CANDIDATES IN PERU'S PRESIDENTIAL RACE PECK AT FADING MILITARY

LIMA, Peru, May 25 - The two presidential candidates competing to
succeed the ousted President Alberto K. Fujimori have begun a gentle
assault on the traditional third force in Peruvian politics - the
bloated and politically powerful armed forces - as the military has
sunk in prestige after an array of scandals.

The military tied its fortunes to the 10-year Fujimori rule, and when
that collapsed and the former president fled to Japan late last year,
so the officers' fortunes sank too. During the last several months,
18 generals and admirals have been arrested on charges ranging from
leading a paramilitary death squad to accepting bribes from drug
traffickers and taking kickbacks from purchases of a squadron of
overpriced and obsolete MIG-29 fighter jets.

More than 70 other officers have been cashiered in the single most
sweeping cleansing of the Peruvian armed forces in modern history.
There have been several other embarrassments - an uprising last year
by a military unit and the recent downing of an American missionary
plane mistakenly thought to be trafficking in drugs.

No institution has completely filled the vacuum where once the
military presided as the final arbiter of Peruvian political life.

But the humiliation of the officers has been deep. Interim President
Valentin Paniagua and Congress have quietly cut the military budget
by more than $300 million this year. Investigations are under way to
determine the military's culpability in a series of massacres between
1980 and 1995 during the war against two terrorist insurgencies. The
military has even been forced to accept the appointment of a human
rights truth commission and the unearthing of several clandestine
graves - two developments that would have been impossible just six
months ago.

But President Paniagua has left it to the military to decide how to
reorient its own training, force structure, combat manuals and a
culture that for years has tolerated high levels of corruption with
little or no civilian supervision.

There has been surprisingly little public debate about what kind of
military Peru needs at a time when terrorism has been reduced to
minor levels and long-standing border disputes with Ecuador and Chile
have been resolved. Even as the political power of the military has
gradually declined in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and even Chile,
Peruvian political leaders have long respected military claims that
they can manage their own affairs.

With a total force of 115,000 men, and an army reserve force of
180,000 more, Peru's armed forces are nearly twice the size of those
in Colombia - a bigger country which is in the middle of a raging
guerrilla war. In Peru, the $1.2 billion annual budget of the armed
forces has been a major drain on a government that has insufficient
resources to promote education and rudimentary health care.

For years after a left-wing military government ruled between 1968
and 1980, the Peruvian armed forces had a rocky relationship with the
United States and relied on Soviet arms and trainers. Relations with
Washington improved after Mr. Fujimori's first election in 1990, and
the Bush and Clinton administrations drew close to the high command
in its fight against terrorism and drug trafficking.

The Peruvian military was barely mentioned in an hour and a half of
televised presidential debate last week, and only by one candidate.
But the issue has crept into the campaign.

Alejandro Toledo, a former World Bank official who is well ahead in
the polls leading to the June 3 vote, has used his stump speeches to
call for cuts in defense spending and international arms purchases in
order to increase social spending.

"I know of lots of military men who want to reform the role of the
military and we want to help them," Mr. Toledo said in a recent radio
interview.

"The military has been much weakened," he said in another interview,
during a flight between campaign stops in late March. "The desire for
an attempt at moral rejuvenation is great and the people are
demanding a moralization."

The other candidate, former President Alan Garcia, a populist whose
1985-1990 government was plagued by military human rights abuses, has
also called for cuts in military spending, although he raises the
issue less often and less prominently than Mr. Toledo.

But in an interview during the first-round campaign, Mr. Garcia noted
that "we have a naval force with too many ships that are costly to
maintain."

Even such mild criticism would have been taboo before Mr. Fujimori
fled to Japan last November shortly after disclosures that his
intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and senior officers were
tied to smuggling arms to the Colombian guerrillas. The entire high
command, which was selected by Mr. Montesinos for its loyalty to the
government, was forced to step down.

The military was further embarrassed last month when a captured
videotape was released showing hundreds of top officers signing a
document in 1999 that endorsed a 1992 coup by Mr. Fujimori, during
which he closed Congress and the Supreme Court.

President Paniagua accepted the resignations of his high command, and
reshuffled the senior officer corps for the second time in four
months. But more than 1,000 officers who had also signed the document
were not disciplined.

"That was a lost opportunity for a clean sweep," said Congressman
Fernando Olivera. "But I understand the decision. President Paniagua
did not want to destabilize the situation in the middle of a
presidential campaign."

While President Paniagua has cut back on military attaches with large
salaries and limited duties in foreign embassies, he has not acted to
shave significantly the number of generals and admirals, now more
than 250.

Carlos Tapia, a sociologist who is a former lecturer at the Peruvian
military academy, said civilian politicians remain wary of
challenging the military because the government depends on the
military to build rural roads, fight drug trafficking and share
intelligence gathered by the security forces. He noted that the army
also has strong ties to peasant militia groups that were formed
during the war against terrorism and now provide vital functions such
as building housing and schools.

Senior officers have remained quiet about the changes their
institutions are going through. But in a recent meeting with foreign
correspondents, Defense Minister Walter Ledesma pledged that the
military was ready for reform.

"The armed forces are profoundly committed to democracy and human
rights," Mr. Ledesma said. Referring to cuts in his budget, he added,
"we are very conscious of the economic problems of the country."