1.
SV, MV: large crowd with placards and banners in Lima, Peru.
0.06

2.
SV AND MV: police checking passes of people entering Assembly. (2 shots)
0.19

3.
SV: crowds shoving and pushing as they enter Assembly foyer.
0.29

4.
MV: troops with bayonets and police attempting to control crowd PAN ACROSS TO red carpet being straightened.
0.35

5.
MV: troops and police inside foyer.
0.38

6.
MCU AND MV: Assembly delegates entering under tight security. (3 shots)
1.00

7.
SV: Left-wing leader Hugo Blanco enters (3 shots)
1.12


The amnesty for politicians deported during the general election campaign, coincided with the declaration of an amnesty for political prisoners. An estimated 1,500 people were released from prison after the announcement on 19 July. Many were arrested during the widespread rioting over price rises earlier this year, when at least 20 people were killed.




Initials RH/2203



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In the Peruvian capital, Lima, security forces used tear gas to restore order when rival political factions clashed outside the building where the new Constituent Assembly was holding its inaugural session, last week. The 100 members of the Assembly were elected in June in the first general elections to be held in Peru for 15 years.

SYNOPSIS: Violence erupted when left-wing demonstrators met supporters of the centrist-American Revolutionary Party. The Peruvian military government recently granted an amnesty to six left-wing politicians, deported by security police during the general election campaign. APRA won the election but did not gain a clear majority over its nearest rival the right-wing Popular Christian Party. Five left-wing parties gained 30 seats in the Assembly with the largest faction, the Popular Front of Workers and Students, FOCEP, a Trotskyite-Maoist alliance of trade union lawyers and radicals, winning 12 per cent of the vote.

The Peruvian President General Fransisco Morales Bermudez, announced on Friday there would be full Presidential and Congressional elections in 1980. The Assembly is to reform the Peruvian constitution in preparation for greater civilian involvement in government, after ten years of military rule.

The leader of the FOCEP party, Hugo Blanco, was one of the left-wing members who tabled a motion during the inaugural session recommending that the assembly should declare itself the constitutional government and over-rule the military authorities.

The 83-year-old veteran politician, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, leader of APRA, was made the Assembly chairman. He described the Assembly as the first power in the state although General Bermudez says its only function is to rewrite the Peruvian constitution.