Peru’s new leader takes tough line

Press, 30 July 1985, Page 10

Peru’s new leader takes tough line

NZPA-Reuter Lima Peru’s new President has announced a sharp cut in payments on the country’s huge foreign debt to lead Latin America in pressing for easier repayment terms. Alan Garcia told Congress in an inaugural speech yesterday that Peru would remit no more than 10 per cent of export earnings for the next year in repayment of its SUSI 3.6 billion ($27.25 billion) debt. Latin American diplomats said the tough policy would influence a meeting of 11 Foreign Ministers of the Cartagena group linking the region’s biggest debtors. Mr Garcia, at 36 Latin America’s youngest President, also called for a regional summit conference to fix a common stand on the area’s SUS36O billion foreign debt, President Julio Maria Sanguinetti of Uruguay said yesterday. Mr Sanguinetti was one of

six visiting Latin American Presidents witnessing the handover from Fernando Belaunde Terry to Mr Garcia, a Social Democrat. In his inaugural speech, Mr Garcia said many political prisoners were unjustly jailed on charges of being guerrillas. He pledged to create a peace commission to identify the innocent and said he would consider any recommendations for amnesty by the commission. Leftist congressmen estimate about 800 rebel suspects are being held in jail. Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebels set off a car bomb overnight outside the Armed Forces’ joint command. Other explosions blacked out part of the capital as rebels lit hammer-and-sickle signs on hillsides. Leftist Tupac Amaru rebels used a clandestine transmitter to broadcast a message which overrode the soundtrack of Mr Be-

launde’s televised farewell speech. The statement, transmitted as Mr Belaunde was seen gesturing in Congress, demanded freedom for political prisoners and denounced political corruption under his Government. Peru’s Sendero insurgency, which cost about 6000 lives during Mr Belaunde’s five-year term, is the biggest in South America. Mr Garcia proposed an arms buying freeze for the region and an area-wide cut in defence spending. The military, in an unprecedented show of support for democratic principles, saluted the new President as their Commander-in-Chief in a parade past the Presidential Palace. Mr Garcia’s succession marked the first time since 1912 that a freely elected President had handed over to his democratically chosen successor.