Rima! Rima!

162,000 Mothers Under 20

2009-05-14T14:08:00.001-07:00

11 May, 2009 [ 14:42 ]

Peru has 162,000 adolescent mothers

LivinginPeru.com
Israel Ruiz

According to Peru's National Statistics Institute, the country has 7,130,000 mothers over the age of 12, which is 64.5 percent of the female population in this age group.

It was reported that 162,000 of these moms are adolescents between the ages of twelve and nineteen.

Ninety percent of the girls between the ages of 12 and 14 got pregnant because they were raped or sexually abused, said INEI.

It was also reported that twenty percent of the country's miscarriages were among adolescent mothers-to-be.

INEI statistics also showed that twenty percent of female teenagers in Peru's rural regions had children. The maternity rate in urban areas among teen girls was registered at ten percent.

42.2 percent of the country's females with children are married while thirty-four percent has not gotten married, said INEI.

The national institute also reported that eight percent of the country's mothers are divorced while 7.1 percent are single moms.

From sea to shining sea

2009-05-14T14:07:00.001-07:00

Travel and Tourism 5 May, 2009 [ 09:42 ]

Peru's new highway to give 60,000 Brazil tourists access to Cusco

LivinginPeru.com
Israel Ruiz

Thanks to the construction of the Inter-Oceanic Highway, which is to be inaugurated in 2010, approximately 60,000 Brazilian tourists will arrive to Cusco's Imperial City every year.

Furthermore, the construction of the highway will allow farmers to sell their products to markets in the neighboring country, said Jean Paul Benavente, head of Cusco's tourism and foreign trade directorate.

He explained that one of the government's first goals was to generate more tourism from Peru's rainforest regions to the highlands and then to the country's coastal areas.

Benavente explained that to do this it would be necessary to create areas where tourists could rest and even shop. Among these key areas were the communities of Quincemil and Marcapata.

Aside from building the new highway, construction companies and government agencies are working on fostering tourism in the areas near the new road, said Benavente, explaining that projects were already taking place in the regions of Puno, Cusco and Madre de Dios.

Driving along this highway will be a very interesting experience for tourists, said the head of Cusco's Chamber of Tourism, stating visitors would be able to go from the jungle which is 200 meters above sea level to the Andes, which are 4,700 meters above sea level.

Guerrillas, guns, and the VRAE

2009-05-14T14:01:00.002-07:00

Guerrillas Have Doubled Their Firepower, Peru Army Says
(courtesy Latin American Tribune)

LIMA – The Shining Path guerrilla group has doubled its firepower, acquiring sophisticated arms and gaining the ability to shoot down helicopters, the La Republica newspaper reported over the weekend, citing military intelligence sources.

Guerrillas operating in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers, or VRAE region, a jungle area in southern and southeastern Peru that has a strong presence of the group’s remnants and drug traffickers, have two rocket launchers, a grenade launcher and several heavy machine guns, including one capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute.

The guerrillas also have as many as 99 assault rifles.

The vast majority of the arsenal belonging to the Shining Path, which is led in the VRAE by “Comrade Jose,” was taken from dead soldiers in combat.

The guerrillas have “two other ways of supplying themselves: the organized crime groups that steal arms from the army and drug traffickers,” military sources told the newspaper.

The story published Sunday in La Republica came out two days after the government relieved the police chief in the VRAE, Percy Rivera Paiva, of command for negligence.

Rivera Paiva sent about 100 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition to the VRAE in an unguarded bus, officials said.

The incident raised suspicions about possible arms trafficking, but the government said only negligence was involved in the Rivera Paiva case.

A military report on last Tuesday’s attack on the helicopter carrying armed forces chief Gen. Francisco Contreras concluded that Shining Path guerrillas fired RPG-7s at the aircraft.

Some experts, however, told La Republica that the guerrillas had not yet mastered the Russian-made weapon.

Shining Path members apparently “just started practicing with the RPG-7, trying to imitate the Afghan mujahideen, who shot down several helicopters with these grenade launchers,” military sources told La Republica.

Since August, the armed forces have been making an aggressive push in the VRAE region in an effort to gain control of Vizcatan, considered the last bastion of the Shining Path.

The Shining Path has responded by increasing its activities in Vizcatan in recent months.

Two weeks ago, the Shining Path claimed responsibility for two ambushes near the town of Sanabamba in which 14 soldiers died.

The ambushes staged on April 9 were some of the deadliest attacks launched in recent months by the Shining Path.

Last October, the guerrillas killed 15 people, including 13 soldiers, in a remote coca-growing region in the Andean province of Huancavelica.

The Shining Path and its role in drug trafficking have been blamed for a rise in violence in the interior of Peru.

The Maoist-inspired group launched its uprising on May 17, 1980, with an attack on Chuschi, a small town in Ayacucho province.

A truth commission appointed by former President Alejandro Toledo blamed the Shining Path for most of the nearly 70,000 deaths the panel ascribed to politically motivated violence during the two decades following the group’s 1980 uprising.

The guerrilla group also caused an estimated $25 billion in economic losses, according to commission estimates.

Founder and leader Abimael Guzman, known to his fanatic followers as “President Gonzalo,” was captured with his top lieutenants on Sept. 12, 1992, an event that signified the “defeat” of the insurgency.

Since then, isolated guerrilla bands have engaged in sporadic and largely ineffective activity in a few regions. EFE

Less poverty?

2009-05-14T14:01:00.001-07:00

Poverty levels in Peru will drop, Prime Minister says

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Peruvian Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, said that Peru would have reduced poverty rates in 4%, according to preliminary results based on recent international reports to be printed soon.

“Although the report has not been officially published yet, projections show Peru poverty rates will continue to fall,” he said

"I think that in the weeks to come, Peruvians will receive good news related to our fight to erradicate poverty. The official figures and other international reports will show that Peru has reduced poverty rates by two, three or even four percentage points,” he said.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), poverty in Peru fell from 44.5 percent to 39.3 percent between 2006 and 2007. Simon said that the government has commited to reduce rates to down to 36%.

The sol rises as the dollar drops

2009-05-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

Economy 6 May, 2009 [ 08:05 ]

Peru's currency keeps on strenghtening

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Yesterday, after almost five months, the pressures on the US dollar exchange rate were so marked that its price dropped to S/. 2.95, when Peru Central Bank (BCR) had to buy dollars to prevent the price from dropping too much.

The exchange rate closed at S/. 2.979.

“The market trends have completely changed. Now everyone wants to sell their dollars and buy soles” said a BCR Treasure manager, summarizing the economic operators' general feeling.

“These are the signs of a trade account more positive each time, and a are also due to some capital inflows higher than we had expected” he detailed.

“This tendency is expected to continue in the long term, because the US foresees high rates of inflation, exactly the opposite as Peru” added Luis Felipe Zegarra, Economist from the Piura University.

What Latin Americans Want

2007-12-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

by Samuel Gregg D.Phil.

When Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chavez’s plan to overhaul the constitution in a Dec. 2 referendum, they were not only pushing back on Chavez’s latest grab for power but sending him a message on what he calls “21st Century socialism.”

Chávez, along with Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, have been claiming mandates to nationalize key industries, impose extensive regulation, end their central banks’ independence, and make it virtually impossible for businesses to terminate anyone’s employment.

Latin Americans -- according to Chávez, Correa, and Morales -- have rejected the market economy and want to pursue collectivist alternatives. There’s just one problem with this claim. It isn’t true.

If Chavez had been paying attention, he might have seen his defeat presaged in last months’ release of the 2007 Latinobarómetro poll of Latin American public opinion. Fifty-two percent of Latin Americans, the poll says, view the market economy as the best economic system for their country. That’s a slight drop from the percentage recorded in the 2000 Latinobarómetro poll.

Still, it is a remarkable figure given the spotty implementation of economic-liberalization throughout the region, not to mention the Marxist-tinged anti-capitalist rhetoric that has infested Latin America’s political discourse for decades.

Naturally the numbers vary from country-to-country. A favorable view of the market economy was held, for example, by 74 percent of Colombians, 66 percent of Nicaraguans, 60 percent of Mexicans, 57 percent of Bolivians, and 49 percent of Venezuelans. Latin America’s populist-left caudillos are not presumably thrilled with these figures.

Even more surprising is the view taken by Latin Americans of privatization. Privatizations of state utilities occurred all across Latin America in the 1990s. Generally they were badly executed, the process heavily marred by corruption.

Yet despite this record, the number of Latin Americans who believe privatization has been beneficial rose from just over 20 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2007. Incredibly, 47 percent of Venezuelans, 45 percent of Ecuadorians, and 43 percent of Bolivians regard privatization as advantageous for their countries.

Once again, Messrs. Chávez, Correa, and Morales will be disappointed with such numbers -- not least because they suggest those opposing their nationalization schemes cannot be dismissed as numerically-insignificant “colonial elites.” Nor are Latin America’s leftist caudillos likely to be happy that 56 percent of Latin Americans regard private enterprise as indispensable -- that’s right, indispensable -- for their countries’ economic development.

Yes, this number does reflect a drop from the 2004 figure of 69 percent. But the decline has occurred in a context of an unprecedented demonization (even by Latin American standards) of business by the region’s populist-left presidents. Despite this, 61 percent of Venezuelans think private enterprise is essential for their nation’s economic development -- a remarkable number given the country’s political climate.

But although support for basic institutions that promote economic liberty and prosperity remains strong, the Latinobarómetro poll also indicates Latin Americans want more economically-interventionist governments. Curiously, the same poll reveals Latin Americans are very dissatisfied with their governments’ abilities to provide even very basic services. So how do we explain these apparent contradictions?

One explanation -- hardly unique to Latin America -- is that people often want mutually-exclusive things. The same person who values private entrepreneurship may also want a big welfare state, but not understand that the high taxes which pay for large welfare-systems reduce the incentives for people to be entrepreneurial. This, however, doesn’t fully clarify why Latin Americans want government to do more, despite their fatigue with their governments’ rampant inefficiency and corruption.

Here we need to recognize the significance of a characteristic of many Latin American cultures: the weakness of those non-state associations commonly called “civil society.” This flaw -- a Latin American problem since colonial times -- means many Latin Americans find it difficult to imagine any organization other than the state addressing a range of social issues.

This makes it all the more significant that the most trusted organization in Latin America is (as it has been from the beginning of Latinobarómetro polls) a non-state organization -- the Catholic Church. Reviled by Chávez and Morales, but trusted by 74 percent of Latin Americans, the closest institution to the Church in terms of public confidence is the military at just over 50 percent. It’s likely the Church’s disassociation from political power (despite the efforts of aging, fading liberation theologians) contributes to its high positive ratings.

And herein is a challenge for Latin America: the need for more truly independent non-state associations able to undertake most of the tasks many Latin Americans want governments to do.

Given Latin America’s history, the widespread emergence of such associations would be of almost revolutionary significance. But it would certainly amount to a far more authentically people-driven development than any economy-destroying “revolution” promoted by the likes of Messrs. Peron, Allende, and Castro in the past, or Chávez, Correa, and Morales in the present.

Dr. Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute and author, most recently, of The Commercial Society (2007)

"If Brazil wins, you have to come here... and if Peru wins, I have to go there..." (what now?)

2007-11-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

Peru Brazil Tie - Vargas, Solano, de La Haza & Guerrero not to Play against Ecuador

© RPP Noticias
(LIP-ir) -- Five-time world champion Brazil was held 1-1 by Peru in the third round of the South American qualifiers for the 2010 soccer World Cup on Sunday at the Monumental Stadium in Ate.

Brazil playmaker Kaka scored the first goal of the game putting his team ahead with a 30-meter (98-foot) shot in the 39th minute of the game. Peru's goalkeeper Diego Penny was unable to stop the powerful kick from Kaka.

Despite the fact the Peruvian superstar, Paolo Guerrero was unable to help Peru during the second half of the game against the Brazilian giant; Juan Vargas took a long-range shot that was deflected by Brazilian captain Lucio to tie the score at 1-1 during the 71st minute of the game.

"This wasn't a good result," affirmed Peru's coach José Guillermo del Solar and assured that his team would have to beat Ecuador in its match on Wednesday in Quito, the fourth match in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying rounds.

While Brazil improved one spot in the 10-team standings, from fourth to third on goal difference, Peru remains in eighth. With Argentina currently in the lead, only the top four teams in South America will have a chance to play in the World Cup.

Del Solar stated he was satisfied with Peru's players' performance but stated that the team should have won. He added that he felt calm because the team had done their best and given everything they had.

After having accumulated two yellow cards, Juan Vargas, Nolberto Solano and Paolo de La Haza will not be able to play in Peru's match against Ecuador. Solano stated that it had been necessary to play "hard" against Brazil in such an important game.

It is also not known whether Paolo Guerrero will play in the match against Ecuador.

the i generation... southern style

2007-11-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Education 8 November, 2007 [ 10:00 ]

40 Thousand School Children in Peru to Study with New Laptops

(LIP-ir) -- Peru's Minister of Education, José Antonio Chang announced that the forty thousand free laptops, which would be provided to elementary school children in the poorest and most rural regions of Peru, would have a virtual library with approximately one hundred books for the children to read.

"Our children, their teachers and parents will have books for each grade - in their schools, homes and within their reach. This is a great opportunity that unfortunately the current education system can not provide school children with limited funds", said Chang.

Furthermore, Peru's minister explained that the elementary school children were being given the laptops as part of President Alan Garcia's program to improve the quality of education throughout the country.

After having personally inspected and seen the progress school children were making in an elementary school in one of Peru's rural regions that was testing the 'One Laptop per Child' program, Minister Chang stated that he was convinced that the use of a laptop contributed to improving the quality of education in the country.

Peru's Ministry of Education will purchase the forty thousand laptops with a 22 million sole loan approved by congress, within the next few months. Forty thousand children in Peru's poorest and most rural regions will begin the 2008 school year with new laptops.

Ah, mi Peru, to educate you...

2007-11-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

Education 8 November, 2007 [ 19:30 ]

Peru Ranked Last in the World in Quality of Education

(LIP-ir) -- According to a report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) last week, out of 131 countries ranked in the world, Peru was in last place in the quality of its elementary school education and in 130th place in the areas of math and science.

On the other hand, the WEF report recognized Peru for its low inflation rate, ranking it 16th and its interest in and protection of private investments, ranked at 15.

Patricia Salas, President of the National Education Council, was shocked at the WEF results stating that Peru had worked very hard on improving its education system. She stated that an education reform as well as an analysis of methodology was needed to help the situation.

