The Struggles of a Self-Built Community
Espejo, Cesar & Burt, Jo-Marie
Though they have not yet managed to create a new democratic social order, the residents of Villa El Salvador in Lima did transform a squatter settlement in a vast and inhospitable piece of...
...Local self-help initiatives such as the soup kitchens and the milk committees are often coping mechanisms designed to deal with economic downturns and emergency situations...
...16.The Industrial Park obtained official support in 1987 under the Alan Garcia administration (1985-90...
...See Jos6 Tavara, Cooperando para competir Redes de producci6n en la pequeoa industria peruana (Lima: DESCO, 1994...
...Some woman leaders have also moved from local grassroots-organizing experiences into positions of local authority in the municipal government...
...Massive land invasions have taken place since the mid1940s...
...Every block was composed of 24 family lots (30 x 50 feet...
...A clear example of this occurred in 1991 when community organizations in Villa El Salvador and numerous other poor areas collaborated with NGOs and government agencies to prevent the cholera outbreak from becoming widespread...
...My interviews in Villa, however, repeatedly attest to corruption as an equally, if not more important factor...
...Shining Path moved into Lima in 1988, altering its traditional Maoist approach of encircling the city from the countryside in favor of more open political work in the cities...
...The previous CUAVES leadership refused to recognize the validity of these elections, and two competing CUAVES leaderships continued to exist for about a year...
...There is much poverty within the soup kitchen...
...Villa is no longer a homogeneous barriada...
...old.18 Thousands of "Glass of Milk" committees, composed almost entirely of women, were organized throughout Lima to distribute the donated milk...
...See Driant, Las Barriadas de Lima...
...The agricultural zone and the industrial park, so touted by State planners as key to Villa's autonomous development, were never launched...
...gained valuable experience in adminstration and leadership...
...24NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24 NACIA REPORT ON THE AM SURBAN REPORT n the final analysis, economic austerity and continued poverty may have had an even more profound negative effect on community organizing...
...But many believe that Shining Path has not completely disappeared, and the demobilizing effects of violence and fear remain...
...The Velasco has made regime did not, however, carry out all united community the promises that it action more made to the new settlement...
...Planners also set aside large areas for an industrial park and an agricultural zone...
...18.The program was later expanded to include lactating mothers and children up to the age of 13...
...Despite the fact that Villa was the largest barriada in the Villa Maria district, it was largely neglected by municipal authorities, who could be counted upon to collect taxes, but little else...
...Women, for example, began organizing after 1979 in response to the economic crisis and their growing incapacity to meet their families' basic nutrition needs...
...7.Velasco's reforms hinged on the existence of a "third way" between capitalism and Communism for "Third World" societies to develop politically and economically...
...Local neighborhood-watch groups were formed to help prevent crime and punish wrongdoers...
...These areas, however, became quickly overpopulated...
...Electricity, difficult...
...To demonstrate his support for grassroots participation and decentralized decision-making, Azcueta transferred administrative control of the municipal milk program to the FEPOMUVES, which has managed the program ever since...
...While the Velasco regime had prohibited uncontrolled land invasions since 1968, the Pamplona Alta invasion in 1971 presented the government with a fait-accompli land invasion whose massiveness was difficult to ignore...
...This basic mistrust has spread to include even grassroots leaders, whose position is perceived as providing them access to some perks...
...Her position as a recognized grassroots leader who openly challenged Shining Path and as a member of the legal Left had made her a double target...
...Grassroots organizations were also plagued by the age-old problem of caudillismo and authoritarian leadership styles...
...The community enterprises-including the credit union-collapsed without government assistance...
...5 They were then left on their own to build their homes, and had to fight hard to obtain basic services like water and electricity...
...While the initial impact of harsh economic conditions prompted grassroots groups to respond with self-help efforts, the drawn-out recession may actually have undercut grassroots organizing in Villa, pushing people into more individualistic survival strategies...
