Police regain rule in Peruvian town

JULIACA, Peru – Police retook control of an Andean town on Tuesday, a day after highland Indians beat the mayor to death, accusing him of corruption.

Hours after pulling police out of Ilave, 565 miles southeast of Lima, the government sent a convoy of trucks with more than 200 officers back into the town near Lake Titicaca.

Radioprogramas reported that as the officers pulled into the main square, they were met by residents who shouted: “Ilave united will never be defeated!” But there were no reports of violence in the town.

“There are 220 police in Ilave at this moment,” Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi told Canal N television. “They are retaking control of the town.”

On Monday, about 10,000 people, mostly Aymara Indians from surrounding villages, demanded that Mayor Cirilo Fernando Robles resign over corruption allegations and his failure to deliver on campaign promises.

During the protest, a riot erupted and a mob broke into a house where Robles was conducting a town council meeting. They dragged the mayor and three other municipal workers into the street and beat them, killing Robles and leaving his body underneath a bridge.

The mob of about 3,000 people then surrounded the police station, attacking it with gasoline bombs.

About 50 police officers were in the station, and they managed to repel the mob with help from reinforcements. Soon after, they fled the town.

Now, with a larger force back in Ilave, “we are trying to re-establish normal activities,” Rospigliosi said. “Of course, it is a slow process that will take some time.”

Galo Medina, a radio reporter in Ilave, told Canal N in a television interview that the police were wearing civilian clothes and had locked up the station in an effort to avoid more violence.

A woman identified as the sister of one of Ilave’s town councilmen told Channel 2 television on Monday night that police arrested three men for killing Robles. But the mob forced the officers to release the suspects.