"We are all worried about education but I'd say that we still don't understand what education problems are. It's not a matter of quantity but quality. We can't believe that we can provide a good education just repeating things in texts or things that are on the Internet. To educate well, we have to work on the way in which people produce thoughts," said Salas.

Salas affirmed that the State needed new material and had to change the way teachers were trained. She stated that the educational system had to be completely reformed by redesigning curriculums and changing methodologies. Salas stated that if this was done, benefits could be seen in as early as 5 - 7 years.

The garua in Lima falls mainly on the ellyey

2007-09-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Wiki says...

Of the verbal habits of Limenos (n-yeh that):

~The Lima accent does not have a strong intonation as the rest of the Spanish-speaking world does. (Some scholars believe that it is because of climate factors; young people tend to speak too fast, and the lower class and outcast boys' tonal curve is from Andean or remote Black origin).

~In Lima there is no loss of syllable-final /s/ before a vowel or the end of a sentence. It is only aspirated in a preconsonantal position. This is unique, by all the social classes in the whole Latin American coast. The pronunciation of ese is soft predorsal.

~There is a clear (but soft) emission of the vibrants /rr/ and /r/. In syllable-final position is never assibilated like Chile, Mexico or the Andes.

~There is no confusion of /r/ with /l/ in syllable-final position like the Caribbean countries and the lower sociolects of Chile.

~The letters 'j' and 'g 'before 'e' and 'i' are pronounced as a soft palatal [ç]. The jota is velar: /x/ (resembled Castilian) in emphatic or grumpy speech, especially before 'a', 'o' and 'u'. It is never /h/. [translation: it's the throaty /khhh/ that sound like someone's coughing something up]

~Word-final /d/ is usually unvoiced or turned to /t/.

~Word-final /n/ is routinely velarized (the most highlighted Andalusian trait). [Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.... [more translation: more throaty-ness]

~"The so-called yeismo and seseo "

YEISMO: Yeísmo (pronounced [ʝe'izmo]) is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme /ʎ/ (written ll) and its merger into the phoneme /ʝ/ (written y), usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. The term yeísmo comes from the Spanish name of the letter y (i griega or ye). The opposite phenomenon, lleísmo (pronounced [ʎe'izmo]), is the recognition of the palatal lateral approximant phoneme /ʎ/.

Yeísmo produces homophony in a number of cases. For example, the following word pairs sound the same to speakers of dialects with yeísmo, but would be minimal pairs in áreas lleístas (i.e. areas which employ lleísmo):
haya ("beech tree" / "that there be") ~ halla ("s/he finds")
cayó ("s/he fell") ~ calló ("s/he became silent")
hoya ("pit, hole") ~ olla ("pot")
baya ("berry") and vaya ("that he go") ~ valla ("fence")

SESEO: In Spanish dialectology, the terms ceceo, seseo and distinción are used to describe the opposition between dialects that distinguish the phonemes /θ/ and /s/, and those that have merged the two sounds into either /s/ (seseo) or /θ/ (ceceo). Dialects that distinguish the two sounds, and thus pronounce the words casa ("house") and caza ("hunt") differently are described as having distinción, whereas the dialects that lack this distinction and pronounce the two words as homophones are described as having seseo if both words are pronounced with [s] or ceceo if both words are pronounced with [θ].

Distinción (which Lima does NOT employ)
Distinción refers to the differentiated pronunciation of the two phonemes written s and z (or c before e or i) in Spanish:

s is pronounced as a voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ (either laminal like in English, or apical);
c (before e/i) and z are pronounced as a voiceless interdental fricative /θ/ (the "th" in "think").
This pronunciation is the standard on which Spanish orthography was based, and it is universal in Central and Northern parts of Spain, except for some bilingual speakers of Catalan and Basque, according to Hualde (2005). It is also found in some parts of Hispanic America. Thus, in Spanish the choice between the spellings se, si and ce, ci, or za, zo, zu and sa, so, su is determined by pronunciation, unlike English, where it is often done according to etymology or pure orthographic conventions.

CHARACTERICS:
~The strong use of diminutives, double possessives and the routine use of 'pues' or 'pe' and 'nomás' in postverbal position. [HA! jajaja...HA. i think that's funny that wiki took note! wiki's quick, they are]

~/s/, is pronounced as [θ], especially in the speech of young men.

~/b/ /d/ and /g/ and intervocalic amongst younger people.

~The redudant use of verbal clitics, particularly 'lo' (the so-called loismo)

[which is... Loísmo and its feminine counterpart laísmo is a feature of certain dialects of Spanish consisting of the use of the pronouns lo or la (which are normally used for direct objects) in place of the pronoun le (which is used for indirect objects). Loísmo and laísmo are common in Castile.
A simple example of loísmo and laísmo would be saying lo hablé (lit. "I spoke him") or la hablé (lit. "I spoke her") where a speaker of a dialect without loísmo would say le hablé (lit. "I spoke to him/her").

Loísmo can also seemingly change the meaning of certain phrases, since some verbs take on a different meaning based on the case of their objects. For example, le pegué means "I hit him", but a speaker with loísmo would say lo pegué, which means "I stuck him" in dialects without loísmo.

The Real Academia Española listed loísmo and laísmo as correct in 1771; however, it condemned its usage in 1796. It currently recognizes it as a vulgarism.]

Some Common Expressions
Agarrar y + to do something (Agarré y le dije...).
Parar (en) = to frequently be somewhere or to frequently do something (Paras en la cabina).
Pasar la voz = to advice
De repente = perhaps, suddenly (depending on context).

Some traditional phrases in Lima
Anticucho = typical food consisting almost always of grilled chicken or cow heart.
Disforzarse = to be anxious.
Cachaco = soldier.
Calato = nude.
Chicotazo = lash.
Fresco/a (or conchudo/a) = shameless person.
Fregar = to bother, to ruin.
Gallinazo = typical fowl.
Garúa = tenuous rain.
Guachafo = ridiculous, gaudy.
Jarana = party.
Juerga = party.
Panteón = cemetery.
Penar = to roam in a house after dying.
Pericote = mouse.
Zamparse = to be introduced abruptly in a place or to get drunk.

Some informal words of extended use
Aguantar = to wait, to resist.
Chibolo/a = child, adolescent.
Paltearse = to be astounded, to be embarrassed.
Pata = male friend, guy.
Pollada = party where chicken is served.

Slang
Much Peruvian slang comes from inverting the syllables of a word. This is not a regular practice, but a common among teens and the low social- economic strata. This can be seen in the word 'fercho', which comes from the word 'chofer', driver. Another example is the word 'tolaca', which comes from 'calato'. Slang words do not always have to be the exact inverse of the original word: for example 'mica' comes from the word 'camisa', which means shirt

to be perused: (ha! ja! haja!) http://www.rae.es/

Oh, wait... it's NOT over... blimey!

2007-05-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

Controladores de tránsito aéreo del Perú anuncian huelga

El paro de 48 horas se inciará el próximo martes y amenaza con afectar las operaciones aéreas
Lima (dpa) - Los controladores de tránsito aéreo del Perú iniciarán el próximo martes una huelga de 48 horas que amenaza con afectar las operaciones aéreas en el país.

El secretario general del sindicato que los agrupa, Wilber Ruiz, anunció hoy viernes que la medida de fuerza es en demanda de mejoras en el sistema de comunicaciones y el aumento de plazas vacantes.

Ruiz señaló que solo en abril se produjeron constantes fallas en la fluidez de las comunicaciones con los vuelos, pese a la anunciada instalación de un moderno sistema, y que pese a la preparación de nuevos controladores no hay puestos de trabajo para su desempeño.

La huelga de los controladores podría ocasionar desde un retraso de los vuelos hasta la cancelación de los mismos para evitar riesgos. La protesta se suma a otras huelgas que iniciaron esta semana diversos gremios sociales en varias regiones, lo que ocasionó un clima de tensión en el país.

Whew... glad THAT's over...

2007-05-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

El último día de huelgas en Perú

1:25 p.m. - LIMA, Perú /DPA - Con movilizaciones y cese de actividades, pero sin incidentes de consideración, transcurría hoy el último día de sendas huelgas cívicas en las regiones peruanas de Loreto y Huánuco.

En Huánuco, donde la población se paralizó desde el miércoles en apoyo a los productores de coca de esa región andino-selvática, algunos grupos intentaron bloquear vías de nuevo, pero sin que las cosas pasaran de momento a mayores.

En la homónima capital regional, Huánuco, donde la huelga es más intensa, los bancos reabrieron las puertas y algunos comercios atienden a puerta cerrada, pero en términos generales la parálisis continúa.

Mientras tanto, en la selvática Loreto, donde comenzó el jueves una huelga de 48 horas, la parálisis es total, salvo en una sus seis provincias, Alto Amazonas, que se limita a algunas concentraciones.

En la capital regional, Iquitos, grupos de manifestantes recorren las calles sin que haya hasta ahora disturbios.

El presidente de Loreto, Iván Vásquez, quien encabeza la protesta, lamentó hoy que a pesar de sus contactos con varios ministros no se haya logrado que el gobierno central dé una respuesta al pedido principal: El aumento de presupuesto para contratar profesores.

El Frente Patriótico de Loreto, que reúne a diversas organizaciones cívicas, ya advirtió que si la demanda no es atendida dentro de 12 días comenzará una huelga indefinida.

La Coca No Es Droga... we keep telling you!

2007-04-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

Peru coca farmers warn government
By Dan Collyns
BBC News, Lima

Peru's striking coca farmers have given the government a 24-hour ultimatum to negotiate with them, threatening to continue their roadblocks indefinitely.
Thousands of farmers are protesting against a toughening of the government's coca eradication drive.

President Alan Garcia has recently announced an open war against the production of cocaine, of which the coca leaf is the basic ingredient.

Peru is the second largest producer of cocaine, after Colombia.

'Nothing to discuss'

"Coca or death" is the mantra of the striking protesters, as the stakes have been raised on all sides.

The protesters refuse to accept the government's toughened eradication programme and their leaders say any attempt to enforce it will result in violence.

If the government does not agree to a dialogue, they say, the roadblocks on the main roads into central Peru will stay.

President Garcia says there is nothing left to discuss, blaming drug traffickers for instigating the unrest among the coca farmers.

His stance has been backed by the US ambassador to Peru, James Curtis Struble.

He has said eradication is essential in the zone as the coca grown there goes directly into cocaine production, and the remnants of the Shining Path rebel group also operate there.

The Peruvian authorities say the Shining Path are behind this latest strike and were responsible for an attack on an eradication team last week, killing one worker and injuring up to 10 police officers .

For some 60,000 families in Peru who survive on growing coca it is a valuable cash crop.

But the authorities insist the vast majority of what is grown goes towards cocaine production.

In a few days' time, Mr Garcia will visit President Bush in Washington to try to ratify a free trade agreement which has been thrown into doubt by the Democrat-led congress.

He does not want to appear a soft touch in the US war on drugs, as cocaine production has increased in Peru and now accounts for some 90% of the coca leaf grown in the country.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/6570513.stm

Published: 2007/04/19 03:54:01 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Peruvian ‘Crazy Horse’ Garcia pleases ratings agencies

2007-04-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Posted to the web on: 05 April 2007
Lester Pimenteland Andrea Jaramillo
Bloomberg

PERUVIAN President Alan Garcia has halved the pay of public servants and sold state assets, winning the confidence of ratings firms two decades after he led the Andean country to default on debt.

Garcia helped Peru post its biggest budget surplus last year since at least 1970, a reversal of the pay increases and bouts of nationalisation that stoked hyperinflation during his first term. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Fitch Ratings responded by raising the country’s rating to one step below investment grade after Garcia took office in July.

“He was the Antichrist in Peru, where he was associated with inflation and scarcity,” said Alvaro Vargas Llosa, senior fellow in Washington at the Independent Institute. His father, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, led anti-Garcia protest in the 1980s.

“There is now a strong base of support for the free market and economic openness. Garcia realises this,” said Llosa.

Garcia studied Chile’s economic expansion as he planned a comeback from exile in Paris and Bogota, said Arturo Porzecanski, an international finance professor at American University in Washington. Chile’s budget surpluses buoyed investor confidence, sparking growth that led to a twofold increase in its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita since 1990.

Chile and Mexico are the only two Latin American countries with investment-grade ratings.

“He was determined that if he was given a second chance by the Peruvian electorate, he would do right this time,” said Porzecanski, who met with Garcia last year.

S&P and Fitch raised the rating on Peru’s $22bn of foreign debt to BB+ last year. Fitch raised Peru’s outlook to positive on March 6.

Peruvian dollar-bonds rallied after the Fitch move, pushing down their average yield spread, or premium, over US treasuries by 16 basis points, or 0,16 of a percentage point, to 1,27 percentage points, according to JPMorgan Chase data. The gap is 26 basis points less than the premium that Colombia, which is also rated BB+ by S&P, pays on its bonds. An investment-grade rating would allow more pension funds and insurers to buy Peru’s debt, driving its spread down to a record low of about 1,05 percentage points, said Bertrand Delgado, an economist with IdeaGlobal in New York. Peru’s benchmark 8,375% dollar bonds due in 2016 traded at 118,75c on the dollar and yielded 5,7% on Tuesday.

Peru’s economy expanded 8% last year, the fastest pace in 12 years, as exports of products such as zinc, copper and fishmeal jumped to a record $23,4bn. The country’s 0,3% annual inflation rate is the lowest in the region, and less than all the Group of Seven industrialised nations except Japan.

“Everything is in place right now for Peru,” said Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, who manages $500m in emerging-market bonds for Federated Investment Management in Pittsburgh.

Three days after being sworn in, Garcia cut the pay of more than 17000 public servants, including his own. A month later, he sold concessions to operate nine regional airports. The pay cuts helped trim state spending to 18% of GDP last year from 18,9% the year before, according to the central bank. The government had a budget surplus of $2bn, equal to 2,1% of GDP.

“Peru is on the right track,” said Sebastian Briozzo, an analyst at S&P in New York. The government had to reduce the “social conflict” between rich and poor “to take that next step to investment grade”, he said.

About half of Peru’s 27-million people live on less than $1 a day, according to the government.

Moody’s Investors Service rates Peru’s debt Ba3, two levels lower than the S&P and Fitch ratings. Moody’s gave the rating a positive outlook on March 8.

Garcia’s austerity contrasts with the spending that undid his first government. He nationalised banks, doled out credit to small farmers, boosted workers’ wages and defaulted on debt owed to the International Monetary Fund and commercial banks. His policies earned him the moniker Crazy Horse.

Peru’s budget deficit ballooned, reaching 12% of GDP by 1988, his third year in office. Annual inflation peaked at 11,09% after his term ended in 1990. The economy shrank an average 9,3% a year from 1988-90.

