Puerto Rico operation seeks to fulfill law and order WORLD SAN JUAN, Puerto Kim (AP) — So I tin* ns in < am ouflago carrying M- His chock ovary passing car. 1 hoy stand guard alongside schools pockmarked with bullet holes. They patrol nightly along lines where work ers are putting up 12-foot walls, topped with barbed wire Reminiscent of El Salvador and Vietnam, this military oper ation is taking place on U.S. ter ritory. battling the enemy within — drugs, gangs and violent crime. Hundreds of National Guards men and police have taken over 2'A public housing progMis in this U S Gnribhenn commonwealth since June, often in swift night time operations complete with helicopters, armored personnel carriers and shouted orders to res idents. Gov. Pedro Kossello ordered the Guard into a< tmn. seeking to lower a murder rate worse than any of the 50 states and to fulfill a law-and-order campaign pledge. It is the first time Amer ican military units have been pressed into routine crime-fight ing service with police The takeovers have ended shoutouts at the projects and brought back frightened repair men. mail carriers and social workers The operation also has been criticized ns undemocrntn by civil rights activists For Santo Almodovar, repair ing his corner snack shop inside the rundown Vista Hormosa (Beautiful View) project, the takeover has returned something he thought was lost forever — security As ho spoke with a reporter, workers were busy nearby walling off the project to stop foot traffic, and building a gunrdpost at the single remaining street entranceway to control vehicles. "It's a shame that we have to live in forts like the cowboys against the Indians, but it works." said Almodovar, 44, surveying empty streets that used to be i rowded with outsiders, many buying or selling drugs. "They kill fewer people in some of these guerrilla wars in Latin America than they do here." he said. From 1980 through Monday, killings claimed 8.204 lives in Puerto Rico, with new murder records set in 1991 and 1992. The 708 people killed so far this year — including five in one recent shootout at an unpatroled hous ing project — is well above the 517 at the same point last year. Police say 85 percent of the slay ings an; drug-related, in a land where unemployment is official ly listed at 17.5 percent. From the windows of her offic* in a nearby elementary school. Principal Armenda Perez used to watch drug sales, some by chil dren not much older than those she teaches and tries to protect. On Christmas, gangs shot up her school for target practice. Another time, panicked mothers, who got wind of a shootout, pulled half of the .120 pupils out ECONOMY GESSO S5.89/QT $ 17.95/GAL. 20%OFF k SAVE 20% ON Ball oil paints Wmtori Nowton Gfumbach«f Rembrandt Van Gogh Canson £ O O O Recycled W • MM NEWSPRINT PAD 18 x 24 50ct 9x12 SPIRAL SKETCHBOOKS Strathmor* K»tyc'»d Canton Raeydod Canton Biggi* Jumbo ARCHITECTURE SUPPLIES... STAEDTLER PLASTIC ERASER & ft'# KOH-I-NOOR 4 PEN STAINLESS SET $39.95 49