By Peter Koenig
On 28 July 2021, Peru, with her 33 million
inhabitants, celebrates 200 years of Independence.
The People of Peru may have chosen this Bicentennial
celebration, to bring about a drastic change to
their foreign and national oligarchy-run country. In
a neck-on-neck national election run-off on 6 June
2021, the socialist Pedro Castillo, a humble primary
school professor from rural Cajamarca, a Northern
Peruvian Province, rich in mining resources, but
also in agricultural land, seems to be winning by a
razor-thin margin of fewer than 100,000 votes
against the oligarch-supported Keiko Fujimori,
daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori,
currently in prison – or rather house arrest for
“ill-health” – for corruption and crimes against
humanity during his presidency 1990-2000.
Election results have been considered as fair by
the pro-US, pro-capitalist Organization of American
States (OAS). The same organization that supported
the post-election US-instigated coup against Evo
Morales in November 2019. Either they have learned a
lesson of ethics, or there were too many
international observers watching over OAS’s election
observations. Or, as a third option, Washington may
have yet a different agenda for this part of their
“backyard”.
Keiko Fujimori, before becoming a Presidential
candidate she was in prison under preventive arrest,
while under investigation into corruption and human
rights abuse. She is currently collecting millions
from her ruling-class elite supporters and spending
her own ill-begotten money to turn the election
result around. Ten days after the elections, there
has no definite result been published yet. For Keiko
becoming President is not only a question of power,
it is also a question of freedom under government
immunity, or back to prison, at least until the
investigation into her alleged crimes is completed.
All is possible in a country where money buys
everything and may convert clearly and visibly
intended cast votes either as invalid or as a vote
for the opponent. This is Peru, but to be sure,
election fraud happens even in the most
sophisticated countries, including in Peru’s North
American neighbor, which pretends to run the world.
However, should this turn-around happen, Keiko
Fujimori and her capitalist supporters are working
so hard to achieve, the country risks civil war.
Because this is the moment for the vast
majority of Peruvians that they have been waiting
for; those Peruvians that have always been
considered as “non-people” by the oligarchy. They
should now finally get their justice, get their
piece of the very rich pie that is Peru. After two
hundred years of an oligarchy-ruled nation, this
mostly silent majority truly deserves a break. They
were good enough to work, to rake in the millions
from low-paid, health-risky mining jobs, from
low-paid agriculture work, from living lives at the
margin by discrimination from their white capitalist
rulers. No more. “Pedro Castillo is one of us.”
Looking back in history just blending in a few
landmark moments. The 1989 Washington Consensus that
not only “coincidentally” preceded the collapse of
the Soviet Union, but more importantly perhaps for
the Global South, it meant the rolling out in “warp
speed” of neoliberal politics and economics, the
enslavement of the Global South into poverty – many
of them into extreme poverty. There was no escaping.
The IMF, World Bank FED, and all related so-called
regional development banks played along.
Why is it that Peru is so different in how they
treat their natives, the so-called indigenous
people, the original landowners of their country if
you will, so different from, for example,
neighboring Bolivia, Ecuador, and even Colombia? And
why do these discriminated “lesser” people react so
differently in Peru than they do in neighboring
countries?
It is my guess that it has a lot to do with the
Kingdom of Spain officially creating on 18 August
1521 (500 years ago – by coincidence?) the Kingdom
of “New Spain” in what today is Peru. It later
became the first one of four Viceroyalties Spain
created in the Americas. Ever since Peru became the
first Spanish Viceroyalty, the white descendants of
Spain, later extended to the immigrants from the
“Old Continent”, had the audacity to oppress and
discriminate against the natives.
As of this day, this is the impression I get as a
foreigner having been partially working and living
in Peru for almost the last four decades. Especially
the Lima elite they treat the indigenous as lesser
people, even though they invaded their territory,
but they feel and many of them still pretend to be
descendants of the Royal Court of Spain. That gives
them a superiority that is hard to ignore. It is
also reflected in the still largely centralized
education system, where Lima decides what the pluri-
and multi-ethnicities cultural nation of Peru should
be taught in uniformity.
Aside from the different ethnicities, Peru is
divided economically and culturally into three
distinct geographic areas: The Coastal Region,
mostly desertic, but very fertile when irrigated,
where 70% of Peru’s agricultural produce is grown;
the Highlands of the Andes, also called the Sierra,
where people survive on patch-work agriculture on
small pieces of land; and then there is the Amazon
area that covers about 70% of Peru’s landmass, with
only about 5% of the country’s population. They are
the most independent people, with a culture close to
Mother Earth. Their lives are still largely tied to
traditional shamanism, starkly different from
western values.
Education, basic infrastructure but foremost
exploitation of Peru’s enormously rich natural
resources is all decided by Lima, by the oligarchs,
the self-styled descendant of the Spanish Royals –
not in spoken words, of course, but in deeds and
behavior. Lima has a population of 11 million, i.e.,
a third of the country’s populations, of which about
two-thirds live at the edge of poverty or below.
This situation may have become worse during covid-times.
