Fujimori Blasts Peru Agitators, Names Cabinet

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori moved quickly Saturday to swear in a new Cabinet and blamed the opposition for six deaths a day earlier during protests against the start of his third term.

Fujimori, 62, accused by the marchers of electoral fraud, swore in his Cabinet with little warning Saturday and moved his inaugural parade from downtown Lima to the army’s suburban headquarters.

During his swearing-in Friday for an unprecedented third term, six people died in a government building set ablaze during the riots. Human rights groups said 155 people were hospitalized and 172 arrested in the worst protests of Fujimori’s 10-year rule.

At a ceremonial lunch Saturday for the security forces’ top brass, Fujimori blasted the opposition’s “pseudo-leadership who can only guarantee chaos and violence.”

“Peru has been shaken for months by this group wreaking irrational destruction,” the president said.

His new prime minister, Federico Salas, blamed the riots--which left Lima, the capital, under clouds of tear gas and smoke--on “those who organized the march without foreseeing the consequences.”