Peru: An Upsurge of Strikes and Barricades\r\n<\/p>
Revolutionary Worker #1203, June 15, 2003<\/i>, posted\r\nat http:\/\/rwor.org<\/p>\r\n
All through May the people of Peru built a powerful wave of\r\nstruggle--isolating the corrupt government and shaking the rotten system that\r\nholds them in misery.<\/p>\r\n
Peru's President Toledo responded with bloody repression--imposing a\r\nfascistic \"state of emergency\" and unleashing his soldiers to kill\r\npeople in the streets.<\/p>\r\n
As we go to press, this powerful upsurge is still shaking the country.<\/p>\r\n
The following report is based on mainstream press accounts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/b>
Opening the Floodgates<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This intense round of class struggle started on May 12, when Peru's 300,000\r\nteachers launched a furious nationwide strike against their outrageous\r\nconditions. Teachers in Peru only make $175 a month--and can barely live.<\/p>\r\n
The government offered them an insulting $30 raise--saying it could not\r\nafford any more. Education Minister Gerardo Ayzanoa said, \"We can't turn\r\nPeru into a more risky country\" for foreign investors by offering teachers\r\nmore money.<\/p>\r\n
So after marching and negotiating, the teachers shut down 52,000 schools.<\/p>\r\n
Their bold action immediately won broad support. Day after day, many\r\ndifferent sections of the people found ways to join the struggle. Hundreds of\r\norganizations of students and parents rallied to support the teachers. Other\r\nsections of the population went out on strike too and raised their own demands\r\nagainst the government.<\/p>\r\n
In late May, many thousands of farmers and peasants started building\r\nbarricades on the highways throughout Peru--including the roads leading into the\r\nmajor cities--and cut off food supplies to the capital, Lima.<\/p>\r\n
Literally millions <\/i>of people were involved in the anti-government\r\nresistance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/b>
Fed Up!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The reasons for this explosion are very clear.<\/p>\r\n
The people of Peru live in a bitter and enforced poverty. The government lies\r\nto them, while it energetically helps international capital rob the country and\r\nthe population.<\/p>\r\n
The government of President Alejandro Toledo came to power two years\r\nago--promising to end the brutality and corruption of the previous Fujimori\r\ngovernment. Toledo said his policies would produce a million new jobs a year and\r\na rising living standard for the people.<\/p>\r\n
But what the people have gotten is \"Fujimorism without Fujimori\"--especially\r\nin Toledo's pro-imperialist economic policies. Toledo has pressed ahead with the\r\nsale of the country's wealth to corporations (called \"privatization\").\r\nPeru's farmers, for example, are now threatened with the privatization of the\r\ncountry's irrigation system--which would place them even more directly at the\r\nmercy of private profit.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile \"free trade\" imports are lowering crop prices and\r\nbankrupting many farm families.<\/p>\r\n
Toledo, who was a U.S.-trained advisor to the World Bank, demonstrates\r\ncomplete loyalty to international capitalism and eager obedience to the cruel\r\ndemands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Whenever the people demand\r\nwages to feed themselves, they are told Peru's money must go to pay off foreign\r\nloans.<\/p>\r\n
The international capitalist press calls Peru a \"success\r\nstory\"--while the people live with a growing fury over their intense\r\npoverty and the raw deceit of electoral promises.<\/p>\r\n
Over half the people live on less than $9 a week. Homelessness, joblessness,\r\nand real hunger are common.<\/p>\r\n
These strikes over wages also represent a revolt against the dictates of the\r\nIMF. One leader of the teachers said the current set-up \"favors payments on\r\nthe foreign debt and transnational corporations while the rest of the population\r\nlives in poverty.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/b>
Martial Law and the Bullets of Soldiers<\/p>\r\n\r\n
In the last week of May, police tried to clear barricades from the main\r\nhighway in the central Andes and were driven off by thousands of stone-throwing\r\nfarmers.<\/p>\r\n
At the same time, thousands of doctors and nurses walked out from hospitals\r\nand clinics, joining the strike wave. Students shut down the colleges, and even\r\ncourt workers struck.<\/p>\r\n
President Toledo responded by ordering the army to move against the people.<\/p>\r\n
On May 27, Toledo announced a state of emergency to \"restore\r\norder.\" He declared all strikes illegal and ordered everyone back to work.<\/p>\r\n
Toledo said the army and police had full authority to use force. Civil\r\nliberties were suspended. The police were given the power to arrest leaders of\r\nthe movement and enter their homes without warrants. People were forbidden to\r\ntravel within the country, and all demonstrations were banned.<\/p>\r\n
The notoriously brutal army was given power to enforce this \"state of\r\nemergency\" in 12 of Peru's 24 departments. Lima, the capital, was patrolled\r\nby soldiers and armored cars in a heavy-handed fascist clampdown.<\/p>\r\n
Voices from Peru's ruling class expressed approval--like Peruvian capitalist\r\nSamuel Gleiser who said, \"It's the best showing by Toledo so far. He took\r\nthe bull by the horns.\" And some forces within the broad mass movement\r\nurged the people to obey and return to work.<\/p>\r\n
