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NEWS & LETTERS, JULY 2003
Peru social pressures
After 22 months of the Toledo government, it can be
confirmed that the central tenet of neoliberal policies has not changed. In this
context, the rural sector, the farmers and campesinos, have seen a systematic
fall in prices, for the most part below the cost of production. Poverty
amongst the rural population has risen to 78%. So on May 26 hundreds of
thousands of farmers and campesinos initiated a general strike with mass
demonstrations and highway blockages that produced shortages in the country’s
major urban centers. The main demands are for: progressive tax reform;
renegotiation of the external debt (which consumes approximately 25% of the
government’s budget) in order to allow greater public investment in
agriculture; price support guarantees; expanded credit; and greater protective
tariffs. The movement also demands judicial security in defense of the communal
lands and beneficiaries of agrarian reform who have come under attack by the
huge mining and landowning corporations, and it has rejected the privatization
of the water supply through concessions to private companies. The May 26 general strike followed a national strike by
the teachers that began on May 12 that has received the support of nearly 80% of
the population and has reached into every corner of the country. The government responded by declaring a state of
emergency, which has provoked active resistance. The height of resistance
took place in Puno where 40,000 marched to protest the death of one student and
40 others injured by police gunfire. On June 3 a nationwide mobilization
against the state of emergency took place with 20,000 marching in Lima alone. The Toledo government is on the precipice. However it is
probable that Toledo will continue in power ever more isolated and unable to
maneuver. But it cannot be discounted that Peru may very well go the way
of Argentina where the De la Rúa government collapsed. From an interview with Victor Torres Lozado of the Confederacion Campesina del Peru that appeared in the June issue of TINTAJI, an independent left newspaper in Quito, Ecuador, translated by Roger H. |
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