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Archive | 1989

PERU FIGHTS TO OVERCOME ITS PAST

By ALAN RIDING: ALAN RIDING WAS CHIEF OF THE TIMES'S BUREAU IN RIO DE JANEIRO FROM JANUARY 1984 TO MARCH 1989. HE IS CURRENTLY BASED IN ROME and REPORTING ON THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION FOR THE TIMES. LONELY AND DEPRESSED, BROODING on the perfidy of a nation that once worshiped him, Peru's young President, Alan Garcia Perez, rarely emerges these days from his ornate, 19th-century palace in the heart of Lima. Twice last year, he tried to resign. Earlier this year, a military coup looked imminent. Several times he told friends that he hoped to be ousted. But now, condemned to serve out his five- year term, he hides out from the anger and scorn of the vast majority of Peruvians. Beyond the palace, the country is in shambles. Inflation, running at 40 percent a month, has brought hunger, mass unemployment and a rash of company bankruptcies. Strikes regularly disrupt public services. Cocaine trafficking is flourishing. And in the vast rural and mountain areas of the nation, Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and a small band of pro-Cuban rebels are causing havoc, with little resistance from the armed forces. In another time, this vacuum of power would have cried out for a coup. Yet when the opportunity arose in January, Peru's top military commanders hesitated. Not only did American officials and opposition leaders of left and right speak up for democracy but, more important, the officers seemed intimidated by the prospect of taking over. With the country already sliding into chaos, most Peruvians were convinced that a coup would only make things worse. ''An interruption of our constitutional life could result in new guerrilla groups, it could give legitimacy to the Shining Path and it could set us on the road to civil war,'' 3 warned Edgardo Mercado Jarrin, a respected retired army general. ''Further, we SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLS RMAINING have no assurance that a military takeover will bring a regime that can maintain order and guarantee development.'' Yet the coup scare had its uses. Until recently, with Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela all battered by economic recessions and political discontent, Peru seemed to be just one more besieged Latin American democracy. Suddenly it became apparent that Peru was caught up in a much more acute drama, in which not simply a government but an entire society was falling apart. For 18 months, disillusioned and embittered, Peruvians had blamed President Garcia for everything - for first raising and then dashing their dreams of peace and prosperity. But given the option of supporting his removal in a coup, they recognized the more fundamental nature of the crisis. ''It's not a problem of one man but of an entire social structure,'' one Latin American ambassador noted, echoing an emerging consensus. The Andean Sierras, long ignored by the white castes that have governed from the coast, are being rocked by violence and insurgency. Lima, once known as the City of Kings, is now ringed by smoldering slums housing hundreds of thousands of Indian and mestizo migrants. On its filthy downtown streets crowded with beggars, peddlars and freelance money-changers, Peru's deepening poverty is crudely on display. ''We're feeling the movement of geological plates deep inside the country's history and society,'' explained Rodrigo Montoya, a Peruvian anthropologist. ''Unavoidably, there will be a brutal confrontation from which a different country will emerge.'' Recognition of this has plunged Peruvians into gloom. For many, the country has become ungovernable and the future is simply unthinkable. PERU WAS ALREADY deeply troubled when Alan Garcia took office in July 1985. During the previous two decades, a succession of governments - both military and civilian, leftist and conservative - had ended in failure. By 1985, per capita income was down to 1965 levels, Peru had suspended payments on its $14 billion foreign debt and only the cocaine industry was booming. Having launched its rural offensive in 1980 and resisted the ''dirty war'' tactics adopted by the armed forces, the Shining Path insurgency was also continuing to grow. Yet the sense of betrayal that Peruvians feel toward Mr. Garcia today is a 3 measure of the impact he had on the country. During his election campaign, through SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLcS hRaMrAisINImNG a, oratory and infectious energy, the chubby-faced 39-year-old social democrat managed to force Peruvians to look to the future with optimism. After gaining a sweeping victory at the polls, he then made good on his dramatic promises. His strategy was unorthodox but not unreasonable. During his inaugural address, Mr. Garcia said Peru would limit foreign-debt payments to 10 percent of export revenues and would cut its defense budget. The resulting savings were channeled into the domestic economy, fueling a boom that brought 20 percent growth over two years. At the same time, he ordered price controls to attack triple- digit inflation, bringing additional