Police shot coca farmers in self-defense: official

Peru's Interior Minister said that police acted in self-defense when they killed three coca farmers who were part of a mob that hurled rocks and tried to burn a police lieutenant alive to protest US-backed eradication of their cocaine producing crop.

Javier Reategui made his comments Wednesday to a congressional committee as police regained control of a hydroelectric plant seized by hundreds of coca farmers in San Gaban, 730km southeast of the capital.

He said a government negotiating team would go to the area next week to address the farmers' demands.

The government declared a 30-day state of emergency in the area on Tuesday, hours after nearly 2,000 coca farmers, many of them drunk, seized the plant, shouting at local police "We've come to fight, not talk!" and "We will kill you!" Reategui said.

Reategui alleged the farmers were incited by cocaine traffickers.

During a 1 1/2-hour confrontation, police used tear gas and fired gunshots in the air in a futile attempt to quell the violence, he said, adding machete-wielding farmers tried to break into the electric plant workers' housing complex and the nearby police station.

One police officer was knocked unconscious by a rock hurled with a slingshot, another was beaten with clubs and a third was soaked with kerosene in an attempt to burn him alive, Reategui said.

Two coca farmers were shot to death by police, and a third who was shot in the leg died later of complication en route to a hospital, officials said. Ten other farmers and five police were injured.

A state of emergency suspends basic constitutional rights such as freedom of assembly, permits authorities to enter homes without search warrants, and authorizes the president to charge the armed forces with maintaining order.

San Gaban Mayor Adolfo Huamantica told CPN radio Wednesday that the coca farmers had voluntarily left the electric plant.

Reategui said authorities recently discovered a 3,000-hectare swath of coca and launched operations to destroy the crops and dismantle 10 outdoor labs where the leaf was chemically processed into cocaine paste.

Peruvian coca growers frequently protest attempts to deter the crop's production, arguing that coca leaves are part of Andean culture and have been used for centuries in ceremonies or chewed to ward off hunger. The government maintains that the vast majority of the coca is processed into cocaine.

Peru's government permits the cultivation of about 10,000 hectares of the plant for chewing and for sale to companies that produce pharmaceutical cocaine, package coca tea or make extracts used in soft drinks.