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June 09, 2005

From an Internet Café in Lima

I'm paying a brief visit, to speak at a conference, to Lima, Peru - a country to which we have not paid enough attention, even though it's Latin America's number-two recipient of U.S. military and police aid. (A distant second to Colombia.)

I can claim no in-depth expertise about Peru. And this three-and-a-half-day visit will not make me much more of an expert. Besides, this week the main focus of the region's attention is rightly focused south of here, on Bolivia, where the poor and indigenous majority has again hit the streets and appears about to force out another president. The images on television and in the papers here show crowds of tens of thousands of mostly peaceful protesters choking the streets and shutting down business as usual.

The question that many people here in Lima are asking: why isn't this happening here? Might it happen soon? Is Peru next?

The Bolivian protests, after all, seem to be driven by the same frustrations that are widely shared in Peru. Obviously, the people clogging the streets of La Paz and El Alto - most of them people who live one step ahead of hunger, many of whose first language is not Spanish - aren't going to be placated by another change of presidents and a constitutional restructuring of the natural-gas sector. Instead, we're witnessing a fierce expression of frustration and anger.

Frustration about an economic "opening" that closed mines and threw the rural sector into crisis. Frustration at a concentration of wealth over the last 20 years. Frustration about aggressive coca-eradication programs that have far outpaced development efforts. And frustration with democracy, which seems only able to produce national leaders who are out of touch, unable to improve the lot of the poorest, beholden to large economic interests, and - above all - perceived, usually correctly, as hopelessly corrupt.

We saw a similar outburst in Ecuador earlier this year, when Lucio Gutiérrez was sent packing. I am not comfortable with these extra-constitutional changes of government. But the anger and frustration that give rise to them are understandable.

Which brings us to Peru. This country has been especially battered by what has been perhaps the region´s worst transition from dictatorship to democracy. A brutal insurgency in the 1980s. The disastrous Alán García presidency, complete with hyperinflation and a costly default on foreign debt. The decade of misrule by Fujimori and Montesinos. And now Alejandro Toledo, perhaps the least popular president in all of Latin America, widely perceived as lazy, isolated from the electorate, ignoring his campaign promises to the working class, and caught up in a swarm of corruption scandals involving many of his associates.

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).

Again, I'm not a Peru expert. I'm not in regular touch with the country's non-elite NGOs, and I had only a few hours yesterday to wander around Lima, mainly the rather prosperous Miraflores sector.

But even in that brief time, I was bowled over by the anger I heard in the several conversations I had. All of it was voluntarily expressed, and in fact I didn't even initiate any conversations. (It was usually, "Where are you from?" "Where in the United States?" "Ah, Washington..." - and that was enough.)

In a few hours, I spoke at length to a taxi driver, a waiter, a proprietor of a small grocery store, a teenager in a shoe store, a guy who wanted to shine my sneakers, a bookstore cashier, and a retired professor. All had a lot to say to a gringo from Washington with a little time to kill.

Though most volunteered that they don't like George Bush ("Why did he start that war?" "Why doesn't he do more to help us?"), their anger wasn't directed at the United States. (In fact, two people I spoke with wanted to come to America quite badly.)

But across the board, their anger at their own leaders was so strong that the conversations instantly became emphatic and one-sided. There's some rage here that I've never seen so openly and freely expressed in Colombia.

"They're all thieves," a few said. Democracy has been hijacked by people - "ignorant, illiterate people" in the words of one - who seek only to enrich themselves. I heard no belief that next year's presidential elections would bring any change. (Unbelievably, the two figures currently leading the polls are Alán García and Alberto Fujimori! At least Fujimori is still exiled in Japan.)

"Toledo is supported by the same tiny group (grupúsculo) that supported Fujimori and Montesinos," said the grocer, who was remarkably articluate. She added, "They steal from us. They are narcotraffickers. They are above the law. We can't touch them. But if we complain, they call us terrorists (terrucos) and throw us in jail or worse. There is no terrorism here. Why doesn't the United States realize that and help us for real?"

Again, I'm no expert on Peru and certainly wasn't taking a rigorous measure of popular opinion. But I was still quite struck by the anger and frustration that was voluntarily expressed to me in just a few hours. A few hours in which I was just walking around, not actually seeking people's opinions.

If this sample is at all indicative, something is clearly up here. Peru may well be headed toward an outcome similar to Bolivia's, perhaps during the next presidential term.

Some of the Peruvian academics I've spoken with here share this concern, though they don't see it as an immediate threat. While the rage is real, they point out, it is disorganized. There is no opposition leadership capable of mobilizing tens of thousands in coordinated street protests - there is no Peruvian Evo Morales, no strong indigenous movement as in Ecuador. Using populist language, old machine politicians like Alán García are having some success channeling popular frustration to their own advantage.

The may be right, though it would be hard to imagine a re-elected retread like Alán García managing to finish his term in office. This kind of anger and frustration won't say disorganized forever.

We had better keep an eye on Peru. And the U.S. government - which has spent the last several years viewing Peru mainly as a counternarcotics issue, and which plans a deep cut in economic aid for 2006 - must end its neglect, and must abandon hard-line, punitive anti-drug and economic policies that might make life tougher for Peruvians in the short term. This is not the time to add to Peruvians' sense of frustration.

Posted by isacson at June 9, 2005 07:07 PM

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