The lack of proper and appropriately decentralized
education has left the original owners of Peru, the
indigenous people, including a high proportion of
ethnic mixtures, at a stark and decisive
disadvantage.
This is the ethnic composition of Peru:
Amerindians (or purely indigenous people) account
for 45 % of the population; 37 % is mestizo (mixed
Amerindian and white), 15 percent is white, and 3
percent is black, Japanese, Chinese and other.
See this:
In other words, 85% of the population is ruled by
a white immigrant minority. It is high time that
Peru gets an indigenous president who pays attention
to the real needs and interests of the majority of
the Peruvian population. This time, it seems, after
more than 500 hundred years of a lopsided rule, this
85% of the population will demand a government of
more equilibrium. Pedro Castillo may be their man.
—–
Here some history to connect the dots up to June
2021and to help understand what is happening now in
Peru. Extreme social injustice and differences
between the majority peasant society and a small
ruling elite, brought about the revolutionary
”Shining Path” in 1980, led by Abimael Guzmán, or by
his “nom de guerre”, Chairman Gonzalo. He was a
professor of philosophy strongly influenced by the
teachings of Marxism and Maoism. He developed an
armed struggle, what became to be known as the
“Shining Path” – Spanish, “Sendero Luminoso” – for
the empowerment of the neglected and disadvantaged
indigenous people. Acts of terrorism abounded
throughout the 1980s, also and largely to the
detriment of the peasant population.
The Shining Path emerged as the country had just
held its first free elections after a 12-year
military dictatorship, first by Juan Francisco
Velasco Alvarado (1968 – 1975), pursuing what the
Peruvians called Maoist socialism. Velasco organized
a disastrous totally unprepared land reform, and
nationalized most foreign investments, creating
massive unemployment and perpetuating poverty.
Towards the mid-1970s, Velasco was very sick with
cancer and appointed on 29 August 1975 his Prime
Minister, Francisco Morales Bermúdez, as his
successor. Bermúdez began the second phase of the
Peruvian armed Revolution, promising a transit to a
civilian government.
However, Bermudez soon became an extreme
right-wing military dictator, pursuing a policy of
leftist cleansing. He kept his promise,
though, and led Peru to democratic elections in
1980, when Fernando Belaúnde Terry was elected, the
very Belaúnde, who was deposed as president in the
1968 Velasco military coup.
There was no doubt, that a clear pattern of
US-influenced brutal right-wing military
dictatorships became omnipresent throughout Latin
America, with General Jorge Rafael Videla in
Argentina (1976-1981); General Augusto Pinochet in
Chile (1973 to 1981); Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay
(1954 – 1989); General Juan María Bordaberry of
Uruguay (1973 – 1985); the Brazilian military
dictatorship of various successive military leaders
(1964 – 1985). The Bolivian history of successive
military dictatorships (1964 – 1982), also fits the
pattern of the epoch.
The South American US-supported military
dictatorships, prompted the creation of the Shining
Path in Peru, loosely following the objectives of
the Uruguayan Tupamaro guerilla organization, named
for Túpac Amaru II, the leader of an 18th-century
revolt against Spanish rule in Peru.
The Shining Path was open and transparent about
its willingness to inflict death and the most
extreme forms of cruelty as tools to achieve its
goal, the total annihilation of existing political
structures.
“We are a rising torrent at
which they will launch fire, stones and mud;
but our power is great. We turn everything
into our fire, the black fire will become
red, and red is the light.”
Abimael Guzmán |
Guzman was caught in 1992 and convicted to life
imprisonment.
—-
In 1990, Alberto Fujimori, a little-known Rector
of and professor at the Agrarian State University of
Lima, with the support of Washington, became
President, defeating Nobel Prize-winner adversary
Mario Vargas Llosa, in a landslide victory of 62.4%
against 37.6%. Fujimori imposed neoliberalism in
Peru from the get-go of his presidency in 1990. He
followed closely the mandates of the IMF and the
World Bank. His other main objective was to finish
with the Shining Path.
Other than stopping terrorism for humanitarian
reasons, there was a myriad of commercial and
economic interests at stake. For example, the entire
mining industry was largely in control of foreign
corporations. As soon as elected, Fujimori was
“given” a top CIA „advisor“, Vladimiro Lenin
Ilich Montesinos. The CIA agent soon called the
shots for all affairs of international importance.
There was little left for Fujimori to decide, let
alone for the Peruvian Parliament.
In 1992 Fujimori instigated an auto-coup, with
Washington’s tacit consent, dissolving Parliament
and becoming the sole ruler, who also changed the
Constitution allowing him to be “reelected” for
another 5 years, until 2000, when he fled the
country returning to his “native” Japan. Many
analysts say he was actually born in Japan and was
lying having been born in Peru, so he could ascend
to the presidency. Just for the record, his
registered birthday 28 July – Peru’s Independent Day
– is kind of suspicious. Fujimori was accused of
corruption, abuse of power, and human rights
violations.