...After 1980, expansion of the barriada was thus no longer primarily due to rural migration, but to the doubling of families units within the barriada itself...
...Michel Azcueta was elected mayor of Villa El Salvador on the ticket of the United Left (IU) in the municipal elections of November, 1983...
...While Velasco had sought to prevent the development of autonomous organizations through cooptation, the newly installed Morales Bermddez regime (1975-80) attempted the same through repression...
...12.Prior to 1980, local municipal officials were appointed by the Interior Minister...
...In Peru, private con- struction companies had little incentive to develop low-income housing, and government housing projects usually ended up favoring constituents...
...for example, was provided in 1975, but water and sewage were only installed in 1979...
...The state encouraged the growth of grassroots organizations which would take responsibility for self-help housing and community improvement.6 Through the autogesti6n model, the State assisted Villa in setting up community-owned enterprises that were intended to lay the foundation for Villa's autonomous and socialist development...
...3 In 1940, Lima had slighty more than 500,000 inhabitants...
...Critics point out that these self-help efforts often add to women's already heavy burden of unpaid domestic labor, resulting in their further exploitation...
...At the same time, national party politics, centered around the government's call for a Constituent Assembly and a return to democratic rule, increasingly distracted the CUAVES, which further weakened its link to the local community...
...Nurseryschool teachers-called "animadores"--were chosen by the members of each community block to work with pre-school children...
...Clientelistic practices-by parties across the political spectrum-permeated grassroots urban organizing, and undercut the horizontal linkages among local groups...
...This tremendous expansion and the consequent rising demands soon overwhelmed the limited resources of the municipal government...
...The process of modernization and import-substitution industrialization, coupled with the decline of rural society, induced a long-term pattern of rural-to-urban migration that has converted Peru into an urban society, and Lima into an immense metropolis...
...While foodstuffs and cooking equipment were often donated, the women themselves contributed their resources and time to shopping and cooking collectively to reduce food costs...
...Demographic growth and new invasions presented new problems that were not easily resolved by local organizing...
...Resultados del /i Censo organizado por la CUAVES el 8 de abril de 1984 (Lima: CUAVES/CIDIAG, 1984...
...1 After Velasco's departure in 1975, Villa was forced to turn to Villa Maria for its basic services...
...This facilitated While such networks have operated in a community context of sharp constraints, community organizing as well as organizing has state control allowed Villa to evolve from a shan- over grassroots tytown made up of precarious chozas, to a bustling town of nearly 300,000 inhabitants...
...This was part of Velasco's larger reformist experiment in social property, designed to increase worker participation and benefits in local enterprises...
...Community organizing in Villa El Salvador may not have measured up to the great expectations that people had of it, but its achievements have nonetheless been remarkable...
...2 0 The arrest and subsequent impeachment of Villa's newly elected mayor, Jorge VAsquez, on corruption charges last year only added fuel to these suspicions...
...Each block elected three representatives, and of the 48 chosen from each residential group, eight were selected as the main group leaders...
...procity and self-help...
...Villa El Salvador y Su Proyecto Popular de Desarrollo Integral: Propvestas para el Debate, Second Edition (Lima: CIED/DESCO, 1989...
...Today, two years after Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmin's capture, people are less fearful, and a number of local groups--including the FEPOMUVES-have attempted to reorganize...
...2 While Villa El Salvador enjoyed certain benefits from its special relationship with the Velasco regime, those privileges ended with Velasco's ouster in 1975 and the hardening of the military regime's posture towards Peru's popular sectors...
...4.Gustavo Riofrio, Se busca terreno para pr6xima barriada...
...Given the general disenchantment with politics, many of Villa's residents were far too willing to believe such rumors...
...Villa is equipped with schools and health clinics-many built by the residents themselves-as well as local businesses, active marketplaces, radio stations, and a municipal government...
...by 1961, it had 1,846,000 inhabitants...
