Chronicle of a detestable
* Peru
TEOLIBERALISM: Fujimori has sold off more than 150 state companies, 80%, basically in the areas of the main export products and services, like mining, fishing, oil, telephones, electricity, mail, and so, many of them at derisory prices, probably in exchange for the payment of "commissions". As we will see later, most of that money has disappeared. Almost all the workers were dismissed, many without receiving compensation.
He closed the farming development bank. He opened the doors for the free import of industrial products, thus destroying a great part of national industry. Also he opened the doors to the free import of agricultural products, some subsidized in their countries of origin, crushing national agriculture which does not receive subsidies or any help. He significantly reduced payments to pensioners and expenditure on health and education. This policy has elevated Peru to 4th place in world poverty, with 49% of the population living in poverty. More than 10 million inhabitants have an income of less than a dollar a day. He has been enthusiastic and exemplary in paying the foreign debt. When he entered government Peru owed $13 billion. Now it has paid $13 billion and owes $19 billion.
CENTRALISM: Centralism has worsened: his constitution abolished local parliamentarians, now all are chosen at national level. Until today he has not called regional elections as the law requires, the governors of the regions are civil employees named by him. The municipalities only receive 3.8% of the national budget. Their members are the only elected authorities, in addition to the president and members of parliament, the rest consists of authorities named by Fujimori. The "Ministry of the Presidency" is responsible for works in all corners of the country, where big announcements appear to remind everyone that it is the Presidency of the Republic that has carried them out.
ROBBERIES: S8 billion of the priva22 International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000 regime
THE people of Peru continue to mobilize against the fraudulent election victory of President
Alberto Fujimori in May. In this contribution a veteran Peruvian revolutionary lists the crimes of the Fujimori regime.
### HUGO BLANCO* tization receipts have disappeared. Fujimori says that it was used to buy arms and that he cannot give any account of it because it is a "military secret". It is calculated that Vladimiro Montesinos, the power behind the throne, has $55 million in various foreign banks, the interest being paid monthly to a bank in Peru, but it is prohibited to investigate this. Fujimori says that the work of Montesinos as real head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), (the apparatus of espionage for the government against its political enemies, the independent press and "friends", to blackmail them) is ad-honorem.
MASSACRES: Of the massacres in Lima, the most significant are those of professors and students at a teaching university, participants in a popular neighbourhood fiesta and the members of the MRTA that surrendered in the Japanese embassy. In the interior of the country there have been many more, especially of peasants. In addition there are the individual murders, like that of the main leader of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, supposedly carried out by Sendero Luminoso, but later discovered to have been perpetrated by SIN.
There are two new developments: One is that Fujimori has announced that SIN will be "redimensioned" to impel the democratization of the country. The other is that general Russel Paredes Loop, who was commander of the "antisubversive" unit Sinchis, active in one of the areas where more innocent blood was shed, Ayacucho, now will be in charge of "security" in Lima. We can calculate what awaits the popular movement against the dictatorship in the capital of the country.
FRAUD: The electoral fraud was prepared from 1996, when Congress approved the "Law of Authentic Interpretation" authorizing Fujimori to run for a second term against the stipulations of his own Fujimorista Constitution.
The Fujimorista parliament removed the autonomy of the judiciary and thus the National Jury of Elections (JNE) was changed to the taste of the government. The regime had three bodies in charge of the elections, one them, the ONE, was in charge of directing the operation of falsification of more of a million signatures for the inscription of Fujimori's organization "Peru 2000".
State funds have been used for the electoral campaign of the President. All the state apparatuses, as well as the army, have been used for the same aim. The television channels were electoral instruments of the government, closed to the opposition. The same was true of a series of very cheap semi-pornographic newspapers. An independent channel was seized from its proprietor. Exit polls showed Toledo winning in the first round. Nevertheless, the official figures indicated that Fujimori was the winner.
Toledo's programme was essentially no different from that followed by Fujimori. But, increasingly dependent on popular support, he radicalized, promising decentralization, support for agriculture, the fight against corruption, wage increases, an end to government intervention in the universities, and so on. Luckily, on the night of the first round, when the nature of the fraud was clear and with an enormous demonstration before him, he followed the people and went with them to the government palace to protest against the fraud.
With the reaction of the international press and various governments Fujimori had to back down and change his plan to win on the first count. Soon, the O.A.S. mission, the Carter center and other international and national observers requested
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In Peru it is obligatory to vote, a heavy fine is paid if you don't, in addition the electoral authority threatened many additional punishments for those who did not vote. Even so, there was little voting, but this was not recognized by the governmental machines. Luckily Toledo did not let himself be intimidated by being called a "rebel" and a "terrorist". Between the first and second round he continued participating in enthusiastic and large demonstrations as opposed to the few Fujimorista demonstrations which people were taken to by force. In the afternoon and night of the day of the second round, the squares of the country were filled by the "losers", whereas the "winners" could only meet in a few corners and Fujimori did not appear to celebrate his "triumph".
The Constitution recognizes the right of insurgency against an illegitimate government. We are living through the final days of Fujimorismo. Fujimorista masses are not seen, although they are there as a minority, but they are not used to mobilizing, the pro-government assemblies have always been prefabricated. However antidictatorship people are in the streets, sometimes attacking the police. We know that these demonstrations cannot continue indefinitely, but the people will know how to organize itself, how to fight in a more prolonged resistance. The people have taken Toledo as a flag, but a great part of them are not necessarily Toledista, they are anti-Fujimorist, anti-dictatorial and antiism.
The peaceful replacement of Fujimori by Toledo is one thing, another would be Toledo's coming to power on the back of the people in movement - the peasants, the students, the pensioners, have made him make commitments. If he does not fulfill them, the movement will continue. That also worries imperialism. One neoliberal lamented: "Fujimori is to neoliberalism what Sendero is to the left". Fujimori destroys the image of democratic neoliberalism. Today we read in the newspaper that a father, dismissed from a privatized company, seeing himself without work, tubercular and in poverty, poisoned himself and his four daughters. We do not want that to happen again, and for that reason we have risen. * * Hugo Blanco is one of the historic leaders of the Latin American revolutionary left. He is a leader of the Confederacion Campesina del Peru (see interview in IV no 321, May 2000).
AUERA