Thousands march in Peru for death penalty plan
By Marco Aquino and Andrei Khalip
LIMA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Carrying portraits of relatives killed by Maoist rebels years ago, thousands of Peruvians marched in the capital Lima on Friday to support the death penalty.
Public demonstrations are normally banned downtown, but President Alan Garcia, who proposed the death penalty, received representatives of the marchers and then spoke to the crowd of some 3,000 from the staircase of his palace, a portrait of a victim pinned to his suit.
"The people do not want vengeance, the people want justice," Garcia said. "I cannot silence the clamor of the people of Peru. I promised to introduce capital punishment ... during my election campaign and I want to be honest and loyal with the people."
The crowd chanted "death penalty" and "justice."
Garcia's death penalty proposals for people convicted of terrorism and child rape were part of campaign pledges that won him last year's election in the Andean country. The proposals are for future convictions and are not retroactive.
But Garcia ran into resistance in Congress, which this month voted down his measure to impose the death penalty. Last week, he proposed changing the constitution to allow a referendum on the issue.
He said on Friday that 85 percent of Peruvian households supported the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism terrorists and child rape.
Capital punishment for terror offenses is permitted under Peru's 1993 constitution. But the penal code does not allow it under any circumstance.
Critics have called Garcia's death penalty crusade "populist", "autocratic" and harmful to Peru's international image.
Cesar Landa, president of the constitutional tribunal has said the initiative was probably unconstitutional, "regardless of how popular it may be." His court will have the final say on the issue after a referendum.
Many people in Peru still have painful memories of deadly bombings and raids by Maoist rebels between 1980 and 1998. Some 69,000 Peruvians from across the political spectrum were killed or vanished during those years. Several thousand leftist rebels have been sentenced to long prison terms for terrorism.
Congress argued that approving capital punishment would breach the American Convention on Human Rights, which Peru has signed. It says the signatories cannot restore the death penalty or apply it more widely.
