Now THAT is great! The campesinos--small peasant farmers--the workers, the indigenous, the vast poor majority of Peru--can use more of THAT kind of tourist!
-----
"Hundreds of tourists were stranded, but five of them—three from Argentina, one from Colombia and one from Spain—were reportedly detained by the national police in Cusco for joining the protests. (AFP, Feb. 22; Living in Peru, Feb. 21)" !!!
-----
"On Feb. 22, Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri blamed the week's protests on "subversion" by former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala and his Nationalist Peruvian Party (PNP). (La Prensa, Panama, Feb. 24 from DPA.)Strikes are "subversive"? Protests are "subversive"? Nice talk--from supposed "social democrats" (Alan Garcia and his corrupt, Bush-ass-kissing crowd).
Ollanta Humala is 100% indigenous, like the new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales. He came out of nowhere--with no money, and no political experience--and drove the rightwing candidate out of the presidential race, by winning 30% of the vote. The Bush Junta then had no candidate, so they supported the corrupt 'leftist' Garcia, and bribed him with a "free trade" deal. Novice Humala increased his support by 15% in a two-way contest with Garcia, and won 45% of the vote in the final election. Not bad for a newcomer. I predicted he would be back--and he is, here identified as a "subversive" leader of Peru's social movement.
The same forces are at work in Peru as in Bolivia--and both are very similar to Ecuador, and somewhat similar to Venezuela. Bolivia saw similar strikes and protests, led by the indigenous, prior to Evo Morales' running for president. Evo Morales was the leader of the coca leaf farmers' union. He was beaten and arrested for his union activism. One of their most successful series of strikes and protests occurred when Bechtel took over the public water system in Cochabamba, and raised the price of water to the poor--even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater! Basically, the people rose up against this, and threw Becthel out of their country--and elected Morales as president.
These three--Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--now all have strong leftist presidents, and are closely allied with each other, as well as with Argentina and Nicaragua, and, to some extent, with the leftist governments of Brazil, Uruguay and Chile (Brazil especially). This leftist sweep of South America may soon include Paraguay, where the beloved "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo, is running for president this year. It is only a matter of time before Peru also elects a leftist president--more than likely an indigenous, and very possibly Humala.
U.S. dominated "free trade" deals bring absolute ruination to third world economies, create vast poverty, devastate domestic food production, and what is even worse, are an assault on the "sovereignty of the people." The rules are dictated by global corporate predator lobbyists in Washington DC. Local labor protections, environmental protections, and social programs like education and medical care, fall prey to these dictates, and the power of local people over their government--their ability to protect themselves from exploitation--is removed. Two other U.S. projects for their subjugation--the murderous, corrupt U.S. "war on drugs," and the World Bank/IMF loan sharks, also come into play--the first to militarize the government and lard it with U.S. aid for guns, bullets, tear gas and other police state equipment, and the latter to indebt the country, on usurious terms, to "first world" financiers, who extract onerous conditions of repayment (attacking social programs, and regulation of foreign corporations). I'm not sure to what extent the "war on drugs" and the World Bank/IMF are part of the picture in Peru. Just don't have the info. But all three--"free trade," the "war on drugs" and World Bank/IMF loans almost always go hand in hand.
The coca leaf farmers oppose the U.S. "war on drugs" for several reasons. For one thing, coca leaves are not the same thing as cocaine. Coca leaves are a medicine, with a thousand year history, used throughout the Andes for survival in the high altitudes and icy cold of the Andes mountains. Coca leaf tea, and coca leaf chewing, are widespread throughout the Andes and legal in most places. They serve the tea in restaurants. People drink coca leaf tea like we drink coffee. It is a mild stimulant. The U.S. "war on drugs" does not distinguish between these small farmers, who also produce food, and the big drug cartels, and, indeed, one of the impacts of the "war on drugs" is to drive the innocent, traditional coca leaf farmers off their land, with pesticide spraying and with violence, and the land is then taken over by drug lords who grow and process cocaine for the illicit international market. All the Bolivarian countries--the leftist democracies--Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--have rejected U.S. military aid for the "war on drugs." They seek a more peaceful, sensible policy. And Ecuador's new leftist president, Rafael Correa, has pledged to throw the U.S. military base out of Ecuador, when its lease comes up for renewal this year. The base is used for "drug war" surveillance, and, no doubt, considering who's in charge of it (the Bush Cartel) for even more nefarious purposes.
The coca leaf is a sacred herb, to the indigenous. Evo Morales, in Bolivia, campaigned with a wreath of coca leaves around his neck--to symbolize this struggle against the "war on drugs," and also his spiritual connection to the indigenous elders who came down out of the mountains at his inaugural, and held a special ceremony investing him as their leader.