The recession fanned support among the poor for the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla group. Fighting claimed about 10 lives a day during Garcia’s term as the guerrillas began attacking the capital of Lima from their mountain footholds.

“The images I associate with Garcia are hyperinflation, terrorism and corruption,” Vargas Llosa said. “Prices could change in a couple of hours. The amount of insecurity that creates if you haven’t lived through it is hard to describe.”

Garcia fled into exile in 1992 when President Alberto Fujimori, who tamed inflation and crushed the guerrilla uprising, tried to arrest him on corruption charges. Garcia returned in 2001 to mount a failed presidential bid. Last year, he defeated Ollanta Humala, a nationalist who pledged to increase government control of the mining industry and boost spending.

“Peruvians were scared Garcia hadn’t learned his lesson,” said Jorge Gonzalez, a labour minister under Fujimori who heads the economics department at Lima’s Pacifico University. “But he’s shown he has.”

According to Madame Karp de Toledo...

2007-04-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

Sobering lessons

By Adi Schwartz

PALO ALTO, California - The living room of Eliane Karp Toledo's home is a perfect setting for her contradiction-filled life. Almost nothing in it matches anything else. A wooden armchair upholstered in blue fabric with white dots stands across from a metal armchair with heavy leather upholstery. A massive, dark brown grandfather clock, like the kind one finds in antique shops, looks down on a bouquet of bold-red tulips, and artistic photographs in black and white are hanging adjacent to abstract paintings done with thick brush strokes.

The design is just right for Eliane Karp - the daughter of Holocaust survivors who fell in love with the Indians of America, the former member of the left-wing Hashomer Hatzair youth movement who worked for the World Bank, the pale-skinned redhead who married an Inca Indian. However, she points out, the decor is not her doing. This is only a temporary home; her real home is still in Peru. This house, in Palo Alto, was rented from a professor at Stanford University, where she and her husband, Alejandro Toledo, have been teaching since the end of his term as president of Peru last summer. The couple has a daughter named Chantal, who is in her twenties.

Karp is 54, but looks younger. Slim, with the body of an adolescent and no makeup, she goes back and forth into the study and removes more and more books and pamphlets from the two suitcases she took with her from Peru, to show what she and her husband accomplished there during his five-year term: a photograph with prime minister Ariel Sharon, taken during a state visit to Israel by the presidential couple; various graphs of Peru's GNP and exports-imports; and innumerable photos of the "First Lady," la Primera Dama de la nacion, in traditional Indian garb in the remote Andes Mountains.

She misses Peru, especially the visits to those mountains and the special relations she forged over the years with the Indian tribes. What she misses less is the white elite of Lima, the capital, the politicians and the owners of capital, who, she claims, did all they could to make her and her husband's life miserable in the past seven years. In the end, life in the country she loves so much and where she lived for the past decade, became intolerable, and now she is living in a kind of voluntary exile.

"I did not run away," she says in the first interview she has given since she and her husband left Peru, "but I wanted to live like every normal person. I wanted to be able to walk on the street without anyone recognizing me. Here I can wander about freely without any journalist chasing me. I was not born into a rich family, and I worked all my life. Now, too, I have to work, and in Peru I cannot work anymore. People are afraid to employ me, for political reasons. The people who are now in power want all the Toledos to disappear or die, so no one will remember that they ever existed. Only recently we learned that a few cleaning people who worked in the presidential palace were fired because their surname is Toledo, even though they have no connection with my husband. They are not even from the same village."

Her political career began about 10 years ago. Before that she was a lecturer at Stanford and at the University of Lima, and worked for several international banks. In the early 1990s she lived in Israel and worked for Bank Leumi. When she returned to Peru in 1997 and joined her husband's presidential campaign, she was compared by some to Hillary Clinton and Eva Peron: to the former because of her decisive opinions and political involvement, and to the latter because of her strong ties with the people. But readers of the Peruvian press in recent years would gain the impression that she is more of a double of Imelda Marcos - an ambitious, manipulative woman who was pulling the strings and maneuvering her husband, while spending vast sums from the state coffers on dresses, dog food and liquor. A commission of inquiry established by the Peruvian parliament is now investigating Karp's activity during her husband's tenure, and a few members of Peru's Congress have called on the committee chairman to seek the aid of Interpol to call her in for questioning. Karp is wanted only to testify; it is her aides who are suspected of transferring the money.

Do you intend to go to Peru and testify?

Karp: "No. I have already said everything I had to say to the state comptroller there. He has it all written down. There is nothing new. This whole commission of inquiry is in the hands of the party that is in opposition to my husband (APRA). They have no verified information. They have nothing at all. They can make a lot of noise and shows in the media, but there is no truth in any of it. It is a political move against my husband and against me. He is the only president in the past twenty years who completed his term of office with a high percentage of public support. That is exactly what the current president, Alan Garcia, wants to erase from the public consciousness. He is wasting all his time on this affair and in inventing stories. There is no truth in any of the charges against me. There is not even one item of information that is correct. It is all invention. I am not a prostitute and I never was a prostitute, but how can I prove that? I have no way to prove it, if respected members of parliament come and say that. What can I do? How can I show the world that it is all made up, from A to Z?"

Are you concerned that Interpol will issue a warrant for your arrest?

"They can come and take me, you know. I am not hiding. It's ridiculous. I teach every day at Stanford. There is no such thing as an Interpol arrest warrant. In any case, I think that outside Peru, the legal authorities need at least some proof."

Members of Congress allege that during a four-month period in 2001-2002, you wasted $250,000 on clothes, visits to beauty salons and food.

"That is not true. They took all kinds of items that have nothing to do with me and put them together in order to create the impression that I spent that amount of money. Such as, for example, uniforms for all the members of the Presidential Guard for five years. That is one of the items included in the $250,000. Or, for example, food for the dogs that guard the palace. They also say I bought flowers. Yes, it's true, I did buy flowers. Not for a quarter-of-a-million dollars, but it's true that I bought flowers. Do you have any idea of the state the palace was in when we entered it in 2001? The previous president, Fujimori, did not live in the palace, but in the cellars of the head of his security service. The palace was in a frightful condition. There were cockroaches in the kitchen. Everything was filthy. In the first days we all got stomach poisoning. I may have bought flowers, but Fujimori bought drugs and weapons. That is the difference between us."

Fujimori's demise

A little background would be useful here. Alejandro Toledo was elected president of Peru in 2001, after two terms served by Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. Peru was then without a doubt one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the whole show was run by Fujimori himself and by his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, who was known as "Rasputin." The two turned Peru into a country where everything and everyone had a price ("$6,000 for an item on the front-page," Karp says), including judges, members of Congress and journalists. Before the elections in which Fujimori was defeated, thousands of video cassettes were found showing Montesinos' people threatening politicians and extracting from them a commitment to support the president. Some of the tapes contained embarrassing scenes, such as visits to prostitutes and the use of drugs.

That wasn't all. While Montesinos and Fujimori pretended to be cooperating with the U.S. authorities in the struggle against drug trafficking, the two actually played a central role in it in Peru. Peruvian mafiosi later related that Montesinos placed an airfield at their disposal, and on one occasion hundreds of kilograms of cocaine were discovered aboard Fujimori's private plane. The two also collaborated in money-laundering, in arms sales and in the transfer of weapons to the Colombian left-wing underground group FARC. In 2003, when the Montesinos trial opened, it turned out that over the years he had lined his pockets to the tune of $200 million.

Concurrently, the two turned Peru into a full-fledged dictatorship, in which the lives of their political opponents were threatened, serious restrictions were imposed on the press, and hit squads were commissioned to carry out assassinations. Karp recalls with emotion the period leading up to the elections that her husband won, noting that the two of them were a key target for attack by Montesinos. As a former member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement - and having learned from her father, who fought in the Resistance against the Nazis, the duty to fight repressive regimes everywhere - Karp asserts that she would take to the streets again to topple Fujimori.

It was a nerve-racking experience. During the campaign her husband received no fewer than 117 death threats from the Montesinos camp, and Karp still remembers the threatening phone calls, along the lines of, "You don't know who you're messing with, so get out while you can." At one of the numerous mass demonstrations in Peru in 2000 calling for Fujimori's ouster, Karp was injured by teargas at short range and was dragged from the site by her friends.

Fujimori's rule ended when, in an unprecedented act, he fled the country and submitted his resignation by fax from the plane. Toledo's ascension to power was perceived in Peru as the opening of a new chapter and an opportunity to restore a little order to the chaotic and utterly corrupt country. Neither he nor his wife was a professional politician. He came from a small Indian village, from a poor family of 16. He had spent most of his professional life in academia and at the World Bank. Thus there was no better candidate than Toledo, who had not been sullied by the degenerate local politics, to clean up the mess.

Indian origins

Toledo opened his term of office by launching a broad investigation into the corruption that had afflicted the Fujimori period. The commission that probed his predecessor's behavior listed no fewer than 1,400 senior figures as suspects in corruption, among them Supreme Court justices, members of the secret service, members of parliament, businessmen and owners of television stations. It was considered the most comprehensive investigation of its kind in the history of Latin America, a part of the world known for its corruption.

There was also another reason for the popular excitement: Toledo was the first president of Indian origin. It may sound obvious that in a country where more than 50 percent of the population is Indian, one of them should be elected president, but nevertheless nearly 200 years elapsed after Peru gained its independence before a member of the continent's indigenous peoples stood at the head of the executive branch. And Karp was the winning card by his side. Commentators in Peru and elsewhere agree that Toledo's election victory belongs to her in large measure as well.

"Without Eliane Karp," Hernan Chaparro Melo, a leading pollster, said in 2000, "Toledo could not have produced a solid image to become an alternative to Fujimori."

In this interview, too, Karp often uses the first person plural - as in "we accomplished" and "we were elected." The fact that she stood by his side constantly, her charisma and rhetorical skills, and above all her command of the native Peruvian Indian language Quechua - which she learned during her professional work as an anthropologist - generated momentum in support for Toledo and imbued the two with a revolutionary image, as being ready to serve the interests of the people and not of the elites. It is precisely this, his wife explains, that also brought down their wrath upon her.

"I chose to confront the most painful issue in Peruvian society," she explains, "namely the indigenous issue. This issue is highly sensitive for all of society, because it entails racism and the exclusion of more than half the population from everything democracy has to offer. It is simply untenable in the 21st century.

"I can understand the reaction of the elite and of the traditional parties," she continues. "They had been running this game all along and had never succeeded in fomenting any change; they had not even tried to foment any change. Suddenly they saw two people, relative outsiders, telling them what to do. Alejandro is not like 'one of the family' in the traditional society of Lima. He comes from the mountains, and all his social ties and his education do not exist in Lima. And Peru is a very centralistic state. Everything is concentrated in the capital - information, education, economy. So, suddenly someone comes from outside Lima, particularly someone like Alejandro, who came out of nowhere, who had never before lived in Lima, and pops up and becomes president. The elite did not take this too well. I am referring to businessmen, judges, media people, everyone. There's a certain number of families who think they control the country, and through the media succeed in controlling society.

"We told them that a major change needed to be carried out in society, that an attempt had to be made to integrate the indigenous people in a state of a new kind, one which would grant everyone the same benefits and make available equal opportunities for everyone. The traditional parties felt that it was all going to be done at their expense. There was a very strong counter-reaction, not by the indigenous people, but by the rest of society. Many people who do not belong to what is known as the opinion molders in society were delighted with these changes. I visited the villages all the time. I brought them vaccinations and I tried to establish schools and work on all kinds of projects. But I think everything that is different and arrives so with such force, is bound to create a very strong counter-reaction. Which is exactly what happened."

As befits an ambitious, opinionated woman, Karp did not make do with the ceremonial status of the president's wife. Toledo appointed her head of the National Commission on Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian Communities. Her goal, she says, was to try to reduce the poverty among the indigenous people, revive Peru's cultural and linguistic heritage, and act as a type of coordinator of various projects in this sphere. She proposed several laws, including the need to obtain the agreement of indigenous tribes to make commercial or scientific use of their nature reserves, and granting protection to tribes wishing to continue to remain isolated in the Andes or in the Amazon region.

As in other countries in Latin America, in Peru there is a direct connection between poverty and ethnic origin. Being an Indian generally is synonymous with being poor and uneducated; being white usually means being an urban dweller of the middle class or higher. The statistics are astounding: More than half the Indians in Peru have no access to clean water, and the homes of nearly 80 percent are not hooked up to a proper sewage system. About two-thirds of the Indians do not receive professional medical care or orderly education from the state. In this state of affairs, the word "citizen" is all but meaningless.

Karp tried to better the Indians' condition in terms of education and health. She coordinated a visit by a number of Israeli physicians to operate on children with a split lip; she brought vaccinations against hepatitis and malaria to villages that had never seen a physician.

"We tried to bring to the center of the public discourse a subject which had never been addressed," she continues. "Peruvian society is extremely conservative and very fond of the status quo. It makes no difference that we had a solid case - that the Indians are a very large part of the population, who live in shameful poverty and that we as a society are obliged to cope with this. It was very difficult for the elite to cope with this. I went on television often and tried to explain the situation of the Indians. They live so far away - I myself sometimes reached them in army helicopters. In some cases I met people who had never before seen people from the city.

"As I continued to deal with this subject, some politicians said I was causing Peru's disintegration, that I was splitting the country into two, that I was stirring up old ghosts, as though they had ever been dormant. The problems that were generated by the Spanish conquest have never been resolved. The Spaniards came and took the best lands and the natural resources, and together with them the rights of the indigenous peoples. Since then, those peoples have simply been invisible. They do not exist, they have no opinion and no one asks them what they think. But if you say something is wrong, then other people are afraid that whatever else happens might be at their expense."

Few days of grace

The Peruvian press did not give Karp many days of grace. Numberless reports and articles dealt with the redheaded woman who was constantly at the president's side and with the gringa who had taken control of Peru. Newspaper cartoons portrayed her as a fat woman hunched over her husband, dictating his actions. Psychoanalysts were called upon to analyze her character and her past. Thousands of rumors circulated about her past and present lovers. ("I only wish I had had so many lovers," Karp says, laughing. "No, not really - that would only have caused more trouble.")

Karp believes that in addition to her and her husband's preoccupation with the Indians, there were certain elements in her character that sparked such great fury. "A woman in Peru has to be pretty and smiling. The first rule is 'Be pretty and shut up.' And I, as you must have noticed, am not exactly a 'good Jewish girl.' They expected that I would not express any opinions, that I would only be there. Maybe I was supposed to take part in tea parties and cocktail receptions. None of that happened, of course, and that was hard for them.