relief to ordinary consumers. And when foreign banks and the International Monetary Fund isolated Peru from new credits, he was handed a convenient target for nationalist drum-beating. Those were indeed heady days. Abroad, Garcia was to be heard lecturing other Latin leaders on the merits of debt moratoriums and disarmament. Such was his popularity among the region's youth that he even saw himself as a latter-day Fidel Castro. At home, buoyed by 90 percent approval ratings and exuding the enthusiasm of a student leader, he poured out ideas on everything from family planning to archeology. On many afternoons, he would appear unannounced on the balcony of his palace and in no time a crowd would gather below to hear his latest thoughts. For the best part of two years, Garcia completely dominated Peruvian public life. The United Left coalition, which had finished second in the 1985 elections, was thrown onto the defensive by his radical populism. The conservative Popular Action and Popular Christian parties accepted that Peruvians were now predominantly leftist or left-of-center. Even Mr. Garcia's party, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, known as APRA, was forced to play second-fiddle. It had come to power for the first time since its founding in 1924, the President liked to recall, because Peruvians had voted for him. BUT GRADUALLY, Mr. Garcia's juggling act became more complicated. Arguing that poverty was behind the Shining Path insurgency, he pumped extra resources into abandoned Andean regions. But they made little difference. He promised a ''clean war,'' but he proved unable to punish security forces responsible for the murder of 300 rebels during a prison riot in Lima in June 1986. Meanwhile, angered by budget cuts and charges of human-rights violations, the army suspended its patrolling in many rebel zones, allowing the Shining Path to recover lost ground 3 and expand to new areas. A new pro-Cuban group, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLMS RoMvAeINImNGent, named after an 18th-century Indian rebel, also made its appearance. Yet it was only when the economy began to falter that Mr. Garcia's image was threatened. He had been repeatedly warned that the country's hard currency reserves could not sustain indefinitely an economic boom that depended on imports. He faced a choice: either make peace with foreign banks and the International Monetary Fund in order to raise new credits, or slow domestic growth and stimulate exports. He thought he had a third option - to persuade Peruvian businessmen to invest their swollen profits in their country - but that proved illusory; the profits were converted into dollars and sent abroad. It was at that point, angry and frustrated, that Mr. Garcia made an irrevocable mistake. On July 28, 1987, during his State of the Union address, he announced that he would nationalize the country's banks. His objective, he said, was to stop capital flight and ''democratize'' credit. He was gambling that small businessmen would welcome the end of the cozy alliance between big banks and major industrial groups. Above all, he was sure the public would applaud his new revolutionary leap. But the move back-fired disastrously. The United Left and, with less enthusiasm, Mr. Garcia's APRA supported the measure, but many ordinary Peruvians were skeptical. The public sector was already renowned for its inefficiency and corruption. Besides, if Mr. Garcia was moved by ideology, what would he nationalize next? Even the taxi drivers, street vendors and small farmers who make up Peru's lively underground economy began defending the expropriated bankers. The right also saw its chance to come in from the cold. The novelist Mario Vargas Llosa founded a so-called Freedom movement and led opponents of the nationalization in huge public demonstrations to block the advance of ''totalitarianism.'' As political agitation and economic uncertainty grew, business confidence evaporated, hard currency reserves tumbled and inflation surged. Almost as rapidly as it had risen, Mr. Garcia's popularity collapsed. He abandoned his dream of winning congressional approval for a constitutional amendment permitting his re-election. Hostility toward him began to build up within APRA as his main party rival, Luis Alva Castro, saw his own chances of winning election in 1990 fade. Polls recorded the growing strength of both left and right. But still Mr. Garcia could not bring himself to turn to the ''imperialists'' at the 3 I.M.F. who, he believed, would demand he impose policies that would plunge Peru SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLinS RtMoA rINIeNGcession. The alternative, however, proved much worse. With his Government literally bankrupt, Mr. Garcia approved five successive price hikes that pushed inflation to 1,700 percent in 1988 and to 4,300 percent over the last 12 months. The gross domestic product shrank by at least 9 percent last year and is likely to contract by even more this year. The real crunch was felt by ordinary Peruvians. The country's extensive underground economy makes it difficult to measure unemployment, but many factories have laid off workers