Suspected Guerrillas Kill a Top Official of Peru’s Ruling Party
Gunmen believed to be leftist guerrillas shot and killed a top official of President Alan Garcia’s party Friday--the latest in a recent wave of assassinations of Garcia supporters.
The four gunmen shot Cesar Lopez Silva three times in the head with revolvers as he got into his car near his home in the Pueblo Libre district of Lima, radio reports said.
Health Minister David Tejada said Lopez Silva, a neurosurgeon in charge of health services for metropolitan Lima, was on his way to the Health Ministry when he was killed.
Lopez Silva was the national director for professional groups of Garcia’s ruling center-left American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, or Aprista.
No group or individual immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. But authorities said the slaying resembled other assassinations carried out by Maoist guerrillas belonging to Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), who have gunned down scores of policemen, military officers and members of Garcia’s ruling party.
More than 8,000 peasants, rebels and other Peruvians have been killed since Sendero Luminoso took up arms in 1980. The group seeks to set up a worker-peasant state in Peru modeled after the China of late communist leader Mao Tse-tung.
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