...VOL XXVIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1995 out incident to form a new settlement or "barriada," Villa El Salvador.' After receiving their plots of land from the Housing Ministry, the families began erecting "chozas," makeshift housing constructions of cane matting, on the dusty sand dunes...
...With the pullback of government support, community members worked hard to fill in the gaps...
...Velasco created the National System to Support Social Mobilization (SINAMOS), a government agency in charge of guiding Villa's development and mobilizing local support for the regime...
...Small chapels, soccer fields, and community meeting halls-which in many cases doubled as nursery schools-were the most common uses of this communal land...
...Marfa Elena Moyano, co-founder of the FEPOMUVES and vice-mayor of Villa, was not so lucky...
...See Fernando Tuesta, "Vilia El Salvador: Izquierda, Gesti6n Municipal, y Organizaci6n Popular," mimeograph (Lima: CEDYS, 1989...
...It is not easily translatable, though it is commonly referred to in English as "shantytown...
...While the older areas of Villa El Salvador had progressed in terms of housing construction and the provision of basic services, the new invasions-which in 1984 made up 27% of Villa's overall population-often lacked piped water, sewerage and electricity.1 9 These poorer areas were composed largely of young couples with smaller families and lower incomes, who lived in housing made primarily of cane matting...
...Housing construction, however, was to be undertaken by individual early years, Villa residents typically lived in chozas-flimsy houses f cane matting...
...Organizing is not easy when the rank and file are mistrustful of their leaders, and corruption is assumed to be par for the course...
...The inhabitants of Villa's new invasions have increasingly looked to the municipal government to resolve their pressing basic needs-water and sewer systems, garbage collection, and paved roads...
...6.Such self-help efforts were increasingly being encouraged as a solution to growing housing demands in urban areas in develop- ing countries worldwide, by both local governments and interna- tional agencies such as the World Bank...
...This explosive growth rate meant an increased demand for housing...
...That undermines any work we try to do to provide a balanced and nutritious meal in the soup kitchen...
...The CUAVES was to oversee the participation of community members in the enterprises, and negotiate and plan cooperatively with the appropriate government agencies...
...17.Not all women's organizations joined the Federation, however...
...y the early 1980s, municipal neglect combined with the crisis of the CUAVES left Villa El Salvador adrift...
...I follow Jean-Claude Driant's usage of "barriada" to suggest not only a physical space of underdeveloped housing and basic services, but also to denote a mode of access to housing based on organized land invasions and the eventual development of housing and other basic services, usually through self-help efforts of the barriada residents...
...Villa's initial years were marked by intensive organizing by the newly settled inhabitants...
...8.There are usually 23 or 24 residential groups to a sector, with the exception of the fourth sector, which was developed accord- ing to a different plan by the second Belaunde government (1980-85), and the fifth sector, which is the Industrial Park...
...Michel Azcueta, Letter to the United Left, June 21, 1987, cited in Tuesta, "Viila E! Salvador...
...The CUAVES, with a new leadership that was explicitly anti-government, led a series of protest marches to demand local services, but also to protest anti-labor measures and austerity programs...
...Some families cannot even afford the 25 cent daily ration...
...Cesar Espejo is a community activist in Villa El Salvador and is currently a student in the department of sociology at the Catholic University in Lima, Peru...
...As some families advanced economically, the common living conditions and needs that were the VOL XXVIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1995 23URBAN REPORT basis of community organizing in Villa's early years broke down, making united action more difficult...
...The internal diversification of Villa has presented new problems and challenges that are not easily resolved, and that community organizing may in fact be incapable of resolving...
...The Peruvian Left considered the forging of links among grassroots groups and simultaneously with left-wing parties to be essential in allowing local experiences to inform the larger policy process...
...One protest, called by the CUAVES in coordination with the teacher's union (SUTEP) and local parent-teacher associations in March, 1976, brought 30,000 Villa residents together to demand water, sewerage, school rooms, and job stability for teachers...
