Anti-Maoists Threaten Prosecutor
A death squad opposed to the Shining Path guerrillas has threatened to kill a district attorney if he investigates charges that soldiers massacred dozens of peasants, his office said Tuesday. Police said members of Shining Path, a Maoist group, killed two policemen and wounded three in jungle raids. The Rodrigo Franco Command, which has vowed to kill a Shining Path member or sympathizer for every person slain by guerrillas, issued the threat against District Attorney Carlos Escobar on Monday, according to his office in Andean city of Ayacucho. Escobar is investigating charges that troops rounded up dozens of peasants, accused them of being Shining Path members and killed them. The alleged massacre occurred in May near Cayara, a farming village 40 miles south of Ayacucho. Officials said the rebel raids occurred Sunday, at a police post and telephone relay station near the jungle city of Pucallpa, 325 miles northeast of Lima. Shining Path guerrillas began fighting eight years ago. The government says more than 15,000 people have been killed and puts the property damage at $10 billion. The Rodrigo Franco group is named for an official of the government party killed the Shining Path killed last year. It became known in July when it claimed responsibility for killing the lawyer for Osman Morote. He is suspected of being the Shining Path second-in-command and is in jail on terrorism charges.
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