18 November 2008
Lima under lockdown for Asia-Pacific summit
LIMA, Peru (AFP) - Top officials from the Pacific rim were arriving Tuesday for free-trade talks in Peru’s capital Lima, which was under a security lockdown for US President George W. Bush’s last scheduled foreign trip.
Ministers of trade and foreign affairs from 21 countries including China, Japan, Russia and the United States were due in the South American city for two days of talks starting on Wednesday.
The weeklong Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will culminate Saturday and Sunday with a summit of leaders including Bush set to focus on turmoil on international financial markets.
Host Peru has voiced hope the summit will send a strong signal against protectionism, urging the region to pursue free trade despite a slowing global economy.
Peruvian President Alan Garcia said that APEC, which accounts for 60 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, also had more small private businesses than other parts of the world.
"It’s thanks to this that the region is more active," Garcia told Asia-Pacific business leaders. "APEC is the greatest anti-crisis tool in the world."
Some 99,000 police were deployed across Peru, imposing a maximum state of alert in a country haunted by a bloody Maoist insurrection in the 1980s and 1990s.
Remnants of the Shining Path rebels on Saturday shot dead three police officers and injured another one in southeastern Peru.
The far-left movement was blamed for a car bomb outside the US embassy in Lima in 2002 shortly before another visit by Bush, killing nine people.
Police on Sunday also arrested a man hauling 36 grenades in central Lima. They were investigating his motives.
Julio Vergara, the head of security for the APEC summit, said that 39,000 of the police officers would be deployed in Lima, including more than 2,000 directly in charge of guarding visiting dignitaries.
The leaders will meet in one of Lima’s most tightly guarded places — the sprawling headquarters of the army, which has been reinforced with steel railings.
Some residents were unhappy about the stringent security in the bustling capital of seven million people, where traffic was even more heavily congested than usual.
Adan Gonzales, who lives in the upscale Miraflores district near many of the hotels where leaders will stay, called the situation "annoying."
"We have problems getting to our homes and no one can visit us either unless they’ve been registered," he said.
Some 800 police plan three rings of security around the airport to prevent incidents during leaders’ arrival.
Peru’s main labor union, the Confederacion General de Trabajadores, said it would hold a demonstration on Friday against Bush.
Mario Huaman, the union’s secretary general, said the group called the march "to condemn Bush’s presence as he is guilty for the financial crisis, which is having a negative impact on workers."
He also said without specifying that demonstrators planned to protest at the gate to the leaders’ summit.
Interior Minister Remigio Hernani said that authorities also planned to boost security in rural and mountain areas where remnants of the Shining Path are active.
Some 70,000 people died in the 1980 and 1990s insurgency by the far-left rebels. The group has slowed down since the 1992 capture of its leader, former philosophy professor Abimael Guzman, but remnants are involved in drug running.