"It's hard to be a woman in Latin American society," she continues. "A member of Congress told me that a law should be passed to prevent me from expressing an opinion. People also complained often that I was a foreigner. But I am not a foreigner: I have Peruvian citizenship from my marriage to Alejandro. There were also people who told my husband that they would stop supporting him if I went on talking."

But you really are an outsider.

"Yes, but we were elected - 53 percent of the population voted for us. That was a clear mandate for change. We had a commitment to our voters. And if other people didn't like it - fine, that was their problem. That's the whole idea of democracy."

Was the opposition to you due to the fact that you are Jewish and white?

"I think that a woman who came from the outside, no matter what her color, would not have been accepted well. I think that what they didn't like was the role I played. It's not my name or the way I look. It's the type of woman I am. In Latin American society there is the ideal of the woman who sits quietly and waits to be subdued. The male establishment doesn't like aggressive women who have ideas of their own."

Do you consider yourself an aggressive woman?

"Intellectually, yes. Very much so. I also do martial arts, specifically Korean Taekwondo, though it goes without saying that I never used it outside the training arena. In Peruvian society I am perceived as aggressive. I think that in a society of this kind there is something very provocative in me."

The 'illegitimate child'

One of the episodes that weighed heavily on Toledo and Karp was that of the "illegitimate daughter." On the eve of the 2000 elections, a 13-year-old girl named Zarai stated on Peruvian television that her biological father, the presidential candidate Alejandro Toledo, was denying his paternity. The girl also demanded that they both do a DNA test to determine his paternity. It is now known that the hosts of the television program who gave Zarai a platform to state her case received a large payment from Montesinos, who at the time was still pulling the strings. The goal, of course, was to adversely affect Toledo's chances in the presidential race.

However, in 2002, Alejandro agreed to recognize his paternity. In the afternoon of October 17, 2002, Toledo met with Zarai and her mother in a Lima church, in the presence of lawyers from both sides. Toledo signed a document recognizing Zarai as his daughter and agreed to give her $100,000 and place at her disposal an apartment in Lima. "It was due to political pressure," Karp now says of the episode. "The Montesinos people wanted to use it as an instrument to topple him."

So she is not his daughter?

"We don't know. The woman in question is not exactly the Holy Virgin. We do not know whose girl this is. My husband decided to put an end to this matter. She wants a father? Fine. After all, what she wanted was for someone to pay for her. Her mother wanted someone to take care of her daughter. They claimed to have proof of the father's identity, but they never showed any proof. Obviously, if they had had some sort of proof, they would have shown it publicly. But that was their strategy - to set rumors in motion - and then, go prove that your sister is not a whore."

How badly did this episode hurt you?

"It is very hypocritical. The current president, Alan Garcia, was caught a few months ago in exactly the same story. He has a child by another woman, and it happened while he was married. My husband and I were not married during the period in question. We were living apart. Well, come on. This happens to almost everyone in Peru. It was also managed very sloppily. The girl was presented like a piece of merchandise, as though she were a product. She was driven in a truck across the country in order to make a campaign of her. The girl's privacy was not preserved. It was managed very badly, simply because it was a political matter. Today we know that Montesinos was behind it all. We have no doubt. It was a manipulation by Montesinos."

Did you support your husband's decision to admit his paternity?

"No. I would not have given in to the pressure. If I have a child, it is because I want a child. Maybe it was a smart move politically, but then they started to look for other things. I would not have given in to the pressure. Of course, I said that I was not involved, because in that period we were not living together, and the situation of a man in a case like this is not exactly the same as that of a woman. But I would have fought it. It was all a media show. Eighty percent of the men in Peru have this problem, including the current president. But Alejandro said, 'Enough, the hell with it. I have a country to run, let's be done with it. Okay, I recognize the girl.'"

According to Karp, it was Montesinos who was behind the tarnishing of her reputation in the first two or three years of her husband's term of office. But since 2003, when his trial began, the focus of tension shifted to her husband's main political rival, Garcia, who was elected president about half a year ago. One of his confidants is the Israeli-Peruvian businessman Baruch Ivcher, who owns a television station in Peru. Karp believes that Ivcher is mostly to blame for the wave of rumors and bad publicity to which she has been subjected recently. However, she does not want to go too deeply into this subject.

"Everything I will say about Ivcher will be translated in Peru and reverberate back to me 1,000 times," she says. "He is a very strong person in Peru and has already caused me a great deal of damage, and I am not interested in opening up the subject again."

The beginning looked far more promising. Ivcher, who arrived in Peru in the 1970s and opened a mattress factory, was one of Fujimori's greatest opponents. At one stage the former president prohibited him to own a television station, and Ivcher was compelled to leave Peru. The shared opposition to Fujimori made Ivcher and the Toledos partners. However, Karp says, after her husband was elected, Ivcher supported Garcia's candidacy, and their ways parted.

The tension between him and Alejandro reached its peak in an event that took place at the residence of the Israeli ambassador to Peru in April 2004. Karp, who was overwrought, went over to Ivcher and threatened to throw him into jail. She also called him a "son of a bitch" - in Hebrew, too.

"My husband saved Ivcher's life," Karp says. "Fujimori issued an Interpol arrest warrant for him, and Ivcher was arrested while he was visiting Poland. It was Alejandro who arranged his release. After he returned to Peru, his only goal was to topple Alejandro. I think we were very mistaken in our assessment of him. In the end, we became bitter enemies."

Why is he persecuting your husband?

"A great many things are going on there. I don't want to go into it."

He is not the only Israeli who is doing business in Peru. What are so many Israelis doing there?

"A great many Israelis collaborated with the Montesinos regime, particularly in arms sales. Israel should be very concerned about the fact that so many Israeli citizens are harming its image all over the world. They may be private individuals, but in the final analysis this is what local people remember. There is a great deal of opposition to these people in Peru."

What is Ivcher doing in Peru?

"He is in large measure a shadowy figure. Very much an outsider. The Peruvian elite will never accept a Jew into its ranks. I didn't see that he was received very well by the Jewish community, either. I never saw him attending synagogue, for example. He is busy making money."

From what?

"You have to ask him. He sells mattresses. I never in my life heard of anyone who became a millionaire from mattresses, but you have to ask him. You have to ask him what he is doing and why it is so interesting for him to live in Peru."

Ivcher's response: Baruch Ivcher stated in reaction to claims made in the article: "My problems with Eliane Karp began when it was revealed that Alejandro Toledo had an illegitimate daughter. A journalist of mine uncovered the episode, and Karp asked me to take his television program off the air. I said I had no intention of doing that. The peak occurred at an event in the residence of the Israeli ambassador, when she called me a 'son of a bitch' in front of the entire diplomatic community of Peru. Besides that, most of the affairs involving her were first reported on my television programs. I do not intervene in journalistic content, but insist that journalists who work for me cross-check all information.

"Regarding the claim that he saved my life, it is true that Toledo was with me at the airport and assisted me psychologically, but it was the U.S. State Department and former Argentine president Raul Alfonsin who helped me then. Toledo was with me there, but did not help.

"As for ... my business, I am perhaps the only person in Peru whose business is absolutely legitimate. Fujimori and Montesinos examined all my revenues to find improper dealings, but found nothing. I made money and I paid taxes. I never bribed anyone. I am in Peru because the Peruvians are a very nice people."

Wait and see

After the last few tempestuous years, Karp's new home in Palo Alto is also a place for reflection and soul-searching. There is perhaps no more suitable place than this house, with its quiet green garden in which a squirrel darts about in the trees.

"I learned that human nature can be quite ugly," she explains. "I used to have more faith in human nature. I don't think I believe in people anymore. I saw people changing their mind very quickly only because of their self-interests. One day they are smiling at you and the next day they are your enemy. Maybe Hashomer Hatzair wasn't the right place to be educated in. But I am much more realistic now. Politics is not what you think or who you really are. It is a virtual reality that is created around you. They could have transformed me into an angel and they could have transformed me into a witch. It has no relation to reality. It's not who I really am.

"I think that it also says something about democracy. I don't think that people are stupid, only that it is very easy to manipulate them. I came from a very ideological home, and I came to Peru and discovered people without values, who clash with one another very easily, who can be bought with nonsense. On the Montesinos cassettes we discovered that he bought people with $5,000. To buy someone's soul for $5,000? What in the world is that? What kind of person do you have to be in order to change your opinion for that amount of money?

"That is what I learned - that democracy is largely an illusion. What's really in control in democracy is money and power and big business, the media, the rich people. That's who's in control. I don't say that dictatorship is preferable. Of course not. I think that democracy has to come with a few other things - education, food, and medical care for everyone. Without that, the control of so much power by so few people can be dangerous."

Do you still have friends in Peru?

"Of course. My life is in Peru. I am certain that I will be welcomed there. Wait and see. I will return. I hope it will be soon."

Would you do it all again?

"Yes. Only this time I would be even more of a 'naughty girl.' I would be blunt. There are many things I wanted to say, but didn't. Wait and see."

What headline would you give your story?

"It depends who you talk to. If you talk to people who are not from the capital, and who saw what my husband and I did, they will tell you a completely different story. The only story you and everyone else heard about, and to which you have access, is the virtual story, which was invented by the media. But you will not succeed in hearing these people, because these people do not speak; no one asks them what they think. These people know a different person from the one that was portrayed in the media, or from what you can learn about me from Google.

"The Montesinos group was very successful in crushing us. But that is the history of power, the history of the human race. You come with a very strong ideology and you are not allowed to realize it. Human nature is always against change. My husband was alone many times, and he is a very strong person. In such a harsh society, the moment you begin to vacillate, you become the focal point of just one obsession - they want to kill you.

"Actually, it's a story about two outsiders who reached the status of leadership. It is very rare for two strangers to reach the very heart of the executive branch. It almost never happens. And a person from such a poor background, too. When something like that happens, that person will pay a very steep price." W

Peru: Cocaine output is growing

2007-01-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

MSNBC.com

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Traffickers switching to production from coca paste, interior minister says
Reuters
Updated: 11:08 a.m. CT Jan 21, 2007

LIMA, Peru - Peru has reduced and stabilized illegal coca leaf planting areas over the past few years, but yields from some farms have doubled and cocaine output soared due to a lack of funds to fight the lucrative business.

Peruvian Interior Minister Pilar Mazzetti told Reuters in an interview over the weekend local drug traffickers in the world’s second-biggest coca leaf producer have switched to pure cocaine production from raw coca paste.

“Things have changed, evolved. Four, five years ago they were producing more paste, but now we are discovering more laboratories in the growing areas and more and more cocaine hydrochloride,” she said. “It used to be 80 percent paste, now it’s 80 percent cocaine, and very high quality cocaine.”

The density of coca plants has nearly doubled in some places and plants yield more cocaine alkaloid.

“We are managing to maintain the number of hectares under coca leaf stable, but the density and quality are definitely improving—they use chemical fertilizers, new types of seeds and we cannot rule out genetic modifications,” she said.

The authorities estimate there are around 121,000 acres planted with coca, producing some 110,000 tons of raw paste, which translates into 36,700 tons of cocaine per year, but Mazzetti said some experts put paste output from the same area as high as 180,000 tons or 60,000 tons of cocaine.

The area—now slightly bigger than San Jose in California or Austrian capital Vienna—has halved from around 247,000 acres 10 years ago, “but then they couldn’t even dream about all this cocaine output, it was all paste,” Mazzetti said.

The legal industry, which serves medicinal, beverage and native rituals purposes, consumes just 250 tons of paste.

Peru’s law enforcement bodies last year eradicated some 24,700 acres of coca leaf plants and another 7400 acres were swapped for other crops under voluntary eradication programs.

More international help urged
Washington provided $54 million last year under its anti-drug cooperation treaty with Peru, a drop in the ocean compared to over $3 billion spent in Colombia since 2000.

“The United States estimates that only 20 percent of their cocaine comes from Peru, and Colombia largely accounts for the rest, so their aid is much reduced in our case. ... We are trying hard to find financing from other sources, working closely with the European Union where the drug is a growing problem.”

Peru’s own robust economic growth over the past few years is finally contributing to an increase in the anti-drugs budget this year, but Mazzetti said it would still reach only about half the $200 million needed for eradication and interception.

The government is also trying to modify laws to be able to charge illegal producers with forming criminal groups, hiring people for trafficking and with money-laundering. It also needs to control chemical substances used to produce drugs.

About 80 percent of Peruvian cocaine is exported in large lots by sea—often hidden in fresh or canned fruit—to Panama and then Europe, Africa or to Mexico and the United States. That is another recent trend after Peru started closely monitoring its airspace several years ago.

In the coca growing areas 2.2 lbs of cocaine cost $1,200, which goes up to $1,800 in Lima and then leaps to $25,000 in the United States and $54,000 in Europe. The paste can be smoked and is left for local consumption in Peru.

U.S. anti-drug efforts in Colombia and Mexico have also made drug cartels look for other production bases, and some are now working with Peruvian growers and traffickers. The latter also get protection from the remnants of Maoist rebels from the Shining Path group, which still operates in the jungle.

“These terrorists have learned that giving protection to growers and traffickers means good money,” she said. Otherwise, coca growing areas are very little like Hollywood movies where thugs armed with machine guns guard the plantations.

“It’s about poor peasants who grow what they grow because often nothing else grows there. ... That’s why we don’t use herbicides or fungus on the crops and rip them out manually.”

When coca leaf planting areas are close to villages and clearly sustain them, the authorities often have to ignore them as eradication can provoke social unrest.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13116743/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2007 MSNBC.com

Garcia and His New Leaf

2006-11-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

By RICK VECCHIO
The Associated PressMonday, November 6, 2006; 6:55 AM
LIMA, Peru -- In only 100 days, President Alan Garcia has made Peruvians forget the food shortages, four-digit inflation and guerrilla violence that marred his first government in the 1980s.
The once reviled leader has an approval rating near 60 percent from preaching responsible, thrifty government and increased spending on social programs.

He has even managed to sail safely through a potential crisis over reports he recently fathered a child out of wedlock.

As he approached his 100th day, which fell Sunday, Garcia seemed to acknowledge he's still on a political honeymoon, and said it would take time for his investment-boosting efforts to pay off.

"Six months to put into motion the first measures and two years for them to mature _ that seems to me a reasonable period," he told reporters.

During his 1985-90 term, Garcia might have passed as a prototype for the leftist South American populism characterized today by anti-U.S. crusader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Swept into office as Latin America's youngest president at 36, Garcia railed against Washington's intervention in Nicaragua and its invasion of Panama, while proclaiming a new socialist deal for the poor and balking at paying off Peru's huge foreign debt.