as demand for their products has fallen. More clearly, real wages have declined by more than 50 percent, and the sudden appearance of neighborhood soup kitchens offer evidence of the growing struggle of poor families to cover their minimal food needs. ''There's no shortage of food,'' said Mirko Lauer, a poet and journalist. ''There's simply a shortage of money.'' Today, the single topic of conversation among the poor is hunger. No politician could emerge unscarred from such disarray. After the first price hikes failed to stabilize the economy, the President twice offered to resign and was dissuaded from doing so by his Prime Minister, Armando Villanueva. The right-of- center party, Solidarity and Democracy, then urged him to step down in favor of the Vice President, Luis Alberto Sanchez. One leftist party proposed bringing forward the 1990 elections. An independent politician suggested formation of a multiparty emergency cabinet. Finally, APRA itself tried to take over day-to-day running of the government. But every ''solution'' was rejected by Mr. Garcia. ''People began speculating about a coup because that was the only thing left,'' said Alfredo Barnechea, a former APRA deputy who broke with the President over the bank nationalization. But while a few right-wing businessmen were tempted to contact military conspirators, most conservatives believed only the Shining Path would benefit from a coup. ''Our situation is worse than the circumstances that led to previous military coups,'' said Fernando Belaunde Terry, a former President who was himself ousted in 1968 and who was returned to office in 1980. STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND today's crisis, Peruvians have embarked on painful soul-searching. Some analysts go back to the despotic tradition of the Inca Empire. Most prefer to start with the schizophrenic legacy of the Spanish Conquest in 1532. Others argue that Peru missed the chance to reform its colonial structures 3 after independence came in 1821. A few conservatives trace the beginning of the SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLS RMAINING crisis to the leftist military regime that seized power in 1968. All agree that it began long before Alan Garcia. Max Hernandez, a psychiatrist and historian, likes to compare Peru with Mexico. While Hernan Cortes occupied the heart of the Aztec Empire, Francisco Pizarro founded Lima far from the Andean world of the Incas. Thus, while Mexico began as a ''mestizo'' (mixed) society, Peru was born divided. ''One quarter of Peruvians are whites who are unhappy that Pizarro didn't kill all the Indians,'' Mr. Hernandez argued. ''One-quarter are whites who feel guilty about what Pizarro did to the Indians. One-quarter are Indians ashamed of not putting up a fight against the invaders. And one-quarter are Indians who would like to kill all the others.'' During three centuries of colonial rule and most of Peru's independent life, the country's geographical and ethnic division mattered little. Lima was the white command post of a largely Indian nation. The Indians mined the silver that made Lima - and Spain - prosperous, but they remained in the Andes. Economic and political power was entirely exercised by Spanish colonizers and, later, by their white ''criollo'' descendants. Even when cheap labor was needed on the coast, black slaves and Chinese migrants were preferred to Indians. Isolated by their language, race, customs and habitat, and not given to rebellion, Indians were considered second- class citizens. In these circumstances, a sense of nation could hardly emerge. When independence came, it was brought by foreigners - Gen. Jose de San Martin from Argentina and Gen. Simon Bolivar from Venezuela - and more Peruvians fought with the Spanish than with the liberators. While whites and Indians remained physically separated, they also could not clash. Unlike Mexico, where a 19th-century reform weakened the Catholic Church and a 20th-century revolution broke the power of the landed wealthy, Peru was never convulsed by an internal upheaval that could destroy its feudal power structure. Population pressure brought the first change. At the time of the Conquest, there were some 10 million Indians, but within a century, disease and warfare had reduced them to around one million. Not until the 1950's did Peru's population reach 10 million again, but by then the Andes could not sustain its share. First in a trickle and 3 then swelling into a flood, migration from the sierras to the coast began. Lima in SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLS RMAINING particular was transformed by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned ''cholos'' who spawned shantytowns on the rocky hills that surround the city. When Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado seized power in 1968, he added a political component. His revolution, he proclaimed, was on behalf of Peru's Indians, peasants and workers. ''The break with the colony only came with Velasco,'' explained Jose Alvarado, a Peruvian sociologist. ''He rescued the Indian hero Tupac Amaru as a symbol of national identity. He made Quechua an official language alongside