...He supported the activities of existing organizations in Villa, such as youth groups, cultural groups and soup kitchens, and sought to mobilize new organizations, such as market cooperatives and the Association of Small Business Owners of Villa El Salvador (APEMIVES...
...The State's presence in the early years of Villa El Salvador's development was important...
...and today, the city is home to 6.5 million people...
...5 Azcueta also sought to incorporate new social actors into the development process and to increase grassroots participation in local decision-making...
...In 1990, Shining Path singled out Villa as an ideal place to challenge the legal Left and its "revisionist" posture...
...It was to be directed by a governing body consisting of the municipal government, the central government, the CUAVES, and the APIAVES...
...3.In 1940, Peru was 70% rural and 30% urban...
...The political violence unleashed by Shining Path's war against the Peruvian State has also taken its toll on community organizations...
...Initially, migrants were absorbed into existing poor districts in the central parts of Lima...
...Many in the CUAVES regarded the creation of the municipality as an imposition of the State and the capitalist system...
...While Azcueta, who was reelected to a second term in 1986, was able to muster international financial support for some community-improvement projects, he could not make up the shortfall of an inadequate municipal budget...
...The Multi-Sectoral Commission had helped reactivate and reorganize the block-level organizations, and new elections were called for the executive council of the CUAVES.13 Azcueta later formally worked out an agreement between the municipal government and the CUAVES, which delineated their respective spheres of responsibility in the community...
...The enthusiasm that existed before is Villa's residents line up a no longer the same," says Teresa, who has been active in communal soup kitchens since 1979...
...In places like Villa, where community response was strong, casualties from the disease were minimized...
...By 1991, 200 small enterprises were in existence, which employed some 1,200 workers...
...Over half of the barriadas formed before 1971 occupied land with the express authorization of the State...
...President Alberto Fujimori's structural-adjustment program has undermined the resource base of many communal soup kitchens, deepened their dependency on external donations, and exhausted their members...
...This latter organization became the central actor in the Industrial Park, which was resurrected by Azcueta's negotiations with the central government and through donations by foreign governments and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs).16 One interesting example of the municipal government's commitment to devolving power to community organizations concerns the Popular Federation of Women of Villa El Salvador (FEPOMUVES...
...Despite the fact that he started out with no official budget, Azcueta rallied participation in the new 22NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22URBAN REPORT local government, and in the first few months of his administration many people volunteered their labor in the municipality...
...This invasion, like others before it, was carefully orga- nized by leaders who had mapped out the land to be invaded, organized the interested families from slum areas of Lima, obtained construction materials, arranged for The Velasco government relocates 3,0( 1971, forming the new settlement of transportation, and set the hour and date of the invasion...
...13.A Convention of Unification was held the following month by the new CUAVES leadership, and was attended by 716 delegates from the residential groups...
...See JeanClaude Driant, Las Barriadas de Lima: Historia e Interpretacid6n (Lima: IFEA/DESCO, 1991...
...By harnessing popular initiative to resolve urban problems, Velasco sought to create a bastion of popular support for his "revolution"-and to undercut more radical initiatives...
...six- In the e; teen blocks constituted a residential group...
...With Velasco's ouster in 1975, State investment in local development projects waned...
...Still, sharing power and responsibilities has, of course, been widespread in local community organizations...
...The desert is now filled with gardens and trees, each cared for by local residents despite the scarcity of water...
...Military "civic action" programs in the barriadas hand out food directly to people, bypassing local organizations which are seen as linked to opposition groups...
...In this sense, Villa also reflects the changing cycles of grassroots organization, and suggests the potentials and problems of community development in Latin America's cities and barriadas...
...Today, Villa has paved roads and access to public transportation...
...by 1970, these areas-composed largely of barriadas-housed nearly half of the city's population...
...This was the backdrop to a surge of left-wing organizing in Villa under the leadership of Michel Azcueta, a Spanish-born professor who was co-founder of Villa's first school, Fe y Alegrfa, and an active and well-respected member of the community...