At 57, Garcia has recast himself as the region's market-friendly alternative to Chavez.

Relations with Caracas remain icy since Garcia's narrow runoff victory in June against retired army officer Ollanta Humala, whom he adroitly painted as Venezuela's ideological pawn.

Relations with Washington are rosy since his Oct. 10 meeting with President Bush. Garcia pushed for ratification of a free-trade deal and reiterated Peru's commitment to fighting cocaine.

Garcia has pledged not to repeat his past errors, and this time he has limited the number of members of his Apristas party in his 16-member Cabinet to six. He has appointed nine independent technocrats. Six Cabinet ministers are women, the most in Peru's history.

As finance minister, he named a hard-line fiscal conservative, former Central Bank director Luis Carranza.

In 1987, Garcia sent an armored car to smash the doors of the country's biggest bank in a nationalization attempt. Francisco Pardo launched a highly public sleep-in in the offices of his Banco Mercantil, challenging Garcia to drag him out. After 28 days, Garcia backed down.

Pardo, now retired, counts himself among Garcia's fans.

"I like what I see. I think he's doing things right," he said. "I think everyone has the right to learn, and I believe that President Garcia has matured, thank God."

Garcia has pledged to spend $1.6 billion in the first 17 months of his administration to build roads, schools and health clinics in rural areas where poverty is severest.

He said the program will be funded by foreign loans, donations from mining companies and savings from austerity measures.

Garcia still shows hints of his old populist style, such as cutting his and other officials' salaries, but these have prompted criticism that he's after easy headlines.

Isabel Melgar, a 30-year-old administrator in a Lima software firm, said she was irked by Garcia's push to reinstate the death penalty for sexual predators who kill children and for terrorists.

"It seems to me he's been creating smoke screens and trying to generate debate with lots of small issues," Melgar said. "I would have liked to see him say something about more important issues like corruption."

Garcia inherited a far healthier economy than the one he left behind in 1990, when he drained the nation's reserves for populist spending. Growth for 2006 is projected at 6.6 percent, inflation is around 2 percent and Peruvian gold, copper and other metals are fetching high prices.

Last month, he managed to turn the revelation that he fathered a child out of wedlock in 2004 to his advantage, confirming the rumors in a public statement with first lady Pilar Nores at his side.

Alfredo Torres, director of the Apoyo polling firm, said Garcia's numbers rose after the appearance. It was "spectacular damage control because he confronted it with his declaration and resolved it in 24 hours," he said.

"I think it's a textbook example of how a politician should handle a personal issue."

Bush/ Garcia powwow

2006-10-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Joint Statement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Peru

Presidents George W. Bush and Alan Garcia underscored the strong relationship between the United States and Peru, and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening democracy and expanding free trade in the region as a means of improving the well-being of all citizens by securing freedom and delivering the greatest possible economic benefits to the largest number of people. They pledged to continue working together toward these and other shared objectives.

The two leaders agreed that democracies must strive to improve basic services for all citizens, and emphasized the importance of expanding health and education as a means of empowering citizens with the tools to fully participate in society, providing opportunities for economic growth and social development. They further concurred that democracy and democratic governance are the right and responsibility of all, and that an educated, engaged citizenry is the foundation for strong democratic institutions. They also agreed that all citizens should have the ability to participate fully and fairly in a modern economy, under the protection of the rule of law.

Both stressed the central role of initiatives such as the mutually beneficial U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA) in strengthening bilateral ties while leveling the trade playing field, spurring job creation, and reducing poverty and inequality. In this regard, President Bush reaffirmed his commitment to securing congressional approval of the PTPA as quickly as possible. Both Presidents noted that domestic capacity-building programs, such as President Bush's Center for Education Excellence in Teacher Training and the Poverty Reduction and Alleviation Program initiatives, and President Garcia's Sierra Exportadora and "Internal FTA" programs, ensure that the opportunities derived from free and open markets accrue to the broadest number of Peruvians.

Presidents Bush and Garcia reaffirmed their strong commitment to protect their people and the hemisphere from the depredations of transnational terrorist and criminal organizations, pledging to promote speedy extradition of drug cartels' members. Among the many ways our countries work together to combat the scourge of narcotrafficking, based on the principle of shared responsibility, are Peru's comprehensive efforts against drug trafficking and illegal coca cultivation and U.S. programs that provide infrastructure and training to develop a police presence east of the Andes and alternative development to people in former coca growing areas, giving them hope for a sustainable, legal livelihood to provide for their families.

The Presidents reaffirmed their commitment to a strong bilateral relationship and to promoting prosperity and social justice for all people of the Americas.

see also: http://www.topix.net/world/peru

CHIFLES!!!!

2006-10-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.livinginperu.com/
"One visit to Peru will change your life.
Two visits will get you hooked.
Live here and you may never leave."

9 October, 2006 [ 20:25 ]
Peru will export banana chips to the United States and Europe

(LIP-wb) -- Peru's Association of Banana Producers in the district of Salitral (Piura) will begin exporting "chifles" to the United States and Europe starting next month. Chifles are sliced fried green plantains sliced (1 or 2 mm thick).

Representative Jose Amaya Chunga estimates that next year exports will generate revenues of S/. 1.2 million Nuevo Soles (US$ 370k) from a production of 198 metric tons.

“We will take advantage of 3,600 tons metric of bananas, not only for the chifles production but also for manufacturing banana flour”, Amaya said.

The Association groups 220 partners, with a total of 600 hectares. The production output of exportable organic bananas in this area reaches 14,760 metric tons annually.
tags : Peru economy business export bananas chifles Piura USA Europe

Humala criticizes Peru's Free-Trade pact with USA, questions Garcia's strategy

2006-10-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

(LIP-wb) -- While campaigning for the upcoming regional and municipal elections in one of Lima' poorer suburbs, Villa el Salvador, the leader of Peru's Nationalistic Party, Ollanta Humala told reporters that he questions President Alan Garcia's strategy of pressing United States legislators in order to obtain the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) by U.S. Congress.

Garcia met with President George W. Bush at the White House today to speed up the treaty's approval.

Humala maintained it will be very difficult for Garcia to change the agenda of U.S. Congress.
He requested that the government should have instead put its focus on asking for an extension of the current ATPDEA agreement, which is set to expire by year's end, in order to promote a greater commercial integration of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN), a proposal his party made weeks ago.

Humala said he would maintain his position n this subject because the free-trade pact (FTA) “was approved by Peru's Congress sometime "between midnight and the rooster's wake-up call" and because the treaty is harmful to the national interest, mainly to agriculturists”.

Humala also answered questions related to the recent criticism expressed by his wife Nadine Heredia towards the program "Sembrando" and the non-government organization "Trabajo y Familia" (Work and Family), lead by First Lady Pilar Nores.
He affirmed that he supports his wife's comments because the “office of the First Lady" has been replaced with the "NGO of the First Lady”, and this "fact" reduces these initiatives transparency and promotes political clientelism.

He also criticized the excessive advertising costs of these social programs which could be instead used to buy more machinery for agriculturists. “Social policies must start with the State and we cannot leave this task in the hands of a NGO”, he asserted.

tags : Peru politics economy world USA Free-Trade FTA Garcia PilarNores opposition nationalism

!MICUY!

2006-10-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Just add spice

Jan 29th 2004 LIMA
From The Economist print edition

A gastronomic revolution

TO OUTSIDERS, Latin American food may conjure up not much more than the smell of Mexican tacos. But Peru can lay claim to one of the world's dozen or so great cuisines. Beyond its trademark dish of cebiche (raw fish marinaded in lime juice), Peruvian food is little known abroad. That may be about to change. Peru is in the throes of a “spontaneous revolution” in gastronomy, as Raúl Vargas, a journalist and foodie puts it.

Two things give Peruvian food its distinctive edge. The first is the country's huge biodiversity, with dozens of microclimates. Potatoes, squash, peanuts, hot peppers, beans and maize were all grown before the Spaniards arrived. Despite overfishing, the cold Humboldt current that hugs Peru's desert coast is still rich in fish and shellfish. Though grazing for large animals is poor, poultry and game are abundant. “It's a luxury for any chef: I go to the market and can choose between 60 different varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables and 70 different species of seafood,” says Gastón Acurio, a Lima chef.

Second, Peruvian cooking has long reflected cultural fusion. According to Isabel Álvarez, a sociologist turned restaurateur, its basics were established by the 18th century, when Lima was the moneyed capital of a vast Spanish viceroyalty. Slaves and migrants added African, east Asian and Italian touches. Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, who worked for several years as a cook in a Lima restaurant in the 1970s, has exported his own brand of Peruvian-Japanese food through his Nobu chain.

In such a poor country, food has traditionally been robust, spicy but lacking in sophistication. That is starting to change. A decade ago, Lima had no cookery schools. Today, there are 14, including a joint-venture with France's Cordon Bleu. Mr Acurio, the son of a politician, trained in Paris while pretending to study law; now, cooking has become an acceptable profession for the children of the elite.

A dozen or so upmarket restaurants have opened in Lima in the past few years. Quality in the hundreds of humbler cebicherias (fish restaurants) is improving too. The media have taken an interest. Mr Vargas, the director of Radio Programas, a leading radio station, launched a weekly food programme in 2001, which awards an annual prize for the best cebiche.

Will Lima become a new Mecca for gastronomes? Mr Acurio reckons that while it cannot compete at the top end, “it is one of the best places in the world to eat for $30-35 per head including wine”. But whetting the appetite of potential tourists may depend on raising the quality of Peruvian restaurants abroad, many of which are poor. Mr Acurio has led the way: his Astrid y Gastón has a branch in Santiago (recently voted Chile's best restaurant by local food critics) and is opening in Bogotá. A handful of new Peruvian restaurants in the United States are hiring some of those newly-trained chefs from Lima.

The government is encouraging locals to invest in restaurants abroad, and promoting festivals of Peruvian food, says Manuel Rodríguez, the foreign minister. In a country recovering from terrorism and misgovernment, cooking has become a source of national pride.

Copyright © 2006 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Elections 2006 link

2006-09-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

Peru nationalist Humala charged with murder

2006-09-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

Fri 1 Sep 2006 2:33 PM ET
(Updates with Humala comments)

By Robin Emmott

LIMA, Peru, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The runner-up in Peru's 2006 presidential election and the nation's de facto opposition leader has been charged with murder in connection with his role in fighting Maoist rebels and drug traffickers in the 1990s.

Ollanta Humala, who lost to President Alan Garcia but whose movement holds the largest number of seats in Congress, cannot leave the country and must post bail of 20,000 soles ($6,170), Judge Miluska Cano said in a ruling late on Thursday.

No date has been set for his trial.

Humala, a 44-year-old ex-army officer who remains immensely popular in Peru's poor southern Andes, is accused of conducting kidnaps and murders while fighting leftist insurgents and cocaine traffickers at a jungle army base in 1992.

Humala on Friday denied any wrongdoing and said the charges were aimed at preventing his nationalist movement from winning mayoral posts in November's regional elections.

"I took part in a war to uphold the rule of law, I played the role of judge, priest and brother to many, but I never abused anyone's rights," Humala told reporters.

"This is clearly a political persecution by Garcia's government to destroy the opposition," he added, flanked by his wife, Nadine.

His lawyer, Carlos Escobar, called the judge's ruling "absurd."

The charges relate to when Humala was a captain at a jungle military base in the coca-growing department of San Martin in northern Peru, then a front line in the government's fight against the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group and drug traffickers.

Escobar said Humala's enduring popularity in the area was a testament to his innocence. Official results from the June runoff against Garcia show Humala won 81 percent of the votes in the Nuevo Progreso district within San Martin department.

Humala, who led a failed military rebellion against former President Alberto Fujimori in 2000, played up his military background at rallies, even as the accusations circulated.

He has promised to lead a fierce opposition against Garcia but so far has had little success in influencing policy or denting the president's high popularity ratings during Garcia's honeymoon period.

House could delay vote on Peru trade bill

2006-09-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

Wed Sep 6, 2006 4:26 PM ET

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives will likely delay a vote on a free trade pact with Peru until after the November 7 congressional election, U.S. trade experts said on Wednesday.

"I think the political reality is that Peru will not move in September," said Christopher Wenk, international trade policy director for the National Association of Manufacturers.

The agreement locks in Peru's current duty-free access to the U.S. market, while phasing out tariffs and other barriers to U.S. exports to the Andean nation. Without the agreement, Peru's trade benefits would expire at the end of the year.

The two countries finished negotiations in December 2005 after about 18 months of hard bargaining.

Democrats, who hope to capture control of the House in the November election, have long pushed for stronger labor provisions in U.S. free trade pacts and complain the Bush administration ignored former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo's offer to include those in the accord with Peru.

The Peru agreement could trigger controversy if House Republicans push for a vote this month, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics.

"I think it's much more likely to come up in the 'lame duck' session (after the election) and get passed then without a lot of fuss," Hufbauer said.

A separate free trade agreement with Colombia will probably generate more opposition, but Congress won't vote on that until next year at the earliest, he said.

Wenk and Hufbauer agreed the Bush administration would face a tougher time winning approval of free trade agreements if Democrats take control of the House.

Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, said the administration was still consulting with House leaders about the "appropriate timing" of a vote on the Peru agreement. The first step would be for USTR to send a bill to Congress to implement the pact and there has been no decision on when to do that, Spicer said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has said he would push for a Senate vote on the Peru agreement this month.

Trade bills are generally less controversial in the Senate, but both chambers must approve any trade agreement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.

"Political and ideological adversaries, perhaps, but not enemies"

2006-08-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

Bolivian soldiers guard the main gate to the San Alberto gas plant in the southern state of Tarija, where President Evo Morales announced the nationalization of the country's petroleum industry last spring.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales, 46, talks to DER SPIEGEL about reform plans for his country, socialism in Latin America, and the often tense relations of the region's leftists with the United States.

AP
Bolivian President Evo Morales sits in front of a picture made out of coca leaves depicting leftist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, why is such a large part of Latin America moving to the left?

Morales: Injustice, inequality and the poverty of the masses compel us to seek better living conditions. Bolivia's majority Indian population was always excluded, politically oppressed and culturally alienated. Our national wealth, our raw materials, was plundered. Indios were once treated like animals here. In the 1930s and 40s, they were sprayed with DDT to kill the vermin on their skin and in their hair whenever they came into the city. My mother wasn't even allowed to set foot in the capital of her native region, Oruro. Now we're in the government and in parliament. For me, being leftist means fighting against injustice and inequality but, most of all, we want to live well.

SPIEGEL: You called a constitutional convention to establish a new Bolivian republic. What should the new Bolivia look like?

