen. Luis Vizcarra Giron, an affable man who seemed not at all perturbed by the swirl of events around him. "We really don't know what's going on, because everything is being organized in the villages and we don't have any intelligence there."

An armored personnel carrier rolled up to the station. "As soon as you hear the first bomb go off, get close to us," one officer told a group of reporters. "This is going to get hot. Stay with us and we'll take care of you."

A burly officer with a thin mustache then gestured to a passing shoeshine boy. He raised a boot as the boy knelt before him. "I want to have a nice shine on my boots when I go into action," he said.

But there was no action that day. The peasants marched, listened to speeches -- and then went home. The police put away their riot shields. And the late mayor's body remained in a crypt many miles away in a cemetery in the city of Puno, its flower wreaths beginning to wilt in the fierce sun.