Car Bomb Rocks Capital as Peru Prepares for Transfer of Power

A powerful car bomb rocked this terrorist-besieged city Saturday night on the eve of a historic transfer of power between elected civilian presidents in a country beset by economic decline and social unrest.

The explosion, a block from the headquarters of the armed forces joint chiefs of staff and two blocks from the residence of the U.S. ambassador, mocked the strictest security measures anyone could recall seeing in this capital.

Police said one woman was slightly injured in the blast, which sent pieces of the orange Volkswagen flying 100 yards away and shattered windows in the neighborhood. Another person was injured by a bomb in the mountain city of Huancayo, and residents in the southern portions of Lima reported an electricity blackout there Saturday night.

Following Another Bombing

Saturday night’s terrorism, 48 hours after another car bomb explosion, was part of a guerrilla attempt to disrupt today’s inauguration of 36-year-old populist Alan Garcia as Peru’s new president.

In the face of the guerrilla threat, a small U.S. delegation headed by Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III postponed its arrival until this morning because of security concerns, although “the press of business in Washington” was officially cited as the reason. An Argentine government jet bound for Lima on Saturday with Presidents Raul Alfonsin of Argentina and Julio Sanguinetti of Uruguay made a precautionary landing in Rosario, Argentina, after a false bomb threat.

30,000 Police, Troops

Dogged by terrorist bombings committed by two different Marxist bands, the Peruvian government mobilized at least 30,000 police and troops to safeguard the transfer of authority from outgoing President Fernando Belaunde Terry, 72, to Garcia. In the first succession of elected civilians since 1945, the new president’s inauguration comes at a moment of profound economic decay and social unrest in Peru.

Garcia’s party, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, is a major step to the left of Belaunde’s centrist government. Garcia, who calls himself a social democrat, promises economic reactivation that will spur redistribution of income toward the poor Peruvian majority. He will immediately seek negotiations with foreign banks for deferral of payments on a $13.5-billion foreign debt. Garcia says Peru cannot pay the debt as it is currently structured.

Lima was a city occupied by its own armed forces Saturday, while sirens howled and helicopters clattered overhead to supervise the arrival of presidents from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Uruguay.

His Own Armored Limo

At least three other chiefs of state who had been expected--from Costa Rica, Spain and Venezuela--decided to forgo the inauguration. Other delegations were either reduced or expanded to include additional security personnel. Argentina’s Alfonsin, whose last visit to Lima in June was punctuated by a car bomb outside the presidential palace as he met with Belaunde, brought his own armored limousine and 40 security guards.

Police and troops ringed Lima’s core Saturday, closing downtown streets to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. It took two separate sets of credentials to negotiate the three blocks between two downtown hotels reserved for inauguration visitors. Police said they had mined the ground around key installations and erected electrified fences at some of them. Today’s ceremonies will be held at midday to reduce reliance on electricity.

Favorite Rebel Tactic

Attacks on pylons bringing power to this capital of 6 million have been a favorite tactic of rural-based Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas. A Maoist movement led by a renegade university professor, Sendero Luminoso has harassed the Belaunde government for all of its five years. Under stiff military pressure in the Andes where it was born, Sendero has lately shifted more to urban terrorism.

To the Sendero threat have lately been added the predations of Tupac Amaru, a more-traditional, urban-based Marxist movement that is also more technologically sophisticated.

Tupac Amaru claimed responsibility for an embarrassing car bombing that destroyed or damaged 12 cars Thursday in the parking lot outside the Interior (Police) Ministry here.

Early Friday, police arrested a 23-year-old man carrying satchels of dynamite and a machine gun. They said Saturday that the man confessed planning to explode a car bomb along the road used by visiting delegations between Lima’s airport and downtown.