Ollanta Humala comes from the same roots, and may even be guided by the same elders, whose purpose seems to be to transform the anger of young indigenous leaders, after so many centuries of brutality and exploitation, into peaceful, democratic change. Rafael Correa, the U.S.-educated leftist economist who was elected president of Ecuador, spent years in the mountains, among the indigenous, and speaks the local indigenous language. Hugo Chavez is part indigenous--also part African-Venezuelan, and Hispanic. These three leaders--Chavez, Correa and Morales--are very close, and Chavez and Morales endorsed Humala after his great showing in the primary, and are probably responsible for the big indigenous voter turnout that gave Humala the 15% boost in the general election (it certainly didn't come from rightwing voters, whose candidate was eliminated in the first round).
Now Peru. The same thing is happening in Peru. The rise of grass roots democracy, led by, and strengthened by, the indigenous spiritual tradition and its interesting combination, in South America, with the progressive wing of Christianity--liberation theology--which identifies with the struggles of the poor. The latter is evident in Chavez. He's spoken of it (real Christianity). And Fernando Lugo, in Paraguay, is its most obvious expression. He is a Catholic bishop, who has defied the fascist element in the Church by running for president. Being "bishop of the poor" means being "bishop of the indigenous." That is who he has spent his time as bishop with--the poor and the brown.
Chavez, Morales, Correa and Humala all have nut-brown faces. These are faces we have not seen as presidents of South American countries, ever, in their history. As Judi Lynn has pointed out here at DU, as late as the 1950s, the indigenous in Bolivia were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks. And the rich white European elite imported white "apartheid-era" South Africans to try to boost their numbers. The "poor and the brown" face bigotry, as well as poverty, in all of these countries. But they are now addressing their situation through the creation of democracy--their right, as the majority, to rule. As Evo Morales has said: "The time of the people has come." And it was Ollanta Humala's campaign for president that he was speaking of, when he said it. "The time of the people" had not quite come, at that moment, for Peru--as it has in Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, and throughout the continent. But it will.
Our job, as citizens of the U.S., is to do our best to prevent the Bush Junta, and collusive Democrats, from harming the people of the South American yet again, and, by economic warfare and military intervention, trying to crush their aspirations to democracy and social justice, as Donald Rumsfeld and Exxon Mobil so clearly intend to do, and as Hillary Clinton evidently intends to do. (Not sure about Obama, but he is potentially a better leader in this respect.) Billions and billions of dollars are at issue--in oil, gas and other resources, slave labor, and the "war on drugs" boondoggle. And here are Donald Rumsfeld's and Hillary Clinton's thoughts on the matter:
"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.htmlThe word "tyrant" turns to ashes in Rumsfeld's mouth. Hugo Chavez is not a "tyrant." There is no evidence for it. Zero. Zilch. He is, in fact, the opposite--a real democrat with a small d.
And the echo chamber:
"If I am entrusted with the presidency, America will have the courage, once again, to meet with our adversaries. But I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions, until we have assessed through lower level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of these dictators. --Hillary Clinton (at GW University, 2/25/08)
I have pretty much stayed out of the Clinton vs. Obama fight. Obama is too much of an unknown--too vague--to receive my enthusiastic vote. I do love his supporters, though--those representatives of the disenfranchised 70% American majority against the Iraq War, and against Bushitism--who are making it a contest. And if they succeed, we will at least have a president who is somewhat beholden to the people--something we have not had in a long time.
But I cannot stay out of this--Clinton calling Chavez a "dictator" and making such a point of it, at this stage of the game--following Rumsfeld's op-ed and Exxon Mobil's financial warfare against Venezuela. It sends shudders of fear through me for the people of South America, and for Venezuelans in particular, who have fought so hard to establish democracy in their country, and to elect a president and other office holders who truly represent their interests, and then keeping hold of it, through every effort of the Bush Junta to destroy their democracy.* I think Bolivia is also at particular risk. (I think that's where Rumsfeld intends to strike first. I won't go into the reasons here--but it makes sense, strategically, given Rumsfeld's plan in the Iraq War of striking the weak first, creating havoc, using chaos as an opportunity to grab resources and strategic ground, and then going for the main target.)
I don't think Rumsfeld & co., and collusive Democrats, will win this one. The trend in South America is overwhelmingly leftist (majorityist), and these governments have been building strong alliances with each other. But the war cabal can cause a lot of grief and suffering, as we know, in their obsession for oil and for U.S./corporate domination, in the course of failing. The 1970s-1980s (the Reagan horror years in Latin American) cannot be repeated. The South Americans have gotten too smart, and too well-organized, and know that history too well, for it to be repeatable. It's more an issue of who
we are, and will permit ourselves to become.
----------------------
*(See: The Irish filmmakers' documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," available at YouTube and at www.axisoflogic.com. You won't regret it.)
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
