REPRESENTED IN PARLIAMENT

APRA: nominally left-wing , actually right-wing;—leader: Alan Garcia
National Alliance: centre-right——————–leader: Lourdes Flores
Nationalist Party: left-wing———————–leader: Ollanta Humala
others(a mixture of minor parties and splits)

OUTSIDE OF PARLIAMENT

Peruvian Communist Party-Red Flag: maoist, dominates teacher’s labor union, SUTEP
Peruvian Communist Party: marxist-leninist,is active in the main labor union, CGTP
ALBA cells: are organisms funded by the government of Venezuela to coordinate political left-wing movements in Peru and other nearby countries.

The ruling party is APRA (American People’s Revolutionary Alliance), leaded by president Alan Garcia Perez. The party (as his name indicates) was once a left-wing party, wich not long ago supported the rebellions agaist the government of Alejandro Toledo (like the Arequipa Insurection of 2002).

Is the second time he is president, the first being from 1985 to 1990, when his disastrous government leave the country ruined by a 100000% inflation and a brutal internal conflict with the maoist Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path guerrilla during which 70 000 people were murdered.

In the next years the APRA was betrayed by his former ally in the 1990 election, Alberto Fujimori, who established a right-wing distatorship that lasted until a corruption scandal caused his downfall in september 2000.

It was defeated in the 2001 elections by Alejandro Toledo( who headed the anti-Fujimori opposition that ended the dictatorship). Toledo presented him as centre-left, and Alan Garcia as “left”.In the next few years, he and his party suported rebellions , together with far-left groups like the maoist Peruvian-Communist-Party-Red-Flag (from wich Shining Path was an even more extremist split in the 1970s and 1980s)against Toledo government. As an anecdote, there was then (if I remenber right, in 2004) an episode when Garcia gave a strong kick in the butt of a worker who walked in front of him, showing his intollerant behaviour.

In 2006 Garcia was the presidencial candidate for APRA, who presented himself as “left-wing” against the centre-right National-Alliance-Party(a political coalition headed by former Cristian People`s Party) condidate Lourdes Flores, calling her “the rich`s candidate”, until the more radical-left and Venezuela-aided Nationalist Party headed by former military official Ollanta Humala grown ahead of her. Then him began drifting to the right.

Many people(like me) who detested Garcia voted for him as the less of two evils(Humala want to return to the policies of 1970s military dictatorship, a strongly statist dictatorship thar destroyed the contry`s economy. Humala was also aided by the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the head of a government who claimed itself “socialist”, while really it is a state-capitalistic dictatorship who live of petroleum exports to the US)in the second electoral round, and after a hard count, he wins.

Many of us were happy that Humala lose the election, and then seems that he has learned to no repeat the economic failures of his first government(that caused from 1988 to 1990 a terrible hyper-inflation).

But in those years after 2006, he was becoming increasingly autoritharian , showed little respect for Amazon and Andine native people, and has forgotten all his left-wing ideas and worried only of economic growth, actually, he is now more right-wing than the cente-right National Alliance Party.

His policy has lead to an increasing social unrest and violence. The Bagua massacre was the last eruption of unrest. Even the former (and moderate) president Alejandro Toledo has denounced his rainforest policy.

The current president approved a group of legislative decrees to made peruvian legislation agree with the TLC ( Free trade treaty, Tratado de Libre Comercio) with the USA. This decrees where approved without parliament intervention and even worse, WITHOUT CONSULTING TO THE AMAZON NATIVES (both things were against peruvian law). The decrees, regarding land property management in the rainforest, triggered a wave of social unrest. The government ignored it for months, while the natives blocked the main local roads, specially around the city of Bagua, in the northern amazon.

Finally, it ordered the police to clear the roads. The police was not prepared (they have no clear plan, and instead of tear gas and rubber bullets, most of them have only MACHINE GUNS!), and when they try to clear the road, a major battle began. After some time, some natives steal the gun from the police, and a riot exploded. In the battle, more than 20 policemen were killed, and an unknown number of natives were wounded or killed ( officially, there were just 9 natives killed, but probably there were several tens dead and hundreds wounded)

When another group of natives hear the news of their killed comrades, they kidnapped 20 policemen from a station post in the north pruvian oleoduct , and began executing 6 of them , until the peruvian army arrived and liberate the others after shooting on the natives.

The president after that began claiming that natives were “salvage murderers” and that an international conspiracy against the peruvian democracy directed the uprising. The official news claimed that the police was the victim. The left political parties claimed that the natives were victim of a massacre. As the information (I pick some of them by international press) arrives, there seems that it was a massacre for both sides.

This was the worst single episode of political violence in Peru, and the cause were both the government incompetence and the activity of some far-left groups who told the natives(falsely) that the government will take his land. Peru is still shocked by this massacre, and the prime minister have resigned for that.

I PERSONALLY DO NOT TAKE ANY SIDE, FOR ME BOTH THE GOVERNMENT AND THE RADICAL OPPOSITION WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TRAGEDY.

http://www.rootforce.org/2009/06/05/action-alert-stop-peruvian-infrastructure-push/

This was not the only blockade. Indigenous group have been blockading roads and rivers for nearly 2 months in opposition of “free trade” decrees passed by garcia (he has since blocked congressional debate and discussion on the decrees). These decrees open up the Amazon to minning, oil, and logging corporations. It turns the Peruvian Amazon into a land grab to the highest bidder.

Concerning, is Garcia’s recent statement that remaining blockades will be removed in the next two days.there is a real fear the tactics will be repeated.

please take action to support these communities in stopping this violence and unjust decrees.

take simple action–
http://amazonwatch.org/peru-action-alert.php

make a donation that goes directly to the communities in Peru.–
http://www.amazonwatch.org/peru-protests.php

best