|
Big debt to global corporate predator financiers and US-enforced global free piracy have destroyed the fascist-looted, 3rd world economies of Latin America, and everywhere else. The impacts on the poor are dreadful. Financial disaster will result. It is further extremely unfortunate that Peru will not now unite with Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and other Leftist governments to expel these financial predators from the region.
Well, the Left will win in Peru, in the end--but it will have a far worse mess to clean up, when they do (something like the disaster in Argentina created by the IMF/World Bank). As Evo Morales--the new indigenous president of Bolivia--has said, "The time of the people has come." The overwhelming trend in Latin America is people-oriented, Leftist government, and self-determination.
Some perspective on this election: When it started, it was corrupt left/centrist Garcia against a rightwing candidate. Humala came out of nowhere--a 100% indigenous Indian, representing a resurgent Left--and with no money or name recognition, and took his Leftist campaign from 0% to something like 30% in the first round of the election, almost overnight--and thus won a runoff with Garcia (eliminating the rightwing candidate). The Dark Lords of world finance and the Bush junta were taken by surprise, but quickly mobilized and no doubt fixed this election with money or promises. The battle is now joined between the vast majority of poor and brown Latin Americans, and those who would re-impose death squads and heinous dictators upon them. The "good guys" have won in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela--virtually the entire South American continent--and have made inroads toward proper political representation now in Peru, and even in Columbia--as well as in Mexico, where a similar battle is taking place between global corporate predators and the Left (i.e., the mainstream) over the presidency of Mexico.
Humala's campaign is all to the good, even though he lost against overwhelming stealth power (the power of the debt-mongers). Once the middle class is ruined--as was done in Argentina, and is being done here, in the U.S.--the Left will be in a well-organized position to finally take power and start developing the solutions that the rest of South America is working on: expelling the debt-mongers and corporate predators, utilizing the country's resources for the benefit of all, more equitable distribution of wealth, services to the poor (schools, medical clinics, etc.), land reform, food self-sufficiency, and regional cooperation and strength against the US/Bush "war on drugs" (torture and kill peasants and leftists) policy and Corporate Rule (sweatshop labor, resource exploitation, elimination of social services, privatization of everything).
As here, the Peruvians need to work on election transparency. But they probably have less of a problem than we do. The people chose Leftist policies WITH big money/free trade (global piracy), no doubt with some hoping for "trickle down" benefits, as opposed to Leftist self-determination, which is more of an unknown and may have appeared riskier (--don't want to alienate Big Brother). But they eliminated the rightwing candidate, which tells you something of the trend in Peru. And, when "trickle down" doesn't happen--and, in fact, help for the poor and middle class dries up entirely--they will likely see the mistake they have made.
There was another factor in this election--which was absent in the elections in neighboring Venezuela and Bolivia (and other S/A elections where Leftists have won)---and that is Humala's closer association with armed resistance. His brother is in jail, I believe, for an armed assault on a police station in which several policemen were killed. Armed resistance is not surprising, given what South Americans have suffered in brutal repression, often sponsored by the U.S., over many decades. But it is most certainly a desperate and outmoded effort at change that most South Americans have rejected in favor of strong civic organization and electoral politics (greatly aided by OAS, Carter Center and EU election monitoring groups' work on honest, transparent elections). I don't know the whole story regarding Humala. Ollanta Humala himself has never been charged with or convicted of violence, but he may have flirted with the idea that violence might be the only way to change things. (He is former military, where leftist coups sometimes originate.) And it seems that this was a factor with some voters--although I don't know to what extent all this may have been "swiftboating"--slandering, smears, by the corporate press.
It is nevertheless stunning that he won 45% of the vote. That shows you how little corporate propaganda means to the vast poor Peruvian population. It is only a matter of time before the true Left wins the presidency of Peru--perhaps with a different candidate.
---------
"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales (Bolivia)
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