Morales: We don't want to oppress or exclude anyone. The new republic should be based on diversity, respect and equal rights for all. There is a lot to do. Child mortality is frighteningly high. I had six siblings and four them died. In the countryside, half of all children die before reaching their first birthday.

SPIEGEL: Your socialist party, MAS, does not have the necessary two-thirds majority amend the constitution. Do you now plan to negotiate with other political factions?

Morales: We are always open to talks. Dialogue is the basis of Indian culture, and we don't want to make any enemies. Political and ideological adversaries, perhaps, but not enemies.

SPIEGEL: Why did you temporarily suspend the nationalization of natural resources, one of your administration's most important projects? Does Bolivia lack the know-how to extract its raw materials?

Morales: We are continuing to negotiate with the companies in question. The current lack of investment has nothing to do with nationalization. It's the fault of the right-wing government of (former president) Tuto Quiroga, who stopped all investment in natural gas production in 2001 because, as he claimed, there was no domestic market for natural gas in Bolivia. We plan to start drilling again. We have signed a delivery agreement for natural gas with Argentina, and we are also cooperating with Venezuela. We have signed a contract to work an iron mine with an Indian company. This will create 7,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs. We have negotiated much better prices and terms than our predecessors.

SPIEGEL: But there are major problems with Brazil. Bolivia is demanding a higher price for natural gas shipments. Doesn't this harm your relationship with (Brazilian) President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva?

Morales: Lula is showing his solidarity. He behaves like a big brother. But we are having problems with Petrobras, the Brazilian energy company. The negotiations are very difficult, but we are optimistic.

SPIEGEL: Petrobras has threatened to end all of its investments in Bolivia.

Morales: This isn't coming from the Brazilian government, but from a few Petrobras executives. They print these threats in the press to put us under pressure. Brazil is a major power, but it has to treat us with respect. Compañero Lula told me that there will be a new agreement, and that he even wants to import more gas.

SPIEGEL: Bolivia doesn't sell natural gas to Chile because the Chileans took away Bolivia's access to the sea in a war more than 120 years ago. Now a socialist is in power in Chile. Will you supply them with natural gas now?

Morales: We want to overcome our historical problems with Chile. The sea has divided us and the sea must bring us back together again. Chile has agreed, for the first time, to talk about sea access for Bolivia. That's a huge step forward. The Chilean president came to my inauguration, and I attended (Chilean President) Michelle Bachelet's inauguration in Santiago. We complement each other. Chile needs our natural resources and we need access to the sea. Under those circumstances, it must be possible to find a solution in the interest of both countries.

AP/ Granma
Morales is close to Latin America's other leading leftists Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

SPIEGEL: What influence did Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have on the nationalization of Bolivia's natural resources?

Morales: None whatsoever. Neither Cuba nor Venezuela was involved. I managed the nationalization myself. Only seven of my closest associates knew about the decree and the date. Although I did meet Chavez und (Cuban leader) Fidel Castro in Cuba a few days before the announcement, we didn't talk about nationalization. I had already signed the decree before I departed for Cuba, and the vice president gave it to the cabinet. When Fidel asked me in Cuba how far the project had progressed, I told him that we planned to announce the nationalization in the coming days, but I didn't give him a date. Fidel warned me to wait until the constitutional convention. Chavez wasn't aware of anything.

SPIEGEL: Chavez wants to install a socialism for the 21st century in Venezuela. His ideological advisor Heinz Dieterich, a German, was recently in Bolivia. Do you intend to introduce socialism in Bolivia?

Morales: If socialism means that we live well, that there is equality and justice, and that we have no social and economic problems, then I welcome it.

SPIEGEL: You admire Fidel Castro as the "grandfather of all Latin American revolutionaries." What have you learned from him?

Morales: Solidarity, most of all. Fidel helps us a great deal. He has donated seven eye clinics and 20 basic hospitals. Cuban doctors have already performed 30,000 free cataract operations for Bolivians. Five thousand Bolivians from poor backgrounds are studying medicine at no charge in Cuba.

SPIEGEL: But Bolivian doctors are protesting the Cubans' presence. They say that they deprive them of their livelihood.

Morales: The Bolivian state doesn't pay the Cuban doctors any salaries, so they're not taking anything away from the Bolivians.

SPIEGEL: Do you know how Castro is doing?

Morales: Yes, I spoke with him on the phone today. He has been feeling better for the last two days. He told me that he'll be well enough to attend the summit of nonaligned nations in Havana in September.

SPIEGEL: And he'll give a speech then?

Morales: Certainly. It's an opportunity he won't miss.

SPIEGEL: The Americans are worried that Chavez is gaining too much influence. Aren't you making yourself dependent on Venezuela?

Morales: What unites us with Chavez is the concept of the integration of South America. This is the old dream of a great fatherland, a dream that existed even before the Spanish conquest, and Simon Bolivar fought for it later on. We want a South America modeled after the European Union, with a currency like the euro, one that's worth more than the dollar. Chavez's oil is unimportant for Bolivia. We only get diesel under favorable terms. But we are not dependent on Venezuela. We complement each other. Venezuela shares its wealth with other countries, but that doesn't make us subordinate.

SPIEGEL: The Latin American left is fracturing into a moderate, social democratic current, led by Lula and Bachelet, and a radical, populist movement represented by Castro, Chavez and yourself. Isn't Chavez dividing the continent?

Morales: There are social democrats and others who are marching more in the direction of equality, whether you call them socialists or communists. But at least Latin America no longer has racist or fascist presidents like it did in the past. Capitalism has only hurt Latin America.

SPIEGEL: You are the first Indian president in Bolivian history. What role will indigenous culture play in your government?

Morales: We must combine our social consciousness with professional competency. In my administration, intellectuals from the upper class can be cabinet ministers or ambassadors, as can members of Indian ethnic groups.

REUTERS
Bolivian soldiers guard the main gate to the San Alberto gas plant in the southern state of Tarija, where President Evo Morales announced the nationalization of the country's petroleum industry last spring.

SPIEGEL: Do you believe that the Indian peoples have developed a better social model than the white, Western democracies?

Morales: There was no private property in the past. Everything was communal property. In the Indian community where I was born, everything belonged to the community. This way of life is more equitable. We Indians are Latin America's moral reserve. We act according to a universal law that consists of three basic principles: do not steal, do not lie and do not be idle. [Ama suwa, ama llulla, ama quella] This trilogy will also serve as the basis of our new constitution.

SPIEGEL: Is it true that all government employees will be required to learn the Indian languages Quechua, Aymara und Guaraní in the future?

Morales: Public servants in the cities are required to learn the language of their region. If we already speak Spanish in Bolivia, we should also be fluent in our own languages.

SPIEGEL: Are the whites treating the Indians better, now that you're in power?

Morales: It's gotten a lot better. The middle class, intellectuals and the self-employed are now proud of their Indian roots. Unfortunately, some oligarchic groups continue to treat us as being inferior.

SPIEGEL: Some critics claim that the Indians in Bolivia are now racist toward the whites.

Morales: That's part of a dirty war the mass media are waging against us. Wealthy, racist businessmen own much of the media.

SPIEGEL: The Catholic Church has accused you of wanting to reform religious instruction. Will there be no freedom of religion in Bolivia?

Morales: I am Catholic. Freedom of religion isn't at issue. But I am opposed to a monopoly when it comes to faith.

SPIEGEL: Some large landowners have threatened violent resistance to the planned land reforms. Whose land do you intend to seize?

Morales: We will expropriate large land holdings that are not being farmed. But we want democratic and peaceful agrarian reform. The 1952 land reform led to the creation of many tiny, unproductive parcels in the Andean highlands.

SPIEGEL: Bolivia is divided into the rich provinces in the east and the poor Andean highlands. There is a strong movement for autonomy in the east. Is the country at risk of breaking apart?

Morales: This is what a few fascist, oligarchic groups want. But they lost the vote over the constitutional convention.

SPIEGEL: Bolivia is an important narcotics producer. Your predecessors had illegal coca plantations destroyed. Do you intend to do the same thing?

Morales: From our standpoint, coca should be neither destroyed nor completely legalized. Farming should be controlled by the state and by the coca farmers' unions. We have launched an international campaign to legalize coca leaves, and we want the United Nations to remove coca from its list of toxic substances. Scientists proved long ago that coca leaves are not toxic. We decided on a voluntary reduction in the amount of acreage being farmed.

SPIEGEL: But the United States claims that the majority of the coca harvest ends up in the cocaine trade.

Morales: The Americans say all kinds of things. They accuse us of not fulfilling the conditions of their development aid. My pro-capitalist predecessor administrations supported the massacre of coca farmers. More than 800 campesinos died in the war on drugs. The United States is using its war on drugs as an excuse to expand its control over Latin America.

SPIEGEL: The American Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, has agents stationed in Bolivia who advise the military and the police in their efforts to combat the drug trade. Will you be sending them home now?

Morales: They're still here, but they are no longer in uniform or armed, as they were before.

SPIEGEL: How is your relationship with the United States? Do you plan to travel to Washington?

Morales: A meeting with (US President) George W. Bush is not planned. I do intend to travel to New York to visit the UN General Assembly. When I was still a member of parliament, the Americans didn't let me into the country. But heads of state don't need a visa to travel to the UN in New York.

SPIEGEL: You broke your nose while playing soccer a few weeks ago. Are you playing less these days?

Morales: Does my nose still look crooked? Playing sports has always been my greatest pleasure. I don't smoke, I hardly drink alcohol and I rarely dance, although I used to play the trumpet. Sports helped get me into the presidential palace. My first position in the union was that of sports secretary. I was head of a soccer club in the countryside when I was 13.

SPIEGEL: Why don't you wear a tie?

Morales: I never wore a tie voluntarily, even though I was forced to wear one for photos when I was young and for official events at school. I used to wrap my tie in a newspaper, and whenever the teacher checked I would quickly put it on again. I'm not used to it. Most Bolivians don't wear ties.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, thank you for speaking with us.

The interview was conducted by Jens Glüsing and Hans Hoyng and was translated from German by Christopher Sultan.

New Cabinet Comes Together

2006-08-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Peru's new President Alan Garcia named a Cabinet mixing left-leaning party members and independent technocrats on Thursday, promising an investment "shock" to alleviate the country's acute poverty.

Garcia, who takes office on Friday anxious to atone for his disastrous 1985-1990 first term, appointed APRA party leader Jorge del Castillo as premier, giving him the task of unifying a fractured Congress and providing a base for economic growth.

"This is a Cabinet whose main focus is to attend to Peru's poverty ... We're going to generate an investment shock to end poverty," Garcia said on announcing his ministers.

Del Castillo, 56, a skilled deal-maker and an old friend of Garcia, will need to balance promises of high public spending with a low budget deficit to keep holders of Peru's $30 billion debt happy.

Investors ranging from Canada to China are eager to see Garcia calm a deeply-divided country where half the population lives on $1.25 a day or less to take advantage of Peru's copper, gold, oil and natural gas wealth.

Most poor Peruvians did not vote for Garcia and could take to the streets in protests if he does not quickly meet campaign promises of jobs, clean drinking water and schools.

The United States wants Peru, the world's No. 2 cocaine producer, to cut its rising narcotics output, even if that means Garcia confronting the hundreds of thousands of farmers who live from growing coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Still, many analysts say Garcia is likely to put bondholders and economic growth before his populist campaign promises because he is desperate to rewrite his legacy.

"Garcia is playing a leftist tune, but his real plan is to play along with the right and help the business sector," said analyst Giovanna Penaflor, director of pollster Imasen.

Garcia had already tapped ex-deputy finance minister Luis Carranza as his economy minister, a move welcomed by Wall Street.

Nevertheless, Garcia's choice of APRA party lawmaker Juan Valdivia as energy and mines minister could raise concern.

Valdivia voted to levy royalties on mining companies over the past two years in Congress. Miners are worried by Garcia's campaign pledges to impose a new windfall tax on their "excessive" profits to generate more government income.

Peru, the world's No. 3 copper-producing nation, needs some $10 billion in investment over the next five years to develop 270 mines and meet demand from Asia. Miners say royalties and new taxes scare off that investment to Mexico and Chile.

"The role of mining companies is not just to generate profits but to help the development and progress of nearby communities," Valdivia told Reuters after being appointed.

Garcia named a record six women in his Cabinet with the aim of tackling social issues such as the rising sexual violence against women and the high rate of Peruvian women who die during childbirth, one of Latin America's highest levels.

All about the Wifey

2006-04-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

Japanese wife Fujimori's biggest asset on the Peruvian campaign trail
04/17/2006

By hiroshi Ishida, The Asahi Shimbun

LIMA--No matter where she goes, the new Japanese bride of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is big news here.

The media doesn't seem to be able to get enough of Satomi Kataoka, 40, who wed Fujimori earlier this month.

Whether she's at the airport, leaving her hotel or on one of her visits to the Peruvian capital's slums, the TV cameras are there in hordes.

In fact, her new and very public profile is even credited for boosting support for the pro-Fujimori Alliance for the Future party in Peru's April 9 congressional elections, held just days after the couple's marriage was officially registered in Tokyo.

"Satomi's contribution was great," said a senior alliance official.

Before she began to grab headlines, Peru's major media organizations gave little coverage to the alliance. Support rates had dwindled.

While a pro-Fujimori presidential candidate failed to gain enough votes for a runoff presidential election to be held later this year, the pro-Fujimori force won 15 of the 120 congressional seats.

Fujimori's daughter, Keiko, 30, was one of the successful candidates.

After visiting Fujimori, 67, earlier this month at the detention center in Chile where he is awaiting a decision on whether to extradite him to Peru, Kataoka went straight to Lima to help with the campaign--even despite warnings that she would be investigated because of her financial support of the former political heavyweight.

It was her second visit to Peru. Born in Gifu Prefecture, Kataoka studied in the United States after graduating from junior high school.

She is said to have developed wide connections in political and business circles while working at a high-class club in Los Angeles.

After returning to Japan, she says an acquaintance entrusted her with the operation of a Tokyo hotel. Kataoka is said to be hugely interested in politics and has written a book on the resurrection of the Bushido spirit. She was also involved in a campaign to oppose relocation of war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

She says she met Fujimori in 2001 while he was in self-imposed exile in Japan after Peruvian authorities issued an arrest order against him for corruption and other charges.

After learning Fujimori was having a hard time in Japan, Kataoka said she offered him use of a hotel room and supported him financially.

But, deciding to stage his election campaign from Chile, Fujimori left Japan in November. He was detained upon his arrival in the country at the request of the Peruvian government. His election bid was disqualified in January.

