Riot police mobilized as Bush set to visit Peru

MONTERREY, Mexico, March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday goes to Peru to lend support to the democratic government of President Alejandro Toledo, as terrorism fears weighed heavily on his planned 17-hour stop. 

Peru mobilized thousands of riot police, readied planes and sent out warships on Friday to keep Bush safe during his visit, while the government promised to crack down on terrorism following a bomb attack that killed nine people near the bunker-like U.S. embassy in Lima. 

Bush will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Peru. He is to stop in El Salvador on the way home to Washington on Sunday. 

Toledo has hailed Bush's visit as a slap on the back for democracy after the Andean nation's reputation was tarnished by the corruption scandal that felled the hard-line regime of former President Alberto Fujimori in 2000. 

Bush, on a four-day swing through Latin America, "will demonstrate support for a relatively recently elected government that practices pro-democracy reform and also understands and believes in the basic market approach to development," said a senior U.S. official. 

Bush on Thursday dismissed the still-unknown bombers as "two-bit terrorists" and vowed that the attack would not keep him from going to Peru. 

At a news conference on Friday with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush said he would analyze all options available to help Peru fight terrorism in the wake of the bombing. 

Bush has offered military training and equipment to Yemen, Georgia and the Philippines to help them quell militants linked to Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The United States this year is sending $75 million to help Peru with drug interdiction, law enforcement and security. 

BUSH TALKS TRADE 

But Bush said the top priority for Peru is help with its economy. 

"The first place we need to help Peru" is persuade the U.S. Congress to renew the Andean Trade Preference Act, which offers trade benefits for the Andean nations of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, he said. 

"I'd like to see it renewed as quickly as possible," he said. 

Bush is to meet Toledo privately, then hold a separate session with Andean nation leaders. 

Bush was going to Lima after attending a U.N. development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, where he promoted a three-year, $10 billion plan for assistance to developing nations that undertake reforms to root out corruption, open markets and respect human rights. 

The United States is pushing to curb the flow of illegal drugs from the Andean region, which produces most of the world's cocaine. The United States is the world's top drug consumer. 

Bush also said no decision had been made on whether to resume U.S. drug surveillance flights, which contributed to the April 20, 2001, accidental shoot-down of a U.S. civilian floatplane by a Peruvian military jet, killing two Americans. 

"We're analyzing not only what took place in the past, but the most effective way to help Peru fight narcotics," he said. 

A senior U.S. official said Bush would raise the case of Lori Berenson, an American woman convicted of aiding Marxist rebels, when he meets with Toledo on Saturday. "It is an issue. It's on the agenda," the official told reporters in Monterrey. 

"We are always interested in the well-being of U.S. citizens in foreign countries. We are interested in justice being done. ... And we are interested in U.S. citizens being treated fairly in the justice system of any country," the U.S. official added. 

In February, Peru's top appeals court upheld Berenson's 20-year sentence on terrorism charges, exhausting all her legal options in Peru. Berenson was arrested in late 1995 and jailed for life as a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) by a military panel. 

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