Beautiful Horizons

Gold - This Year's Diamonds?

Typepad is anything but reliable tonight, so I need to be quick. Accordingly, I urge you to read this article in the New York Times about gold mining and its impact upon a Peruvian town.  As fopr Lawrence Kurlander, a mining executive mentioned in the article, please don't expect us to believe that you got something for nothing from Vladimiro Montesinos. None of us are that stupid.

Speaking of Peru, by the way, former Rio correspondent for the Times, James Brooke has a profile of Montesinos's former boss, ousted president and current fugitive, Alberto Fujimori and his plans to return and run again. Just what Peru doesn't need.

The Retrial of Abimael Guzmán

The trial of Abimael Guzmán, aka "Presidente" Gonzalo, the founder of the Shining Path terrorist organization, started again this week. His first trial in a secret military court ended in a conviction, but was tossed out by Peru's Supreme Court as the secret military tribunals established by the Fujimori dictatorship regime were deemed unconstitutional [ed.note: Anyone in the Bush administration paying attention? Didn't think so].

Shining Path was a Mao-inspired "revolutionary" group that inflicted his horrid brutality on Peru for more than a decade, conducting massacres of civilians, including the   Lucanamarca massacre in 193 in which 69 people were murdered, including 22 children. One of their trademark symbols was the hanging of dead dogs from lampposts.

Apparently, Guzmán has a very soft spot for his longtime lover, Elena Iparraguirre, who he wants to marry. He has been quoted as saying that he cannot envision his life without her.

What the hell is with leftist revolutionaries in Peru? What a bunch of wimps! First, the MRTA members who seized the Japanese Embassy in December 1996 complained about the food and missed their favorite telenovelas during the long siege. Now we find that Guzmán is an old romantic who wants to tie the knot with his longtime companion.

Where is the single-mindedness? Where is the monomania? Where is the commitment behind the flatulent revolutionary rhetoric?

Is Peru Next?

Adam Isacson, writing literally off his usual beat, makes an interesting argument that Peru may be next in line for civil unrest:

Though Peru's economy has been one of the fastest-growing in the hemisphere, poverty has hardly budged. Lay this on top of a de facto situation of apartheid excluding the indigenous population, and the result is a lot of angry Peruvians.

Look at the last poll from the Chile-based "Latinobarómetro" organization, which surveys public opinion in 18 Latin American countries. When asked whether they agreed with the statement "This country is governed by a few powerful interests for their own benefit," 85 percent of Peruvians answered yes - first in the region! When asked if they agreed with the statement "I wouldn't mind a non-democratic government, if it were able to solve our economic problems," 64 percent of Peruvians said yes (the regional average was 55 percent).

It underscores Robert Steinback's article I mentioned yesterday.  Washington ignores the threat of poverty to democracy at its own peril and it certainly appears that they still don't get it.

Not the Way to Effect Change

One of the aspects of President Aristide's ouster that truly bothered me was the notion that one could effect change by engaging in a violent rebellion and showing public anger to intimidate those who one opposes. Someone is trying it again in Peru:

Peruvian forces are in position around a police station which has been seized by renegade army reservists in a remote town in the southern Andes. 

The BBC's Elliott Gotkine says an operation to re-take the station in the town of Andahuaylas was halted at a request by the human rights ombudsman.

Rebel leader Antauro Humala has told a radio station he will lay down arms at 0730 local time (1230GMT) on Tuesday.

The group has been calling for Peru's President Alejandro Toledo to quit.

A curfew has been declared in and around the town of Andahuaylas, which lies around 900km southeast of Lima.

Four police officers were killed and 19 wounded when former army major Antauro Humala and up to 200 armed followers seized the station on Saturday.

Ten policemen are still being held hostage.

This is not how one effects change. It is no secret that President Toledo is hugely unpopular and quite possibly corrupt. His approval ratings languish at 9%. If people are dissatisfied with him there is a way to get rid of him: either impeach him or vote him out of office when his term ends.

What neither Peru nor any other democracy in the Americas needs is to remove someone from office through a coup des rues. There has been far too much in the way of extralegal methods to remove unpopular leaders in Latin America's history. It has resulted in misery, institutionalization of torture and other human rights abuses and further fracturing of society.

Fujimori's Enforcer Gets 15 Years

Vladimiro Montesinos, disgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's enforcer has been sentenced to 15 years in what could be many such verdicts, possibly for more serious charges. This is one that is especially disturbing:

In the most serious trial to date, Montesinos faces charges of masterminding the 1999 delivery of 10,000 assault rifles to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence in that trial, which opened in January.

Of course Fujimori, for his part claims to be innocent.

Starbuck Arrives in Peru

Tyler Bridges of The Miami Herald finds it encouraging that Starbucks and some other American franchisess have opened in Lima, Peru:

Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken, both of which had been bombed by the guerrillas, have expanded to some two dozen outlets each.

McDonald's has come to Peru, and so has TGI Friday's and Chili's. All three icons of Americana also have restaurants on the Ovalo Gutiérrez.

So the arrival of Starbucks here represents the continued return to normalcy.

With normalcy, foreign and domestic businesses are more likely to invest in Peru, which this impoverished country desperately needs for the economy to grow and to put more money in the pockets of average citizens.

I'm not going to nitpick and complain that American fast food franchises are invading Peru or any other country in Latin America. That genie left the bottle a long, long time ago. Bridges is absolutely right on the merits of his argument: the fact that these businesses can open is good news for a country long beleagured by terrorism. I just wish the franchises went in both directions. (And no, Taco Bell and Chi-Chi's sure as hell don't count.) I'd love to see a chain of Peruvian-style chicken restaurants all over the US.