Peru May Join Latin America's Populist Tilt to Left

[Judi Lynn]

1/16/2006


The Wall Street Journal
Peru May Join Latin America's Populist Tilt to Left

by: David Luhnow & Robert Kozak, Staff Reporter for The Wall Street Journal

In the latest sign of the populist wave coursing through Latin America, presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, a left-wing opponent of free trade and free-market policies, has surged to the top of the polls ahead of Peru's election in April, prompting fears that the region's commitment to market-based reforms is waning.

The former army officer's rapid rise reflects the emergence of a more radical and populist left in Latin America, particularly in the impoverished Andean region, which forms an arc stretching from Venezuela at the top of South America to Peru in the west. Mr. Humala, who led a short-lived coup against a democratically elected leader in 2000, has the vocal backing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has cultivated close ties with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Like Mr. Chávez and Evo Morales, a former coca-leaf grower who won the presidency of Bolivia in December, Mr. Humala has campaigned on a promise to increase state control over the economy's key mining and oil sectors. And like his counterparts in Caracas and La Paz, Mr. Humala condemns globalization as a U.S.-led assault on the poor.
(snip/...)

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=5073

http://www.quepasa.com/newsimages/content/410522/Chavez's%20.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

1. Who'll be the first to step forward to take a kick at this guy?

It's getting so painfully hard for right-wingers to create slurs fast enough to keep up with the new Latin American leaders!

[1932]

9. It seems like the media take/spin on Chile today is:

the Latin American left covers a lot of territory and Chile's left is not as extreme as Venezuela's and Bolivia's.

So, rather than criticize her, they're saying she's not really progressive.

I find that an interesting spin. It's like conceding that you can't undermine the progress the left in Latin America is making, so, instead, you want to make people in your own country believe that the world isn't embracing progressive, anti-neoliberal policies.

I'm going to keep an eye on that line of argument here at DU.

[bullimiami]

2. chile just elected a woman socialist president

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/enero/lun16/04michelle-i.html

[rodeodance]

3. "U.S.-led assault on the poor."---beyond sad.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Death to neo-liberalism and globalization!

With the US poised for a new war against Iran, the peoples of Latin American have an historical opportunity to reverse years of economic subjugation mandated by US, to take control over their own resources, and to shift their economies to one that helps people not exploit them.

[Mika]

11. Don't forget about the treaty between Venezuela and Iran..

.. in which they agreed that a US attack on one is an attack on both.

[teknomanzer]

5. Trouble, trouble...

Could it be that the United States is so tied up in the Middle East that it no longer has the resources to prop up and maintain brutal right wing dictatorships in our own hemisphere. Has the Bush Administration over reached in its quest for imperial hegemony and lost the whole lot? Stay tuned.

[IndianaGreen]

6. I hope Bush's overreach will bring the collapse of American imperialism

Bush's military adventurism has already wounded severely the once mighty military machine.

[teknomanzer]

7. 'tis hard not to be a doomsayer these days...

The collapse of American Imperialism will spell hard times for all Americans... that includes you and me. I am afraid Bush has hastened the end of U.S. Global hegemony. So many things are in the works right now that all I see is a bleak future ahead, Outsourcing, Global Climate change, Peak oil production, Growing energy demand from populous nations like India and China, a new arms race with a third world desperate to keep the U.S. from implementing its policy of pre-emtive war. I had such great hope for the 21st century, but things don't look that good now. Our ship is being commanded by complete dumbasses and short sighted fools who lack any vision for the future. Their only concern seems to be the acquisition of more and more material wealth - as if that could possibly save them and their spoiled progeny from the sort cataclysm they are helping to create.

At least some people are shaking free from this sickening obsession with material gain through exploitation. My suggestion is to learn Spanish and Chinese.

[Judi Lynn]

8. It would be great to see a closing of the School of Assassins

at Ft. Benning, Ga. Oh, sure, it would mean thousands of yearly protesters would have to find something else to do, but maybe it'd be worth it, knowing our government finally got out of the business of giving advanced training to right-wing Latin American dictators' death squad leaders.

It has never been a shock to learn the principle leaders of massacres throughout the hemisphere have been trained at the SOA, which even has used a manual on torture.

If Latin America continues to actually elect leaders the majority of their populations want, and keeps them safe from U.S.-lead coups, then that School will be withdrawn, just as so many Americans have hoped.

[1932]

10. They're going to lose their customer base. IIUC, Ven. no longer takes part

and I wonder how many of these other progressive, anti-neoliberal governments will do the same.