...Today, Villa is comprised of approximately 126 residential groups, which are assembled together in seven large sectors...
...Within days, some 9,000 families had joined the invasion, which had spilled over onto privately owned land...
...Villa became Velasco's model of urban development and part of his larger corporatist experiment of social change...
...Charges of corruption in the management of these enterprises further undermined confidence in the CUAVES and its leaders, especially since many poor families lost their savings in the credit union's failure...
...A true demographic explosion occurred between 1955 and 1971...
...Today, Villa's first residents recall the enthusiasm and commitment with which they participated in different community-improvement projects...
...Villa's internal structure has changed significantly during this time...
...The credit union was supposed to provide government-assisted financing for these other community enterprises...
...Shining Path's threats coupled with government inaction caused many of Villa's grassroots activists to quit their leadership positions, while others were forced into exile...
...10.SUTEP is the acronym for the Peruvian Educational Workers' Union...
...The municipal crisis grew worse after 1989 when hyperinflation cut into existing budgets, further reducing the capacity of local government to respond to growing demands...
...ta What participation in these "survival" organizations means for women's daily lives is the subject of lively debate...
...4 Within a short time, families were having to double up in the same homes in these areas, which became known as "tugurios," or inner-city slums...
...The wide range of living conditions and socioeconomic prospects point to one dilemma of community organizing in a more complex environment...
...State planners created a centralized governing body called the Self-Managed Urban Community of Villa El Salvador (CUAVES), which would oversee the development of the community and represent it before governmental and other outside agencies...
...More updated data is not available, but the new invasions have continued over the past decade, despite the municipality's attempt to encourage families to build second and third stories to provide more housing, given the near-limits of Villa's horizontal growth...
...8 This territorial division was designed not only to ease the urbanization process, but to facilitate community organizing as well as State control over grassroots mobilization...
...candidate in political science at Columbia University, where she is doing her dissertation research on political violence in Peru...
...Yet in Villa as elsewhere, intense sectarian rivalries emerged among the coalition partners of the IU...
...This State planners led to the formation of a vast network of mapped out Villa in grassroots organiza- tions based on recigrid fashion...
...Enthusiasts, on the other hand, claim that the popular soup kitchens and the "Glass of Milk" committees have brought women out of the home and into the public arena, giving them a chance to share common problems and to assert their independence from both husband and home...
...Residents of the better-off areas, for example, rarely mobilize to demand water and electricity for the more recent invasions...
...The government is also perceived by many women as trying to destroy community organizations...
...The rank and file of the CUAVES was made up of the leaders of the residential groups, from which a ten-member executive council was selected...
...Concrete setbacks forced a reassessment of the meaning of grassroots organizing...
...I wasn't thinking of anything else...
...By participating in these self-help initiatives, thousands of women have communal soup kitchen...
...ifty years ago, Peru was a predominantly agrarian society...
...After a brief but tense period of confrontation, the Velasco government announced a plan to relocate the squatters to an extensive terrain of 7,800 acres of barren desert located 18 miles to the south of Lima...
...The problem was accentuated by the rank and file, which often demanded a direct relationship with the leader, who was expected to resolve all problems...
...Yet the legacy of an authoritarian political culture remains a challenge to the construction of more democratic styles of leadership and participation at the grassroots...
...What was particularly novel about the State's involvement in Villa was the organizing principle of NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20URBAN REPORT autogestidn-or self-management-that guided the entire project...
...The second BelaOnde government (1980-85) implemented a broad municipal reform program, in which the members of a given district directly elected their local representatives...
...14.The project, formulated with the technical assistance of nongovernmental development organizations, is laid out in: Equipo Tecnico de ia Municipalidad Districtal de Villa El Salvador...
...If governmental and non-governmental agencies were more amenable to working with local organizations on even terms, emergency self-help initiatives and more long-term development projects would be more successful...
