Associated Press

LIMA, Peru, June 3 -- Thousands of labor union members and striking teachers marched through downtown Lima in defiance of a state of emergency that put the
armed forces in charge of maintaining order.

Hundreds of helmeted riot police watched as protesters marched from the Dos de Mayo plaza to Congress. There was no sign of troops.

Protesters also took to the streets in other major cities, including Iquitos, in the Amazon jungle 620 miles northeast of Lima. In Arequipa, the second-largest city 465
miles southeast of the capital, local leaders called a general strike to support the protest.

President Alejandro Toledo met with business, union and political leaders Monday in an attempt to head off the protests, which were forbidden under the emergency
measure, but failed to achieve an agreement.

Interior Minister Alberto Sanabria warned that the march "is an open violation of the legal norms" set down by the emergency measure. "Neither the police nor the
armed forces want an outcome that could cost pain, but we also believe that laws should be respected by all Peruvians," he said.

Toledo, facing the worst political crisis since he took office in July 2001, declared the 30-day state of emergency on May 27 in the midst of a rising wave of
discontent and strikes by teachers, farmers, public health workers and judiciary employees.

Archbishop Luis Bambaren, the government-appointed mediator in the conflict, called for a truce to avoid violence, but labor leaders rejected the appeal.

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