4 Policemen Killed During Rebel-Called Strike in Peru

Maoist guerrillas blew up a police van Friday, killing four policemen and wounding five during a one-day strike, police sources said.

The rebel-called strike, which left millions of Peruvians struggling to find transportation to get to work, was part of the Maoist Shining Path’s strategy to shift its activity from the traditional highland strongholds to the capital.

Friday’s deaths brought the toll in the weeklong offensive to 16.

Helicopters flew over this city of 7 million people, and armored personnel carriers patrolled the streets.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the government had ordered 30,000 members of the armed forces into the streets. Soldiers and police searched cars for explosives and checked bus passengers’ identification.

Friday morning, three policemen died when guerrillas detonated an 88-pound bomb as the police van patrolled the working-class district of Comas, police sources said.

Another policeman died in a hospital of severe wounds, the sources added.

The rebels carried out at least a dozen bombings of banks, factories and telecommunications relay stations and other buildings, the Interior Ministry spokesman said. He said police defused bombs on two expressway bridges and captured three rebels carrying dynamite.

Prime Minister Alfonso de los Heros called on Peruvians to ignore the strike call and go to work as usual.

“It’s an act of real civic bravery that people leave their homes and walk, or cram into a truck, to get to work,” he told reporters.

He said at least 97% of Lima workers made it to work by noon. The Labor Ministry could not provide later statistics.

Large crowds of workers in various Lima shantytowns tried to catch rides on passing trucks. Some state buses ran with soldiers aboard.