Fighting disrupts planned Peron burial in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Rock-throwing fights disrupted the planned burial of former Argentine President Juan Peron today as labour union groups clashed near a new mausoleum built to honour the former leader.

The violence came hours after thousands of teary-eyed Argentines packed the streets of Buenos Aires to pay tribute to Peron -- famous for his marriage to "Evita" -- as his coffin was driven to a new mausoleum for a third burial since his death in 1974.

Dozens of union activists hurled rocks at each other and television images showed at least one man firing a gun in brawls apparently over the best locations to watch the ceremony at Peron's former weekend retreat in a Buenos Aires suburb.

Helmeted riot police with shields stood guard at the wooden gate entrance after restoring order, but the doors remained closed.

A government official said President Nestor Kirchner cancelled an appearance at the burial after the fighting, which erupted as the caravan transporting Peron's body travelled along a highway to the event.

Peron's coffin eventually arrived under heavy security as officials continued with the planned festivities. There were no immediate official reports of the number of injured.

Hundreds of Argentines had abandoned the grounds near the new US$1.3 million ($1.96 million) mausoleum in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Vicente before the scheduled start of the burial.

The violence added more drama to the saga involving Peron's corpse, which has been disinterred, mutilated by thieves who sawed off his hands, and was the focus of a lengthy battle by a woman claiming to be his illegitimate daughter.

Worried about feverish support among his followers, Argentina's military leaders ordered Peron's coffin removed in the 1970s from the presidential grounds and banished to his family's more modest crypt.

Officials have said they wanted to relocate his remains to a location they say is more befitting one of the country's leading figures.

"I hope we see another patriot like him one day," said Americo Armada, 75, as he waited for a glimpse of Peron's coffin.

Shouts of "Viva Peron!" rang out as onlookers tossed flowers as a military jeep carrying Peron's wooden coffin draped in the baby-blue-and-white Argentine flag.

The burial was to cap a day of ceremonies infused with political symbolism ahead of next year's presidential elections. Decades after Peron's death, the Peronist party remains Argentina's biggest and most influential.

A former army colonel, Peron -- who served as president three times -- was first elected in 1946, a year after he was jailed for leading a military coup. Mass protests by his supporters helped him win freedom.

With his flamboyant wife Eva, popularly known as "Evita," at his side, Peron nationalised railroads and utilities and expanded worker benefits that made him a hero to working-class Argentines.

But he was also criticized as authoritarian, and amid economic turmoil, he was toppled in a military coup in 1955, three years after Evita died.

Argentine officials had been working for years to relocate Peron but faced legal obstacles, including a challenge from a woman who for more than a decade has been trying to prove she is his only child.

An agreement allowing forensic experts to extract samples from his body for possible DNA testing last week allowed the move to go forward.

After spending 18 years in exile in Spain, Peron returned to Argentina in 1971 and was elected president two years later before dying in office. His third wife, Isabel, succeeded him before being overthrown by the military in 1976.

In 1987, robbers broke into the crypt and used an electric saw to slice off his hands in a case never solved and what many still call one of the country's great mysteries.

- REUTERS