During a visit to Chile in 2005, Fujimori was
arrested and eventually extradited to Peru where he
was convicted in 2009 to 25 years in prison for
corruption, human right abuses and for his role in
killings and kidnappings by the Grupo Colian
Death Squad during his government’s battle
against the Senderos Lumiosos in the 1990s.
During the two decades of Shining Path, some
69,000 people, mostly Peruvian peasants died or
disappeared. According to the Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (PTRC), at least as many
people died at the hands of the Fujimori military
commandos, as were killed by the Shining Path. The
PTRC is also called Hatun Willakuy, a Quechuan
expression meaning the great story, signifying the
enormity of the events recounted. Before the
commission, Peru had never conducted such a
comprehensive examination of violence, abuse of
power, or injustice. See this
https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/subsites/peru-hatun-willakuy-en/
To this day father Fujimori is in prison – or
under house arrest for his alleged ill-health –
while his daughter Keiko Fujimori was largely
running Congress with a majority of her Party
“Popular Force” – Fuerza Popular. It is not
exaggerated to claim that during the past three
decades Fujimorismo and the APRA (American
Popular Revolutionary Alliance – a left-turned-right
party) largely ran the country with crime and
corruption, selling off the country’s riches to
international corporatism, mainly in the US – and
for the benefit of Peruvian oligarchs, but leaving
the large majority of Peruvians behind.
—-
Peru has a wealth of mineral resources. Copper,
iron, lead, zinc, bismuth, phosphates, and manganese
exist in great quantities of high-yield ores. Gold
and silver are found extensively, as are other rare
metals, and petroleum fields are located along the
far north coast and the northeastern part of
Amazonia.
Peru’s GDP of US$ 270 billion (World Bank – 2019)
is misleading, as a great proportion is generated by
mostly foreign majority holding extractive
industries, manufacturing and ever-increasingly also
agriculture, leaving little in the country which is
why the poverty level has hardly changed over the
last 30 years. While in the first decade of 2000
Peru had a phenomenal GDP growth, between 5% and 7%
annually – about two-thirds went to 20% of the
population and the rest was trickling down to the
other 80%, with the bottom 10% to 20% getting next
to nothing.
The poverty rate after covid encompasses at least
two-thirds of the Peruvian population, with up to
50% under extreme poverty. Exact figures are not
available. Those listed by the World Bank indicating
a 27% poverty rate are simply fake. In addition, the
informal sector in Peru amounts to at least 70%.
While it is informality that keeps Peru somewhat
going, it is also the informal sector that has
plunged masses of people into poverty.
—
Candidate Pedro Castillo, if finally declared the
winner, has a challenging job ahead. He is aligned
with a seasoned and well-experienced and nationally
respected politician, socialist Veronica Mendoza
from Cusco. She also identified the current economic
advisor for Mr. Castillo, Pedro Francke, who has a
center-left reputation.
Mr. Francke served as director of the Cooperation
Fund for Social Development (FONCODES), a Peruvian
government-controlled social services and small
investments institution, promoting small and
medium-size enterprises and creating jobs. He also
had several roles at the Peruvian Central Bank and
worked as an economist at the World Bank.
In a political statement, Francke separated a
potential Castillo presidency from what he called
Chavez socialism of currency control,
nationalizations, and price controls. In fact, this
is an easy and purely partisan statement, because
the two economies are so fundamentally different
that there is simply no comparison. But the intent
is to tranquilize a worried and right-wing media
indoctrinated populace. The right-wing, mostly
El Comercio and affiliated media-dominated news
outlets, control about 90% of Peruvian media.
Mr. Francke told Reuters, “Our idea is not to
have massive interventionism in the economy”,
indicating that Castillo would respect market
economy. Francke also said that a Castillo
Government would not proceed with nationalization
and expropriation at all. They may, however,
renegotiate some of the corporate profit-sharing.
Having experienced the Velasco Government in the
1970s, this is one of the major worries of more
senior Peruvians, who lived through the Velasco
years.
Pedro Francke also repeated what Castillo said in
his campaign speeches, that he would encourage local
over foreign investments, a valid assertion, because
at present the Peruvian economy is about 70%
dollarized, meaning that local banks finance
themselves largely by Wall Street, while locally
earned money is invested abroad rather than at home.
Hopefully Castillo will be able to muster the
necessary trust to bring about local investments
with local money. If so, this would be among the
healthiest economic moves for Peru – moves towards
fiscal autonomy and monetary sovereignty.
——
At the time of this writing, 10 days after the
ballot, the vote recounts and quarrels over voter
fraud are growing, creating a chaotic ambiance, one
that becomes increasingly volatile. We can just hope
that the Peruvian Election Commission applies fair
rules and is able to avoid civil unrest.
Peter Koenig
is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior
Economist at the World Bank and the World Health
Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30
years on water and environment around the world. He
lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South
America. He writes regularly for online journals and
is the author of
Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War,
Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and
co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book
“When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown
to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity
Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre
for Research on Globalization.
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is
Independent Media
Registration is necessary to post comments.
We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive
language. Please be respectful of others.