Car bomb kills 9; Peru tightens security for Bush

LIMA, Peru, March 21 (Reuters) - A powerful car bomb explosion near the U.S. Embassy in Lima killed nine people and wounded 30 people three days before a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush. 

Peru swiftly announced a security clampdown after Wednesday night's blast which recalled scenes of carnage from a decade ago when Peru was gripped by leftist rebel violence. 

Bush said in Washington that "two-bit terrorists" will not prevent him from making the trip to Lima, where he is scheduled to arrive on Saturday. 

"No, I'm still going," Bush told reporters at the White House. "No two-bit terrorists are going to prevent me from doing what we need to do and that is to promote our friendship in the hemisphere." 

Vice President Raul Diez Canseco said after an emergency early morning cabinet meeting that Lima's historic center would be sealed off and police patrols stepped up after the blast "that leaves Peru in mourning." 

"Terrorism shows its cowardly face once more" said El Comercio, Peru's most respected newspaper. 

It was not immediately known who planted the bomb, which exploded at around 10:45 p.m. EST across the street from the embassy. Officials said the blast killed nine people and wounded 30. No Americans were reported among the dead or injured. 

The explosion was so powerful one body was blown about 165 feet across a four-lane avenue separating the blast site from the embassy. The victim had a leg and clothes blown off. Part of a car engine lay nearby. 

Diez Canseco said President Alejandro Toledo would fly home later on Thursday from a U.N. development summit in Monterrey, Mexico. Toledo, speaking to RPP radio hours after the blast, vowed, "We will not yield even a centimeter to terrorism." 

PERU GUARANTEES BUSH'S SAFETY 

The president condemned the bomb attack and guaranteed full safety for Bush during a 17-hour visit this weekend. 

"My deepest condolences to the families of the victims who have been hit in such a cowardly way by a terrorist attack," Toledo said. "I want to express my strongest condemnation." 

The dead included a police officer and an 18-year-old man, who had been roller-blading. 

"It looks like there were around 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of explosives," Juan Piperis, deputy commander of Lima's firefighters, told reporters. The blast left a large dent in the ground. A green Toyota at the scene was barely recognizable and other nearby vehicles were burned out. 

Bodies covered by orange plastic sheets lay strewn on the sidewalk amid broken glass, mangled metal, shattered tiles and crushed cinder blocks. 

The blast occurred outside a Banco de Credito bank in a shopping center across a wide street in front of the main entrance to the U.S. Embassy, a heavily secured fortress-style building in an upscale district of the capital. 

The bomb blew out all the bank's windows, destroyed its signs and scattered chairs. The bank was on the ground floor of a five-star hotel and was next to a movie theater, which was closed for refurbishment. 

Other stores in the shopping center were open, however, and there were people and cars around at the time of the blast. 

Relatives of some of the victims, weeping hysterically, converged on the scene. 

Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi appealed for calm and said: "They're not going to intimidate us." 

No one claimed responsibility for the blast but Piperis said the explosion bore the hallmarks of the leftist rebel bomb attacks that scarred Peru in the 1980s and 1990s when the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, guerrilla groups waged war on the state. Their insurgencies killed some 30,000 people. 

Although both rebel movements have been largely dormant for nearly a decade, Peru said late last year it had foiled a Shining Path attack on the U.S. embassy in Lima. 

"This is a remnant of something that could really take off," ex-President Alan Garcia, whose 1985-90 term saw intense violence between rebels and state forces, told CPN radio. 

BUSH'S FIRST SOUTH AMERICAN TRIP 

Bush's trip to Peru will be part of his first official visit to South America. The U.S. president leaves on Thursday for a United Nations conference in Monterrey, Mexico and is due in Lima on Saturday. 

The visit will also be the first to Peru by a sitting U.S. president. Bush was due to hold talks with his counterparts from Peru, Colombia and Bolivia and the vice president of Ecuador on regional trade issues and the wars on terror and drugs. 

Rospigliosi said he was certain that Bush, who has vowed to give no quarter to terrorists since the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington, would still come. 

Even before the bomb, Peru had been planning to deploy 7,000 police to guard the capital and Toledo said "security is guaranteed ... Terrorism will not survive in my government." 

The Peruvian government already said it would ban flights over Lima and shoot down unauthorized air traffic during Bush's trip. Streets in central Lima usually clogged with honking minibuses and street vendors would also be sealed off. 

Diez Canseco appealed to the leftist groups who have said they will stage protests during Bush's visit to stay home. "We think it's a time to all pull together," he said. 

But signs have been posted on walls in central Lima saying "Bush -- go away," "Yankee go home" and "You won't make it to Peru alive." 

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