Coup Rumors Persist in Peru;Guerrilla War Aggravates Economic Crisis
Peruvian military officers or their emissaries have filed into the U.S. Embassy here in recent months with a question: As crisis after crisis besets Peru's hapless government, is the United States still serious about its opposition to a military coup?</br></br>Economic disaster, social turmoil and escalating political violence have put Peru's young democracy under siege. Coup rumors last month included reports that a specific date and even an hour had been chosen for the tanks to roll.</br></br>U.S. Ambassador Alexander F. Watson was alarmed enough to make known unequivocally that the United States does not want to see a coup. That clear stance and similar attitudes on the part of other South American democracies-along with lukewarm support on the Peruvian right and reluctance by many officers to take on the country's daunting problems-are credited with helping to keep the military in the barracks.</br></br>But even the most optimistic scenarios have President Alan Garcia's crippled government just muddling through until the next presidential elections. "There's sort of an uneasy sense of hope right now," said Mirko Lauer, a columnist for the daily newspaper La Republica. "The government may make it after all to 1990."</br></br>Garcia took office four years ago at the age of 35, the youngest elected head of state in Latin America's history and at first very popular. But now Garcia's government and his party, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, have lost not just popularity, but credibility and authority as well.