...The heavily centralized nature of Peru's political system has meant, however, that the municipality must often depend on the central government to provide resources and services...
...The hardship that has befallen so many Peruvians has forced relief organizations and developmental NGOs to fall back on handouts, which further undermine the organizing potential at the grassroots...
...Although the CUAVES was able to mobilize Villa residents in political marches against the government, its ability to carry out local development projects declined as official support dried up...
...The following year, the Velasco government financed the formation of several community enterprises-including a credit union (caja comunal), a cooperative bakery, a hardware store, and a kerosene store-which were to be administered by the CUAVES...
...Only self-supporting soup kitchens or ones with links to NGOs sympathetic to the Left were incorporated into the FEPOMUVES...
...Some of these collective efforts were initiated by State agencies and planners, including organizing volunteer manual labor to build infrastructure projects-from installing water and sewage pipes, to leveling the sand dunes for road construction...
...The concrete achievements of grassroots organizing have created a strong sense of identity among Villa's residents, whose rallying cry was: "Because we have nothing, we shall do everything...
...There is much sadness, resentment and bitterness...
...Communal soup kitchens were organized in many residential groups throughout Villa, often with the support of the Catholic Church and development agencies...
...A wooden cross still stands in one of Villa's residential groups with a sign that reads: "On this cross, the community punishes thieves...
...20.This is one of the central factors explaining the rise of independent candidates in local and national elections...
...It used to be like a service to the community...
...Un Pueblo, Una Realidad: Villa El Salvador...
...Villa El Salvador was at that point formally part of the neighboring municipal district of Villa Maria del Triunfo...
...Other areas remain underdeveloped, and new invasions confront the same problems that the older areas confronted in the beginning...
...made ol Each residential group demarcated an area as communal land, which the residents developed according to their desires and needs...
...Hikes in gasoline and food prices in early 1976 led to a series of strikes and violent government reponses...
...At the same time, the entire autogesti6n project was seriously weakened by the withdrawal of government support...
...The Struggles of a Self-Built Community 1.The term "barriada" is taken directly from Spanish...
...Azcueta led the formation of a Multi-Sectoral Commission which brought together residential group leaders as well as other associations in Villa to take stock of the situation...
...If community organizing has not given rise to a more democratic and egalitarian social order, it has nevertheless been a way for people to gain more control over their daily lives and improve local living conditions...
...At the block level, women organized "clean-up committees" to deal with the lack of garbage collection, and "tree committees" to beautify Villa with trees and gardens...
...First I argued with my families to the desert south of Lima in husband to build a El Salvador...
...The principle of solidarity rarely reaches beyond the local neighborhood unit...
...Espa- cios disponibles en Lima: 1940-1978-1990 (Lima: DESCO, 1978...
...Now the faces in the soup kitchen are hardened...
...In 1956, the Northern and Southern Cones of Lima housed 6% of the city's population...
...Other activities evolved from the community's own initiatives...
...Azcueta hoped to encourage the reorganization and renovation of the CUAVES, and then, in partnership with it, to put together a development project that would guide Villa erniA 97ng b into the next decade.14 In a letter to the IU, Azcueta laid out his vision: "Our presence in the municipal government is a way of strengthening the popular organizations, using to the maximum the legality of the municipality, delegating to the [organizations] the power we have, and transforming the municipality into the mobilizing axis that, with the masses, solves some problems and works as an interlocutor with the central government...
...A general period of disorientation and demobilization followed at the level of the block organizations, though the soup kitchens and other so-called "survival organizations" flourished in a context of sustained economic crisis...
...In his first act as mayor, Azcueta formally recognized the CUAVES as the central representative organization of Villa, and promised to respect its organizational autonomy...
...5.In typical clientelistic fashion, several governments promised these squatters land titles in return for votes...
...SINAMOS was to oversee the CUAVES and work with it to implement the government's vision of social property and self-management...
...2.In 1986, Villa was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize...
