Saturday, March 26, 2011

The legacy of Alan Garcia

Alan García won a second opportunity to claim to history after a first administration (1985-1990) which plunged the country into a four-digit hyperinflation and widespread violence. In the runoff election was seen by Peruvians as the "lesser evil" to the "bungee jumping" which embodied the nationalist Ollanta Humala.

With this trend and bring the promise of growth but also equity again assumed office on July 28, 2006. Peru now boasts an economic growth above 7% and has positioned itself as the gateway for Asian investment in Africa. "The colossal ego" citing Garcia-Wikileaks-cable and triumphalist rhetoric feeds on favorable economic data, the reduction of monetary poverty and 138 000 public works government advertised under the slogan 'El Peru Avanza', repeated over and over again for 5 years.

Aspires to leave the presidency having reduced poverty from 49% in 2005 to 30% in 2011. But while urban poverty has declined, the country has been consolidated. 60% of Peruvians are poor and rural Andean regions such as Huancavelica and Apurimac overcome this sad media, reaching over 70%.

More than 50 soldiers and policemen have been killed by the remnants of the Shining Path during the 'Operational Excellence 777', which since August 2008 to mid-2009 tried to build counterinsurgency bases in the liberated zone of Shining Path, a hidden spot in the River Valley Apurimac and Ene (VRAE), the main coca-growing valleys of the country and the world.

The government acknowledged the failure of this plan. Alan García is Vizcatán VRAE in Vietnam ", as stated in a recent interview. "Unless accept that many soldiers die enter this forest is very difficult." Although Peru is not the main producer of cocaine, it is the main exporter due to low levels of police seizure.

While in Colombia seized nearly 200 tons of cocaine from the 410 produced in the country, in Peru about 15 of the 317. According to the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the coca leaf cultivation in Peru increased by 6.8% in 2009. Coca has extended the traditional coca-growing valleys where they act the remnants of Sendero Luminoso, or new areas where it already been eliminated.

Today the coca fields are in 13 regions. To continue at this pace, the UN anticipates that Peru could soon become the largest producer of cocaine, first moving to Colombia. For experts in drug trafficking, Peru's strategy has failed. During the government of Alan Garcia created a National Plan to Combat Money Laundering and has been prosecuted for this offense to Sanchez Paredes clan, a family suspected of raising a northern mining empire by illegal money.

However, still not paid the law against trafficking of chemical inputs necessary for the manufacture of cocaine and have not been consolidated and infrastructure development plans for major coca-growing valleys. On August 15, 2007 an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale in southern Iraq killed more than 500 people and left 300,000 homeless.

The government's reaction after the disaster was judged to be late and looting were replicated in the days following the quake. Three and a half years later, Alan Garcia said on 'The Trade' to be with a clear conscience, having invested more than 2 billion soles (740 million dollars) to rebuild Pisco and have completed the sewer system, plus hospitals provide Social Security and the Ministry of Health in the affected cities.

However, victims' organizations claim that they have raised less than 10% of houses destroyed by the earthquake. Only in Pisco, more than 4000 thousand families still live in wooden modules of 2x5 meters or wicker and plastic houses self-built in what were the sands on the outskirts of the city.

A report by the Congressional Oversight Committee charged that the national, regional and local authorities have invested only 40% of the funds for the victims. The rest are missing. "Faenón" is a word that will go down in posterity of his second term. With it, Rómulo León, a former minister in the first APRA government, and Alberto Quimper, then president of the state enterprise Perupetro, concerned about wiretapping in the bribes received the award during a batch process oil.

The baptized as "Petroaudios", broadcast on television, knocked his first Cabinet in October 2008 to splash Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo. He also shattered presidential popularity, now 29% according to polls. Over years, two years later, this case is still trapped in the judiciary to be seen altering key evidence, including the USB containing telephone conversations.

Alan Garcia has publicly acknowledged that corruption has done much damage to his government. While 85% of respondents considered that ruled with corruption, according to a recent poll by Datum. Alberto Fujimori was extradited from Chile, where he unexpectedly landed in 2005 and sentenced on April 7, 2009 to 25 years for crimes against human rights.

Despite this exemplary punishment under his rule, the presidential decretazo enactment of laws like the 1097, which declared prescribed crimes against humanity and threatened to open the prison doors to Fujimori and his cronies, tarnished its image. Just before a speech by Mario Vargas Llosa, who described the 1097 as "a thinly disguised amnesty," Garcia backed down.

Other decrees issued in 2010 have alerted the agencies of human rights defenders to strengthen police powers of military courts and to authorize the Army to intervene in social conflicts to deal with "hostile groups." National Coordinator for Human Rights, during the 5 years of President Alan Garcia has receded in economic, political and social.

"It's time for Peru to the world," predicted Garcia in his last speech on Independence Day, urging his successor to follow in the path of development based on mining, oil and agricultural exports. This path has led the country to growth but also social instability protests against Andean and Amazonian extractive projects.

The growth of conflicts has been directly proportional to the acres granted for mining projects from 6 million in 2006 to 21 in 2010, spread equal to nearly 20% of the country. At the same time, more than 70% of the Amazon that sell lots for oil exploration. During his government has spent 80-month social conflicts in 2006 to 234, according to the latest report by the Ombudsman.

According to the same institution, only in the last three years 80 people have died and 1200 were injured during the outbreak of protests. Bagua balance left over black and forced Garcia to name a new cabinet of ministers to weather the crisis of governance. The adoption by decree of a legal framework that promoted the sale of large tracts of Amazon without complying with the right to prior consultation with indigenous peoples was the trigger for two months of protests, during which Amazon blocked roads, rivers and stations oil.

On June 5, 2009, confrontation between an armed police force and hundreds of Indians who blocked a road Awajún unleashed a battle that lasted for hours and resulted in 33 deaths (23 officers, nine of them beheaded, and 10 indigenous), an effective disappeared and more than 200 civilians wounded.

Indigenous leader Alberto Pizango sought political asylum in Nicaragua and returned in May 2010 to face, along with dozens of indigenous leaders, trial by the facts of Bagua. Recently, two police generals were sentenced by military courts and police to pay civil damages symbolic (just over $ 3000) and suspended prison sentences for the disastrous eviction operation.

After this crisis, in May 2010 Congress passed a law requiring prior consultation with indigenous peoples to comply with Convention 169 and prevent further social unrest. However, the government observed the law and to this day is not enacted.

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