Spanish. For the first time, nonwhites began to feel Peruvian.'' But his revolution was truncated by a coup in 1975 and his main legacy was frustration. Powerful social forces, however, had already been unleashed. By 1983, the migrant population was able to elect a fellow ''cholo,'' Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, a Marxist lawyer of the United Left, to be Mayor of Lima. The migrants had also pushed the whites out of the city center into such ''ghetto'' neighborhoods as San Isidro and Miraflores. Racial discrimination against Indians and ''cholos'' had always existed, but as they sought to expand their presence in a white-dominated society, racial tensions burst to the surface. ''I have never been in a more racist country,'' said one foreign diplomat with wide experience of Latin America. Mr. Barrantes added that Indians and ''mestizos'' are constantly aware of their inferior status. In contrast, few whites in Lima give importance to Peru's ethnic divide. ''You will not find one book studying racism in this country,'' noted Senator Enrique Bernales of the United Left, ''but it is at the root of much of what's happening.'' THE APPEARANCE of Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, in the arid sierra of Ayacucho province in 1980 drew attention to the deep poverty of the Andean Indians. The rebels themselves were soon despised as brutal fanatics who controlled isolated Indian communities through terror. Yet it was easy for early analysts to identify the rebellion with so-called ''Andean Messianism,'' the myth that one day an Indian leader would appear to avenge the Conquest. Most rebels were, after all, Quechua-speaking Indians and their objective was to come down from the mountains and strangle Lima. Today, the phenomenon is viewed less romantically. The movement's founder, Abimael Guzman, known to his followers as ''Presidente Gonzalo,'' was a middle- 3 class Marxist philosophy professor who moved from his home town of Arequipa to SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLtSe RaMcAhINI aNGt Ayacucho's University of Huamanga in the late 1960's. He rapidly concluded that only Maoism was relevant to that rural environment and, after a yearlong visit to China during the early 1970's, he returned to develop his own version for Peru. Soon he proclaimed himself the Fourth Sword of Marxism - after Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong. For more than a decade, Guzman's whereabouts have been a mystery, though he is still believed to be alive. ''To understand the Shining Path, you need deep knowledge of both the Andean world and international Maoism,'' said Rodrigo Montoya, the anthropologist. ''It's a hybrid - a meeting of the most radical Marxism with the ethnic problems of the country.'' In fact, the Shining Path never portrays its struggle in racial terms but always in a class context. ''The people who founded the Shining Path are university professors like me,'' Mr. Alvarado noted. But the downtrodden majority that it claims to represent are nonetheless Indians, ''mestizo'' peasants or ''cholo'' migrants. The Shining Path's tactics remain vicious, but they are no longer dismissed as mindless. In essence, it imposes its will on Indians who, in Mr. Hernandez's words, have ''always been spectators of history'' by chasing out or killing all representatives of any alternative authority, be they local governors, mayors, police, agronomists or even foreign-development workers. Peasants who are wealthier than others must surrender their property or face execution. Equality is achieved at the lowest common denominator. The revolutionaries go beyond redistribution of wealth to the destruction of all existing structures - beyond Mao to Pol Pot. Meanwhile, they pour scorn on Moscow and Beijing as ''revisionists,'' and are not believed to receive any outside support. From its breeding ground in the Andean city of Ayacucho, the Shining Path guerrillas have now installed themselves in the northeastern Upper Huallaga Valley, which produces the coca leaf for almost half the world's cocaine. They allow Colombian traffickers to smuggle out coca paste in exchange for a ''tax'' and insure that peasants are well paid for their crops. In many towns and villages of the area, the Shining Path's word is now law. Numerous ambushes have made the army reluctant to move along the highway leading north out of Tingo Maria. United States antidrug agents only fly over the valley. For all intents and purposes, it is a ''liberated'' zone. More recently, the Shining Path has moved just northeast of Lima to the 3 provinces of Junin, the main supplier of food to the capital, and Pasco, the principal SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLsS oRuMrAcINIeNG of mineral exports. And, while accustomed to blackouts resulting from rebel sabotage, Limenos are now for the first time speculating nervously about the ''siege'' of the capital if the rebels achieve their target of cutting off the Central Highway into the mountains. In small numbers, the Shining Path is already in Lima, agitating in the University of San Marcos, some shantytowns and some labor groups. Despite the obvious