Of Fujimori she says, "He is a scholar by nature. It seems he was driven not by hunger for power but by the urge to resolve the challenging research tasks in Peru."

Visiting slums in Peru, she found residents had no tap water or electricity supply. Many asked her to "bring back Chino (Fujimori), the only one who helped us."

"I learned for the first time what the poverty he fought for 10 years was like," she says, adding, "What he did was not wrong." She says she plans to live with Fujimori in Japan if Chile decides not to hand him over to Peru.(IHT/Asahi: April 17,2006)

copyright 2006 The Asahi Shimbun Company. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

Greetings from the neighborhood!

2006-04-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Venezuela president says he'd blow up oilfields if U.S. attacked

Canadian Press
Wednesday, April 19, 2006

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned Wednesday his government would blow up its own oilfields if the United States ever were to attack -- the latest in a series of warnings against Washington.

U.S. officials have repeatedly denied any military plans against Chavez but also have called him a threat to stability in the region. Speaking with other South American leaders, Chavez said his conflict with the United States is rooted in Washington's thirst for oil.

If the United States were to attack, Chavez said: "We'll do like the Iraqis. We won't have any other alternative -- blow up our own oilfields but they aren't going to take that oil.''

Chavez, however, cited what he called a regular flow of threatening statements and actions from the U.S. government -- from naval exercises behind held this month in the Caribbean to U.S. complaints about Venezuela's deepening ties with Iran.

Chavez rattled off a list of insults he said the United States is trying to pin on him: "tyrant, dictator, abuser of human rights, there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela.''

"The real reason for the open conflict...is energy,'' Chavez said.

"They will never admit that because, of course, they're looking for other excuses.''

Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and remains a major supplier of oil to the United States.

Chavez called U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, whom he recently threatened to expel, "a constant provocation'' and accused Washington of stirring up suspicions about his country's relations with Iran.

"The latest they've invented is that we're sending uranium to Iran and what's more, yesterday, it came out in the Venezuela press that we're making a secret plan to bring Iranian nuclear missiles and install them in Venezuela,'' he said.

The Venezuelan newspaper 2001 published that report Tuesday, citing unidentified U.S. intelligence sources saying Iran and Venezuela had made a secret deal to ship missiles to Venezuela and Cuba aboard oil tankers. It did not provide any details about its sources and the report was roundly denied by Venezuelan officials as preposterous.

Chavez said the United States seems to be "searching for an excuse for anything'' against Venezuela, noting U.S. warships are holding naval exercises this month in the Caribbean -- "there under our very noses.''

In Caracas, meanwhile, Venezuelan Defence Minister Admiral Orlando Maniglia said the military plans to hold its own exercises soon along its coasts and with neighbouring countries' armed forces.

"We have the same sort of exercises,'' Maniglia said.

"We already have planned some future exercises with the government of Curacao and also with the Dutch, with the navy and armed forces of Colombia...with the Brazilians.''

The dates of the training were unclear but the defence minister suggested Venezuela's military is planning air and naval exercises along its coast in the short-term.

© Canadian Press 2006

Peruvian myopia

2006-04-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

April 16: Peruvian myopia
Edited by Richard Lapper, Latin America Editor
Published: April 16 2006 20:42 Last updated: April 16 2006 20:42

If foreign investors are shocked by the election result in Peru they might want to start questioning the quality of their political advice.

For weeks investment banks and their Peruvian contacts have been blithely assuring clients that Lourdes Flores, the pro-market favourite, was a sure winner in the second round of the contest. But for any observer who occasionally ventured outside the better-off Lima suburbs like San Isidro and Miraflores, it has been obvious for a long time that the 50 per cent of Peruvians earning less than $2 a day were unlikely to vote for a candidate so clearly associated with the interests of Lima-based elites.

Ms Flores may have showed up well in polling last year but her campaign has failed to make any impact outside the capital. The reason is in her choice of running mate and campaign advisers Ms Flores has demonstrated a total lack of political touch. With 10 per cent of the vote still to be counted, many of them from generally more conservative overseas-based voters, Ms Flores could conceivably squeeze into the second round run-off, although it looks a long shot. (Click here for a good analysis of the overseas vote and here for the latest voting figures.)

If she doesn’t make it, it is only a matter of time before Wall Street starts to warm to Alan García, the left-wing former president who looks set to contest the second round against the front-running nationalist Ollanta Humala. Mr García has disowned many of the catastrophic policies which he championed in the 1980s and has said that he favours an economic strategy via a vis Peru’s relationship with the US (although he also says he will renegotiate the recently agreed free trade deal).

In any event, with copper prices going through roof investors will soon be on the look out for reasons to buy Peruvian assets, not least because after all the recent shorting, yields will soon look irresistibly attractive. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican front runner, has already been compared to Brazil´s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Expect Mr García to receive the same treatment. Local investors, as well as any foreigner with a long-term commitment in mining or hydrocarbons, will sensibly remain more sceptical.

U.S., Peru Sign Free Trade Agreement (old news; sorry)

2006-04-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

April 12, 2006, 6:36 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Peru on Wednesday signed a free trade agreement that the administration said will lead to increased prosperity in both countries.

Once implemented, 80 percent of consumer and industrial products and more than two-thirds of current U.S. farm exports to Peru would become duty-free. Many products from Peru already enter the U.S. market without duties. The agreement ensures that this status would remain unchanged.

As Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo looked on, the official documents were signed at an Organization of American States ceremony by U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Alfredo Ferrero Diez Canseco.

Ratification by the congresses of both countries is required.

The agreement has caused a political storm in Lima, but Toledo said the pact will ensure long term benefits in such areas as jobs and access to health, nutrition and education.

He accused his opponents of engaging in "easy populism" that may win support from voters but damages the country's long-term interests. "When you look at the future, you don't reduce poverty by playing with words.... I'm not playing short-term games."

Ollanta Humala, the opposition candidate who received the most votes in Sunday's presidential election in Peru, accused Toledo's government of mishandling the negotiations leading to the agreement.

"We are in favor of a trade deal with the United States and with different nations," he said Wednesday in Lima. "What has happened is this commercial deal was poorly negotiated."

Humala faces a runoff against either former Congresswoman Lourdes Flores, who supports the deal, or former president Alan Garcia, who believes the pact should be renegotiated.

Humala says the decision on whether to move ahead with the agreement should be left to the new government, due to be installed on July 28.

In 2005, U.S. goods exported to Peru totaled nearly $2.3 billion. Two-way trade between the U.S. and Peru last year totaled $7.4 billion.

Critics in Peru contend the agreement would lead to steep increases in the price of medicine.

And the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) said the accord lacks protections for Peruvian workers.

"The agreement's language leaves workers to confront routine violations of their labor rights without recourse, and no incentive to the government to improve existing labor laws," said Jeff Vogt, a WOLA labor specialist.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., noted that President Toledo has advocated the inclusion of stronger labor standards in the agreement's text. Acceptance of Toledo's advice will ensure broader congressional support, said Rangel, the top Democrat on the House committee responsible for trade issues.

"It's not too late to change this pact for the better," Rangel said.

The agreement won support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"From Lima, Ohio, to Lima, Peru, this trade agreement will mean growth and opportunity for workers, farmers, and business," said Dan Christman, the chamber's senior vice president of international affairs.

"It also sends a message to our friends and allies in the Andean region about our commitment to the rule of law, workers rights, and transparency in business and government," he said.

Anne Alonzo, co-chair of the Hispanic Alliance for Free Trade, said the agreement "means more growth opportunity for Hispanic-American business owners and workers here in the United States, including many of them of Peruvian descent."

In May 2004, the United States agreed to negotiate free trade accords with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Negotiations with Peru concluded in December and an agreement with Colombia was reached in February. Discussions are ongoing with Ecuador.

From a different perspective... (if the 's' in "globalization" and "18.04.06" didn't tip you off)

2006-04-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Peru's presidential front-runner vows nationalist answer to globalisation

18.04.06
By Gavin Esler

You have to get up early to catch Peru's presidential front-runner Ollanta Humala. It's four o'clock in the morning, and I'm in Lima, trying to arrange an interview.

His advisers say he will be on the 6am plane to Cusco, the ancient Inca capital 3500m up in the Andes. If I travel with him, he will talk to me.

A few minutes before take-off, Humala, his smiling young wife and a dozen aides - all dressed in red T-shirts bearing the words "Love For Peru" - bounded on board.

"Don't talk to him now," an aide warns. "He needs sleep." I turn to an educated, middle-class Peruvian lady next to me. "The red shirts," I wonder aloud. "Is he a socialist?"

"Socialist?" the woman replies. "No. He's a Nationalist. Red and white - the colours of Peru."

A few years ago as a military leader he tried to overthrow Peru's Government. Now he is through to the second round of the presidential elections.

Win or lose, he represents two great themes in Latin America in 2006 - profound discontent that a rising tide of economic prosperity is not helping the poor, and the perpetual South American hope that a strong man might be able to solve their problems.

But his precise political affiliation is hard to pin down. He is regarded as another member of the "awkward squad" of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Awkward, at least, in the eyes of the United States. Possibly, he might join the more amenable "soft left" of Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

The guidebooks say doing something strenuous after flying from sea level in Lima to 3500m in Cusco will bring on altitude sickness.

Humala has obviously never read the guidebooks. He trots out of the airport, begins a tour, a series of speeches and walkabouts. The big rally is at dusk on the steps of Cusco's Catholic Cathedral. It's raining hard. The crowd is many thousands strong.

Humala bounds across the stage, his T-shirt sodden, telling Peruvians there's a difference between the wet weather and the world economy. When it rains, everybody gets wet. With globalisation, the wealth rains on the rich and the poor get nothing. The crowd - mainly indigenous, mainly poor - goes wild at his bombast.

I meet Humala in a Spanish colonial hotel. There's a chess set on the bar. The pieces are Incas and Conquistadors. I suggest a game, and he chooses the Incas.

So how would it change Peru, I ask Humala, if he becomes president?

"Peru has been robbed of its democracy," he says. "The economic model that's been followed has given economic growth but it hasn't allowed the country to develop. We're going to ... concentrate on policies that look toward development."

This is a neat response to those who point out that Peru's GDP has risen consistently in the past few years. Humala concedes this point, but says life for the poor is no better.

"Everyone in Peru wants change. They want a new message as well as a new messenger." I suggest his rhetoric scares off investors, most notably big American investors, and alienates his country from the United States.

"My responsibility as a Peruvian has nothing to do with Bush," he says.

"I am not at all anti-American. Peru has to work on policies in hand with the US. We need to agree on issues like the farming of the coca leaf, drug trafficking and biodiversity ... defending development in my country doesn't mean I am right-wing or left-wing. These definitions are meaningless since the end of the Cold War.

"What we have to do is make a better system by building on the institutions we have. We need to make sure the natural resources we have benefit the people. I am not saying that multinational companies should be stopped from making a profit, but there should be a ... redistribution of wealth."

So, does he agree with Chavez who suggests Bush is worse than Hitler?

"I'd just say the situations in our two countries - Venezuela and Peru - are different," Humala says. "The fact that we have an important agenda of change here doesn't mean we want to join in the ideological conflict between Venezuela and the US."

In the past 100 years, the US has undermined or overthrown about 40 Latin American governments. The US invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest the drug runner Manuel Noriega. The following year US "Contra" proxies in Nicaragua undermined the Sandinista Government of Daniel Ortega.

Despite its current focus on Iraq and Iran, the Bush Administration has begun to wake up to rising anti-Americanism in its own back yard.

"What worries me is how the US can pass the boundaries of international law and interfere physically and militarily in other countries."

So, why does Humala keep going on about the evils of globalisation, when Peru has to trade with the world to raise everyone's living standards?

"Ideological confrontations of left and right in Peru are over," he says.

"That all came to an end when the Cold War finished but the [American] empire that won has built up a process of capitalist globalisation.

"We need to defend our country from being totally globalised. They're breaking into our sovereignty and weakening our national industries. The neo-liberal model hasn't benefited normal Peruvian families."

Will he win the presidency? He certainly believes so - he promised our next game of chess would be inside the presidential palace in Lima.* Gavin Esler is a BBC presenter.

Gunning for the presidency

With 89 per cent of votes from the first round on April 9 counted, Ollanta Humala was in first place with 30.9 per cent.

Left-leaning former president Alan Garcia had 24.38 per cent and conservative Lourdes Flores edged up to 23.53 per cent.

Peruvian law mandates a second round between the two top candidates if no one gets more than 50 per cent.

Flores hopes about two thirds of an as-yet uncounted 300,000 expatriate Peruvian votes will back her party and propel her into second place for the runoff.

- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS

In case we weren't scared enough...

2006-04-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Peruvian Front-Runner's Family an Issue
Apr 5, 2006

By MONTE HAYES
Associated Press Writer

LIMA, Peru

Presidential front-runner Ollanta Humala admires a former dictator and once launched a military uprising himself. He promises heavy state intervention in a free-market economy and wants to end U.S.-backed eradication of Peru's coca crop.

But with national elections set for Sunday, what really scares some people is his family. His father is a Marxist who praises Hitler. His mother suggested that gunning down homosexuals would reduce immorality.

One brother is in jail awaiting trial for an armed revolt. Another brother is running against him for president, although Ulises Humala's racist platform advocating second-class status for the light-skinned elite has drawn him less than 1 percent support.

Ollanta Humala -who holds a narrow lead over Lourdes Flores, a pro-free-market former congresswoman - insists he harbors none of the intolerance that characterizes his clan.

"I'm not homophobic," the 43-year-old retired army lieutenant colonel said during a recent meeting with foreign correspondents. "In the 21st century, I don't think anyone should be discriminated against for such preferences or options, whatever word you want to use."

But many Peruvians are skeptical.

"He can't be believed," said Fernando Rospigliosi, a former interior minister. "He's a man who lies systematically."

Ollanta Humala is widely perceived as part of a rising tide of leftist leaders in Latin America responding to widespread discontent with free-market policies seen to have done little for the poor, and with the discredited political class that implemented them.

He is closely allied with Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chavez, another former military man who led a revolt as a precursor to running for elected office, and with Bolivia's recently elected socialist President Evo Morales, a coca-leaf farmer who like Humala supports and end to U.S.-backed coca eradication.

How much influence the Humala clan would have in Ollanta's presidency remains unclear.

His jailed brother, Antauro, who joined Ollanta in a short-lived military uprising against former President Alberto Fujimori in 2000, recently said his father would have a strong role.

"My father is a fundamentalist of pure reason," he said. "If you're talking about public posts for him, that is unimportant, as it is for the rest of the family. Our strength is ideology. He is an ideological patriarch of the Peruvian people, whose weight is greater than that of the combined official team."

