Peruvian Leader: Shining Path 'Will Pay':
LIMA, Peru - Peru's president declared a state of emergency in six jungle provinces and promised to stamp out the nation's remaining Shining Path guerrillas after suspected rebels killed eight police officers in an ambush.Let the smacketh downeth begineth. Posted by Kyer at December 22, 2005 01:29 PM | TrackBack"They will pay. My government is prepared to provide everything that our police and our armed forces need professionally," President Alejandro Toledo said Wednesday in a speech at a police barracks in Lima. "The eight officers fell at the cowardly hands of terrorists who today are in the service of drug trafficking."
Later, Toledo decreed a two-month state of emergency in six coca-producing provinces in the central jungle and said his Cabinet had also approved the creation of an emergency commission to bring urgently needed social development to the area.
Under Peruvian law, a state of emergency suspends civil rights, such as the right to assembly, and gives police and the military sweeping powers to enter homes and conduct searches.
"This supreme decree will allow the armed forces and the police to jointly enter and take action in this zone for 60 days," Toledo said in an address aired on state-run television.
The goal, he said, was to provide "a greater state presence, within the law, respecting human rights."