The day after Toledo's announcement, convoys of soldiers moved to clear the\r\npeasant barricades from the highways in over 60 places--especially on the\r\ncoastal Pan-American Highway. The confrontations were intense.<\/p>\r\n
Riot police attacked court workers in Lima. Over 20 people were injured as\r\nhospital workers and farmers fought troops in Barranca.<\/p>\r\n
Hundreds of people were arrested across Peru.<\/p>\r\n
That same day, in the mountain province of Puno, soldiers opened fire\r\ndirectly into thousands of protesting students from the National Highlands\r\nUniversity--killing at least one student, 22-year-old Eddy Quilca Cruz. Some\r\nreports said that more died after dozens of people were taken to hospitals with\r\ngunshot wounds. Many had been shot in the back.<\/p>\r\n
Defense Minister Loret de Mola defended the shootings in a \"closed\r\ndoor\" session of Peru's legislature. His \"secret\" speech made\r\nheadlines because he reportedly announced that supporters of the Communist Party\r\nof Peru (PCP) were \"a strong component, a strong influence\" within the\r\nresistance movement.<\/p>\r\n
The PCP (which the media calls \"the Shining Path\") has been waging\r\na revolutionary people's war in Peru--to defeat Peru's army, overthrow the old\r\nrotten state, and liberate the people from semi-feudal conditions and foreign\r\nimperialist domination. This heroic people's war has continued in the face of\r\nserious setbacks a decade ago, when Chairman Gonzalo and other key leaders were\r\ncaptured by government forces.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/b>
The Confrontation<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Despite the naked threat of military terror and the voices urging retreat,\r\nthe struggle continued across Peru.<\/p>\r\n
A day of mourning was declared for the murdered student. Thousands bravely\r\nmarched in Puno to denounce the state of emergency. And it was clear that the\r\npolitical crisis was raging on.<\/p>\r\n
A day of illegal mass marches was called for June 3 to support the strike\r\ndemands and denounce the fascist \"state of emergency.\"<\/p>\r\n
Suddenly there was talk from Peru's ruling class of compromise--of\r\n\"reshuffling\" the cabinet, \"finding\" money to pay the\r\nteachers, and lifting the state of emergency--even talk of replacing Toledo to\r\nstabilize the country. But even the former U.S. ambassador to Peru, Dennis Jett,\r\nhad to note that such measures might not calm the storm: \"The idea that\r\nchanging the Cabinet somehow makes a difference is sort of like the proverbial\r\nrearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.''<\/p>\r\n
On June 3, hundreds of thousands marched across Peru, including a powerful\r\nmarch of tens of thousands through downtown Lima. Teachers, students, farmers,\r\nand workers from many sectors of the economy openly defied the state of\r\nemergency. In some cities marchers were attacked by police. In Arequipa, Peru's\r\nsecond largest city, workers launched a general strike.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile, the government had a plan to end the mass movement: they brought\r\nin Roman Catholic Bishop Luis Bambaren as a \"mediator\" and offered to\r\nraise the teachers' pay.<\/p>\r\n
As we go to press, it is not yet clear whether the teachers' union will\r\naccept that agreement, or if such a settlement would end the wave of mass\r\nstruggle.<\/p>\r\n
In any case, the intense experiences of the last weeks have made several\r\nthings quite clear:<\/p>\r\n
From every corner of society, people have denounced the harsh domination of\r\nPeru by international capital, the slavishness of Peru's government, the empty\r\ntalk of \"reforms,\" and the brutality of the state.<\/p>\r\n
Clearly the problems of the people go very deep. The liberation of the people\r\nrequires a profound change in society--ending the domination of imperialism over\r\nPeru, and the domination of exploiting classes over the working people. The\r\nsolution the people need is much more than wage increases.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile, through all this, the Peruvian state has shown once again that its\r\npower rests on its brutal army and their guns. Despite all the chatter about\r\n\"reform\" and the merry-go-round of political faces, the misery of the\r\npeople is enforced by bullets and bloodshed. And the end to that misery will\r\nrequire the defeat of that army and the state it serves.<\/p>\r\n
And, above all, this powerful upsurge of Peru's people has revealed again\r\ntheir profound discontent--and their tremendous potential for revolutionary\r\nstruggle and sacrifice.<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/www.rwor.org\/s\/peru_e.htm\r\n- Information on Peru<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/rwor.org - Revolutionary Worker Online<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/rwor.org\/resistance -RW\r\nresource page on resisting the juggernaut of war and repression<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/2changetheworld.info -\r\nDiscuss revolutionary strategy and the RCP's Draft Programme<\/b><\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/rwor.org","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"All through May the people of Peru built a powerful wave of struggle--isolating the corrupt government and shaking the rotten system that holds them in misery.\r\nPeru's President Toledo responded with bloody repression--imposing a fascistic "state of emergency" and unleashing his soldiers to kill people in the streets.\r\nAs we go to press, this powerful upsurge is still shaking the country.\r\nThe following report is based on mainstream press accounts.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/06\/64273.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}