threat, the Shining Path has faced surprisingly little resistance. Most of the 15,000 or so people killed by both sides in the nine-year-old war have been noncombatants. In some areas, army brutality has alienated the local population. In other areas, the soldiers, underpaid, badly equipped and demoralized, have barely put up a fight. In mid-March, the Government announced an all-out war against subversion, but two weeks later, rebels killed 13 people at a police post in the (Continued on Page 100) Upper Huallaga Valley. The pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru movement, in contrast, has fared poorly; its leader, Victor Polay, was arrested in February and troops killed 62 of its combatants in a battle April 28. But it is the Shining Path, thought to number some 5,000 full-time militants and perhaps 10 times as many sympathizers, that most disturbs Peru. While it is still a long way from seizing power, its psychological impact has been enormous. By murdering dozens of mayors, it has discouraged many from running as candidates in this November's municipal elections. And at a time of acute economic hardship, the Shining Path is becoming a symbol of rebellion. ''Those who are humiliated, angry and resentful see it acting on their behalf,'' Mr. Montoya said. ''To say, 'I'm a Senderista', even if you are not, has become a general social threat. It's like saying, 'I'm going to get you.' '' SCARED OF THINKING how all this will end, Peruvians are living from day to day. The poor wander disconsolately through markets, trying to stretch their pocketbooks. The middle classes line up to acquire passports and dream of starting a new life abroad. The rich can leave when they want to, but prefer to hold onto known comforts. Leftist intellectuals worry about a rightist coup and, above all, about the growing activities of a right-wing terror group known as the Rodrigo Franco Command, which has claimed credit for a number of recent bombings, murders and death threats. Wealthy conservatives surround themselves with bodyguards and watch out for the approaching revolution; and politicians of all colors squabble among themselves over the dwindling pickings of power. 3 The immediate question is whether democracy can survive until a new president SIGN UP Subscriber login ARTICLtSa RkMeAsINI oNGffice on July 28, 1990. Paradoxically, Mr. Garcia is one reason that it might: the armed forces, aware that a coup could make him a martyr and permit him a future bid for power, want Mr. Garcia to pay the full political price for his mistakes. But the Shining Path remains a menace and, above all, the economy is in a tailspin. And while the United States, foreign banks and the I.M.F. all stand ready to help Peru, Mr. Garcia seems to consider it humiliating to make peace with the international financial community. ''It's hard to help a government that is not prepared to help itself,'' one Western diplomat said. Even if a coup is averted, the upcoming electoral process is fraught with difficulties. With APRA's likely candidate, Luis Alva Castro, trailing in the polls, the two front-runners are Alfonso Barrantes for the United Left and Mr. Vargas Llosa for the rightist Democratic Front. But both face opposition within their own camps -Mr. Barrantes, the 62-year-old former Mayor of Lima, from what he calls the ''infantile and militaristic ultra-left'' and Mr. Vargas Llosa, the 53-year-old novelist, from conservative politicians who believe he lacks the experience and popular touch needed to win. Further, it is far from clear what either man can offer. Mr. Barrantes is struggling to project a moderate image, attacking the Shining Path, praising perestroika as the new face of Marxism and promising to work with the private sector and the armed forces to rescue Peru. Mr. Vargas Llosa, in contrast, believes that the answer lies in widespread privatization of the economy. ''We could still fall into the barbarism of the Shining Path or a military dictatorship,'' he said, ''but it's also possible that people will become vaccinated against stereotypes of statism.'' A more fundamental problem, however, is that Peru has not yet mobilized to save itself. ''We're going through a national depression, a real psychic depression,'' said Reynaldo Gubbins, President of the Confederation of Peruvian Industries. Mr. Barrantes added: ''Sometimes I think we're all doing what's necessary to complete the Greek tragedy.'' Yet, painfully and bloodily, through the onslaught of long-postponed social, ethnic and cultural changes, Peru may at last be forging a new national identity. And for this, most Peruvians seem agreed, some form of democracy, however turbulent, provides the best arena for both conflict and conciliation. The TimesMachine archive viewer is a subscriber-only feature. 3 We are continually improving the quality of our text archives.SIGN UP Please sendSubscriber login feedback, ARTICLS RMAINING error reports, and suggestions to [email protected]. A version of this article appears in print on May 14, 1989, on Page 6006040 of the National edition with the headline: PERU FIGHTS TO OVERCOME ITS PAST.

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