Revolt fizzles out

Press, 12 July 1976, Page 6

Revolt fizzles out

NZPA-Reuter Lima The Peruvian Government has announced a peaceful end to an attempted revolt at the National Military Training Centre. Agence France-Presse reports. The communique was issued by General Jorge Fernandez Maldonado, who holds the posts of Prime Minister, War Minister, and Army Commander-in-chief in the Presidential regime of General Francisco Morales Bermudez.

The statement said the training centre’s commander (Brigadier-General Carlo Bobbio Centurion) had rebelled on Saturday when the President had ordered his premature retirement from the arrtiy for duly-justified reasons and under existing legal rules. Brigadier-General Bobbio Centurion had been backed by his junior officers, who had been given a distorted version of the matter, the communique said. There had been a brief outbreak of :

I shooting at the military I school, but no casualties. jrr The Government commun-je ique said Brigadier General lei Bobbio Centurion's actions ai at no time were intended to a question the Peruvian revo- tl lutionary process or its ai leader, President Morales la Bermudez. st But counter-revolutionary C( groups had tried to capital- st ise on the situation to promote their anti-national tc aims, the communique said. ct In view of this, the com- ~ munique continued, Briga- H dier-General Bobbio Centu- V rion and the officers under , his command, showing the c< solidity of their moral professional training and put- ’ ting institutional unity and patriotic loyalty above all 0] other considerations, had set p< aside their attitude during pi the day, normality having returned to the training m centre. rc There were unconfirmed, ba reports that Brigadier-Gen-1 bi eral Bobbio Centurion had lea fled the country or had been|te 'arrested. 'ca

The incidents came in the nidst of one of Peru's worst jconomic crises. The Govirnment has taken severe tusterity measures, including i 44 per cent devaluation of he sol on June 28, and has mswered widespread popuar protest by clamping a state of emergency on the country and suspending con-j titutional guarantees. The tension had led earlier o rumours of a potential oup from the Right. Brigadier-General Bobbio Senturion had been menioned as a possible candilate to head a conservative :oup. More observation Judge William Orrick has irdered that Patricia Hearst's tsychiatric observation >eriod be extended by 90 lays. Hearst, convicted on •larch 20 for the 1974 armed obbery of a San Francisco iank, with her former Symlionese Liberation Army aptors, will not be sen-j enced before October 4, be-1 ause of the extension.