Taking Note
MF
H. Ross Peru PERU'S PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI closed down Congress and the Judiciary on April 5, in an auto-golpe, what some translators creatively called a "self-inflicted coup." A few days...
...But in fact Latin American politics look more and more familiar...
...A few days later, George Bush committed a Freudian slip that displayed startling insight...
...WHEN LOS ANGELES BEGAN TO BURN, THE images that came to mind were of Santo Domingo in 1983, Rosario in 1989, and Caracas that same year...
...It's been a pleasure talking with you...
...G RANTED, THE DEPTH OF OUR CRISIS PALES beside Peru's...
...65% of the popula- tion lives in poverty, up from 46.1% in 1980...
...This rhetoric belies the true effi- ciency of the market: the way it concentrates wealth and power, a process checked only by the governmental regulation anti-politicians abhor...
...It is also the final issue under my charge...
...With this issue NACLA celebrates 25 years of con- tinuous publication...
...Even so, the elements that account for the overwhelming popularity of Fujimori's seizure of power are not unlike those behind the growing clamor for Perot: pervasive economic and social insecurity...
...Both bought into the system of privilege, and neither seems capable of leadership...
...riots (and perhaps more to follow...
...For an ideology that blames government for economic ills and posits private enterprise as the proper model for politics, what could be more natural than a businessman to run the state...
...Comparisons between Latin America and the United States are usually scoffed at--except for those that view the region as somewhere behind us on the road to democracy and development...
...Each is more interested in feeding at the public trough than addressing the nation's problems...
...Latin America is more often per- ceived as our "other"-a dark and mysterious mirror of our consciousness-so different that comparison is useful only to mark the contrast...
...The rage of the poor-shut out of society by the crushing economic crisis, the empty promises of corrupt politicians, the daily violence of survival, or pervasive racist oppression -boiled over and found echo in the powerlessness we all feel...
...Peru faces its worst economic depression of the century...
...But the relative loss of security in the United States since 1980 is also astounding...
...Shining Path's recent escalation of urban warfare -especially the brutal assassination of community leader Maria Elena Moyano in February-makes the issue of "terrorism" much more volatile and urgent...
...Thank you for your support...
...But the real fiction is the notion that Latin America's democracies are more fragile than our own, and that free-marketeering antipoliticians would be any better than the elites we suffer now...
...There is enough truth in this perception to divert attention from the very Republican alternative they propose: the state should get out of the way so the market can resolve our problems...
...The issues were the same, and so were the results...
...Behind the image, Fujimori is an ambitious and crafty politician, who made his modest personal fortune with a hand from the government (a shady real estate deal pulled off with the help of the agriculture minister under the military regime of Francisco Morales Bermddez...
...And in neither country does the opposition offer a believable alternative...
...In Peru, polls show over 90% support for Fujimori's assumption of dictatorial powers...
...In both Latin America and the United States, people are truly sick of politicians, fearful of chaos, longing for a knight on a white horse to save the day...
...Rather than embrace a program, he paraded his Japanese heritage of efficiency and business sense, and galvanized anti-white sentiment among Peru's dark-skinned majority...
...For a populace seeking enemies to blame for their worsening plight, he offered Congress and the Judiciary -the embodiment of the traditional politics that everyone loves to hate...
...Fujimori built his short political career as the outsider: an anti-politician who projected the image of a clean, hard-working moralizerbent on shaking up the entrenched powers...
...GNP has fallen by nearly 25% since 1980...
...The parallels between Peru and Perot are too intriguing to ignore...
...The drifting incompetence of the Republicans mirrors that of Peru's Right and the centrist APRA...
...Ross Peru": it has a certain ring to it...
...The decline of Democratic liberalism parallels the self-destruction of the Peruvian Left...
...Likewise, despite the political differences, yearning for law and order grow here as a backlash to skyrocketing crime rates coupled with the L.A...
...our new editor is Fred Rosen...
...WHAT TIES PERU TO PEROT, THOUGH, ARE not these ultimately superficial similarities, but the universal lionization of the market...
...Asked about "Peru," he heard "Perot...
...Anti-politicians like Fujimori and Perot (or Chile's Francisco Errazdiriz and Bolivia's Max Fernandez) capitalize on the belief that all of our troubles are caused by the logjam of party politics and the bankruptcy of politicians...
...Viewing Latin American politics as a Garcia Mdrquez novel is of course more comforting...
...His ties to the business and military elite are unwavering...
...And his yearning for power is said to be insatiable...
...He railed against politicians and parties, against the corruption of politics and the politics of corruption...
...Sound familiar...
...Ross Perot leads Bush and Clinton in national opinion polls...
...Business ideology exalts democracy, but views democracy's real expressions in Congress and the courts as impediments to efficiency, to the hallowed urge to "get things done...
...In Venezuela, the government's failure to respond to urgent social needs following the 1989 riots led to wide- spread support for the attempted military coup last February...
Vol. 25 • May 1992 • No. 5