Ollanta dissociated himself from the declarations and has shown increasing annoyance with questions about his family.

"What my parents say is their business," he insisted last week. "They're not running for anything. They don't belong to my party and they're not going to be part of my government."

But TV talk show host Jaime Bayly noted that Ollanta for three years let Antauro publish a newspaper named "Ollanta" that preached violence against minorities.

"If he really repudiated those ideas, he should have demanded that his brother withdraw his name from the publication, but he didn't," Bayly said.

Bayly, who is bisexual, says he has seen the family's intolerance firsthand. He said that when he invited Humala's parents onto his show, the father responded: "Tell that queer we're not going to his program and when we're in the government, we're going to have him shot."

A few days later, Humala's mother, Elena Tasso, was quoted by the Expreso newspaper as saying: "I bet if they shot two homosexuals, you would see less immorality in the streets."

Antauro claims he acted on Ollanta's orders in leading an uprising last year in an Andean town that left four police officers dead, a charge Ollanta denies.

Several weeks ago, Antauro gave a taped statement to a radio station saying President Alejandro Toledo, his wife and Peru's 120 congressmen should be executed by firing squads for treason. He also said "revolutionary measures" would begin July 28, the day Peru's next elected government will take office.

Antauro is running from jail for congress; if elected he would enjoy immunity from prosecution for his uprising.

Ollanta brushed off his brother's prediction, calling him "crazy."

But he has been evasive about accusations linking him to other violence. Villagers in eastern Peru say he ordered the torture and killing of suspected leftist guerrilla sympathizers in 1992, when he commanded a jungle counterinsurgency base. Humala calls the charges a smear campaign.

The Humalas say they prepared their seven children from a young age to be revolutionaries. At dinner, each child had to discuss some aspect of Peruvian history from a nationalist viewpoint.

The 75-year-old patriarch, Isaac Humala, says he is a descendant of Inca royalty and always hoped his children would transform Peru into a nation dominated by its "copper-skinned" majority of Indians and mestizos, stripping power from the white elite.

He has said he raised his children to take power _ if necessary through a military coup and that is why he sent two of his sons to a military academy.

"If I command 60, 100 or 1,000 armed men, I can take the palace and from the palace impose ethno-nationalism," he said, referring to the racial creed he preaches.

Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com

Makin' daddy proud...

2006-04-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

Keiko amplía su ventaja como la congresista más votada por Lima

Según avanza el escrutinio de los votos realizados en Lima para determinar los representantes del departamento al Congreso de la República, se confirma el abrumador apoyo recibido por Keiko Fujimori, quien encabeza la lista de la agrupación política Alianza para el Futuro.

El reciente informe proporcionado por la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), al 53,911%, da los siguientes resultados:

Nombre~ Partido~ Nro. de votos

Keiko Fujimori
Alianza para el Futuro
360.260

Carlos Bruce
Perú Posible
118.620

Mercedes Cabanillas
Partido Aprista Peruano
103.317

Gabriela Pérez Del Solar
Unidad Nacional
80.280

Alberto Andrade
Frente de Centro
79.639

Walter Menchola
Unidad Nacional
51.432

Carlos Torres Caro
Unión por el Perú
48,487

Jorge del Castillo
Partido Aprista Peruano
46.775

David Waisman
Perú Posible
45.418

ONPE: Resultados finales se conocerán a fin de mes

2006-04-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

A una semana de las elecciones del 9 de abril, la jefa de la ONPE, Magdalena Chu, informó que ya tienen prácticamente el 100% de las actas recibidas de todo el territorio nacional y agregó que solo faltan las actas del extranjero.

En declaraciones al programa "Cuarto Poder", dijo que esta demora se debe a los días feriados por Semana Santa, en que, por ejemplo, no trabajó la empresa DHL, encargada de enviar las actas.

Siguiendo con su recuento, señaló que falta computar el 11%, "donde no necesariamente los votos están cuestionados", pero advirtió que solo falta recibir menos del 1%, porque el resto son actas observadas que están siendo elevadas a los JEE.

Asimismo, precisó que estas elecciones han sido de una alta participación de la ciudadanía en el Perú y en el extranjero, lo que calificó como un acto de educación y conciencia cívica.

Al ser cuestionada sobre su estimación de que en tres semanas ya estaría completado el cómputo, dijo que el JNE y el JEE han tomado las providencias del caso para darle celeridad al proceso.

De otro lado, estimó que la segunda vuelta electoral se llevaría a cabo el último domingo de mayo o el primer domingo de junio. "Será un proceso más sencillo porque solo habrá dos candidatos". Finalmente, dijo que a fin de mes ya se podría saber oficialmente quién pasará a la segunda vuelta.

Solo 89 mil votos separan a García de Flores Nano

2006-04-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

No cabe duda que los próximos días estarán cargados de mucho suspenso en la espera de conocer los resultados oficiales de las elecciones generales. Según la más reciente actualización de la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE) al 90,36% Alan García (Apra) alcanza el 24,35% de los votos escrutados, mientras que Lourdes Flores (UN) tiene 23,56% con lo cual la diferencia entre ambos se reduce ahora a 89.396 votos válidos (0,79%). Ollanta Humala (UPP) se mantiene en el primer lugar con 30,84%.

Se informó además que el total de actas impugnadas hasta el momento es de 8.138, lo cual equivale a 1.627.006 votos.

Asimismo, se anunció que el escrutinio de votos en el extranjero se encuentra avanzado al 49,88%. De este total, el 58,81% favorece la candidatura de Flores Nano; 17,27% apoya a García Pérez y el 11,89% votó por Humala Tasso.

A continuación más detalles sobre esta nueva actualización

Partido ~ Nro. de votos ~ % Votos válidos
Alianza por el Futuro 839.973 ~ 7,426%
Frente de Centro 653.180 ~ 5,775%
Restauración Nacional 495.093 ~ 4,377%

Total de votos válidos 11.310.885 100,000%

Votos blancos
1.588.712

Votos nulos
360.976

Votos impugnados
1.021

Total de votos emitidos
13.261.594

Peruvian Front-Runner Humala Worries Many

2006-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday April 12, 2006 8:16 AM

By FRANK BAJAK

Associated Press Writer

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Ollanta Humala, the upstart populist who won the most votes in the first round of Peru's presidential elections, is a great admirer of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

The two have a lot in common: Their political base resides in poor minorities disillusioned with a legacy of corrupt politicians. And, of course, both are career military men, unaccustomed to compromise.

Both also esteem the late Peruvian Gen. Juan Velasco, whose 1968-75 leftist dictatorship expropriated land from the wealthy, seized the media and drove away foreign investment.

That's precisely what worries defenders of Peruvian democracy - not to mention U.S. officials, who've become regular targets of Chavez's ``anti-imperialist'' vitriol.

Humala, whose opponent in an expected June runoff remained unclear Tuesday as ballot-counting continued, vows to respect freedom of speech and private property.

But many believe his moderate tone, particularly now that he's advanced to the runoff, to be a smokescreen. Chavez waited a few years after his 1998 election to begin fomenting class war and exacting higher royalties from foreign oil companies.

Humala, 43, courted Peru's poor and terrified its rich as he rose to prominence in the last eight months, promising to redistribute the country's wealth more equitably.

On Sunday, he won 31 percent of the vote, according to official results with 85 percent of vote counted. It was looking increasingly likely his runoff opponent would be Alan Garcia, a center-leftist former president, who was running second with 24.7 percent.

Ex-congresswoman Lourdes Flores was third with 23.5 percent. Widely seen as the candidate of the rich, Flores would have a tough time defeating Humala in a second round.

Humala's political base is the country's Indian and mestizo majority, especially Quechua-speaking highlanders who've been discriminated against for centuries by the country's European-descended political elite.

It was precisely those people in whose name Velasco subverted democracy. In December, Humala praised Velasco for ``returning dignity to the people who lived in the Andes. ... Velasco broke the semi-feudal system.''

Chavez has been a fan of Velasco ever since he met the dictator in Peru in 1974 as a visiting cadet. For years, he carried around a little blue book of Velasco's teachings that the Peruvian strongman gave him. Chavez even chose blue for the cover of Venezuela's rewritten constitution in Velasco's honor.

But Velasco's military dictatorship was a disaster by other measures. For one, it saw per capita public debt rise fivefold. And Peru, which previously had a trade surplus, became dependent on agricultural imports to feed its people.

Chavez's detractors say his government is a bully that has subverted democracy and persecuted the opposition - claims Chavez vociferously denies.

Many analysts believe Humala, based on his militarist upbringing and on anti-white statements his family has made, would do the same. They are particularly worried about accusations he oversaw human rights abuses while commanding a jungle counterinsurgency base in 1992, allegations Humala denies.

The U.S. State Department has held its tongue on Humala's first-place showing Sunday.

But Roger Noriega, the Bush administration's former top diplomat for Latin America, expressed worry.

``Humala apparently has very little to offer in terms of a constructive agenda,'' Noriega said in a telephone interview. ``I think there is a lot of concern that he would be the sort of polarizing populist that Chavez has been in Venezuela.''

Humala didn't calm those fears with an interview he gave Monday to Venezuela's state-run TeleSur network. ``I have immense respect for Chavez,'' he said. ``I think he's carrying out a process, perhaps the word is heroic, nationalist, patriotic.''

Garcia leads race for runoff spot in Peru vote

2006-04-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

12 April 2006

LIMA, Peru - Left-leaning former President Alan Garcia, whose rule ended in economic ruin, led his pro-business rival on Tuesday in a battle for a runoff spot in Peru’s election.

With more than 85 percent of Sunday’s vote counted, nationalist former army commander Ollanta Humala was first with 30.9 percent and was poised to advance to a May or early June runoff since no candidate won a majority.

Garcia, whose 1985-1990 presidency was plagued by food shortages and 7,000 percent inflation, was second with 24.6 percent. Flores, a conservative pro-business lawyer favored by international investors and bidding to become Peru’s first female leader, trailed in third with 23.5 percent.

“I’m convinced that as the hours go by, the distance between myself (and Flores) will increase,” Garcia said.

Election officials said it could take up to 20 days to determine the second-place finisher. The runoff must take place within 30 days after the final official result is announced.

Peruvians could end up choosing between two leftists and align Peru with a regional leftward shift that has seen leaders take power challenging US trade and diplomatic policies.

“What’s Peru coming to when we’ve got to choose between two crazy leftists for president?” asked hairdresser Daniella Arroyo, who like many middle-class Peruvians was disheartened with the results.

Pre-election polls showed Humala, 43, would face a tight runoff against Garcia and was likely to lose against Flores.

Officials worked to tally votes for a third day as ballots were collected from remote areas and Peruvians living abroad.

“Garcia is very confident and he has every right to be,” said Ernesto Velit, a political science professor at San Marcos University in Lima. “There are still votes to be counted from the rural communities, and those are not votes for Flores.”

Flores questioned the validity of the vote count, saying some 7,000 vote-tally sheets had not been included due to legal challenges and computer problems.

“My feeling is that we have won,” she said. Flores is expected to get strong support from expatriate voters, mainly Peruvians living in the United States.

A defeat for Flores, a 46-year-old lawyer, would be particularly bitter because she narrowly lost to Garcia in the race for a runoff place in the 2001 elections.

Garcia-Humala run off raises alarm

Garcia, 56, has recast himself as a moderate who says he has dropped his fiery anti-imperialist rhetoric that made him one of Latin America’s most flamboyant leaders in the 1980s.

But a Garcia-Humala runoff has alarmed investors. Both have promised to rewrite contracts with foreign companies and levy new taxes on Peru’s key mining industry.

Lima’s stock market closed down almost 2 percent on Tuesday and the sol currency slipped 0.5 percent to 3.33 soles a dollar on the election concerns.

Peru’s bond spreads, a reflection of country risk, widened 7 basis points over US Treasuries to 196 points on the JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Plus (EMBI+). Total returns fell 0.31 percent.

But investors took comfort in Humala’s lower-than-expected lead, saying it lessened his chances of winning a runoff vote.

“Garcia would have a very strong chance of defeating Humala in the second round, where he would likely get the vast majority of Flores’s votes,” said Franco Uccelli, an analyst at Bear Stearns. “We believe that Garcia will not mess with (Peru’s) economic model that is apparently working.”

That reading on the election helped Peru’s global bond, which is due in 2025 and considered the country’s benchmark, rise 2.063 to bid 98.063 and to yield 7.541 percent.

García continúa con ventaja superior al 1% ante Flores

2006-04-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

Actualizado a las 11:26:08 AM
Miércoles, 12 de abril de 2006

Según avanza el porcentaje de actas escrutadas por la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), el candidato presidencial del Partido Aprista Peruano continúa con una interesante ventaja frente a su competidora de Unidad Nacional. La última actualización, al 87,66%, Ollanta Humala (UPP) se mantiene en la primera posición con el 30,96% de los votos; Alan García sigue segundo con 24,44% y en el tercer lugar continúa Lourdes Flores con 23,37%.

Según este último reporte Humala Tasso obtiene 3 millones 423 mil 886 votos, García Pérez 2 millones 702 mil 130 votos y Flores Nano 2 millones 584 mil 519 votos. La diferencia entre los líderes del APRA y Unidad Nacional es de 117 mil 611 votos.

En cuarto lugar se ubica Martha Chávez (Alianza por el Futuro) con 7,472% de los votos válidos, seguida por Valentín Paniagua (Frente de Centro) con 5,760% y Humberto Lay (Restauración Nacional) con 4,345%.

Fujimori Gets Married (in Prison)

2006-04-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last Updated: Thursday, 6 April 2006, 10:25 GMT 11:25 UK

courtesy the BBC

Peru's ex-President, Alberto Fujimori, who is currently under arrest in Chile, has married his long-term Japanese girlfriend from his detention centre.

Mr Fujimori married Japanese hotel magnate Satomi Kataoka under Japanese law after the required documents were filed in Tokyo.

He issued a statement saying the day had been "the happiest of his life".

Mr Fujimori is awaiting an extradition trial to Peru, where he faces corruption and human rights charges.

Ms Kataoka has now travelled to Peru for the country's presidential and congressional elections on Sunday, where her stepdaughter, Keiko Fujimori, is running for Congress.

Mr Fujimori - who has dual Japanese-Peruvian nationality - fled to Japan in 2000 amid a corruption scandal.

He travelled to Chile last year, hoping to launch a new bid for the Peruvian presidency in this year's elections.

He was arrested there at the request of the Peruvian authorities.

He governed Peru for a decade in the 1990s, during which time he divorced his wife Susana Higuchi after dismissing her as first lady in favour of their daughter.