Peru Rebels Take 10 Police Hostage

A group of gunmen led by a retired army major stormed a police station in a remote Andean town and took 10 officers hostage Saturday to demand the resignation of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo.

Seven people were injured in a gunfight when Antauro Humala and 150 followers burst into the police station in Andahuaylas, 560 miles southeast of Lima, at 2:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Peru’s National Police said. Five of the wounded were police officers, the head of the local hospital said.

“We won’t leave the station until Toledo resigns, but I am also prepared to engage in dialogue,” Humala told RPP radio.

Humala and RPP reported that one person died in the morning’s violence, but that could not immediately be confirmed.

Toledo has an approval rating in polls of just 9%. Many Peruvians are weary of constant government corruption scandals and think their president has not delivered on promises of more wealth and jobs in his 3 1/2 years in office.

“We consider him a delinquent,” Humala said.

Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero dismissed Humala’s military-inspired movement as a fringe group out of touch with real Peruvians and probably funded by drug trafficking.

“This minority group is trying to put out a message that is completely at odds with the reality of the country. The armed forces and the national police will restore order and those who broke it will be brought to justice,” he told RPP.

Police reinforcements were being sent to the area, said police chief Felix Murazzo, who offered no additional details.

Humala, known as a firebrand nationalist, is the brother of Lt. Col. Ollanta Humala, an army commander who was forced to retire last week.

In October 2000, the brothers led 50 followers in a short-lived military uprising, a month before the collapse of then-President Alberto Fujimori’s corruption-ridden regime.

Antauro Humala had been forced to retire from the army three years earlier. A few months later, in December 2000, Peru’s Congress granted amnesty to the brothers.