...Linked to this is the deep mistrust of politics which is pervasive among Peru's popular sectors, especially among its young people...
...The soup kitchens do not come close to meeting the vast need that exists in Lima's barriadas...
...The military regime of General Juan Velasco Alvarado (196875) faced an important test of its commitment to the poor Peruvians that its "revolutionary" experiment promised to benefit...
...my choza," she remembers, "but then I realized that there was no water, no electricity, no schools for my children...
...Among its first actions, the Commission won local support for its proposal to make Villa an independent municipal district, which was approved by the Peruvian Congress in June, 1983...
...9.The executive council was later expanded to 17 members, reflecting the inclusion of new organizations in Villa that were incorporated into the CUAVES statutes after a long period of debate and discussion, among them the Popular Federation of Women of Villa El Salvador (FEPOMUVES) and the Association of Small Business Owners of Villa El Salvador (APIAVES...
...There has been a general demobilization of block and neighborhood organizations over the past decade in the more consolidated areas, where basic services have already been obtained...
...It was named "City Messenger of Peace" by the United Nations in 1987, and it won Spain's Prince of Asturias prize the same year...
...I had only been thinking about getting my plot of land to build my house...
...Though they have not yet managed to create a new democratic social order, the residents of Villa El Salvador in Lima did transform a squatter settlement in a vast and inhospitable piece of desert into a liveable community of nearly 300,000 inhabitants...
...If the municipality were to exist, they maintained, it should be clearly subordinate to the CUAVES...
...Perhaps the first true community effort was the construction of several classrooms, which were built and financed by donations from the residents themselves...
...Like other shantytowns, Villa had to organize to demand basic services from the government, and when government assistance was not forthcoming, they had to come up with their 19URBAN REPORT own solutions...
...Teresa, one of Villa's first settlers, recalls the precarious living conditions...
...With housing in the central areas no longer able to meet growing demand, land invasions began to spill over the traditional demarcations of Lima into the deserts-"the Northern and Southern Cones"-far from any locus of economic activity...
...The phenomenon began in 1989 with the election of Ricardo Belmont to Lima's municipal government, and the election of Alberto Fujimori to the presidency the following year...
...We know that the women can't afford to purchase rations for all their family members," says Gregory Chisholm, a Canadian priest who heads up Villa's parish, "so they buy three or four rations and stretch it out for five or six people...
...The 1993 municipal elections saw a proliferation of independent lists and candidates, who won overwhelmingly at the district and provincial level...
...His govern- ment also installed diversification of public lighting at the entrance of Villa, Villa El Salvador and provided large over time cisterns for water...
...He proposed an ambitious project of promoting grassroots participation and community development through local government...
...This laissez-faire policy of the Peruvian State allowed it to channel popular discontent for housing, and at the same time limit its own responsibilities in forging ar, urban housing policy...
...Velasco visited the barriada frequently, and army VOL XXVIII, No 4JAN/FEB 1995 21 8 I VOL XXVIII, NO 4 JAN/FEB 1995 21URBAN REPORT trucks distributed loaves of bread and blankets to the setThe internal tlers...
...The idea of autogestidn was based on the Yugoslav model of social property which would provide the conditions for worker participation and even- tually self-management, as well as ameliorate social conflict between capital and labor...
...by the 1980s, the figures had become inverted...
...Today anyone with access to power and resources is suspected of seeking personal gain, and the social contract has withered as a result...
...Reflecting the poorer health conditions, these areas had a higher percentage of malnourished children than the more consolidated parts of Villa...
...Villa grew from 105,000 residents in 1973 to 168,000 in 1984, and today numbers 265,000-representing an annual growth rate of nearly 5...
...The formation of Villa El Salvador represented a new attitude on the part of the State to land invasion...
...Parish-supported soup kitchens, as well government-sponsored ones, remained outside the Federation...
...The FEPOMUVES was formed in 1983 to centralize the various women's organizations operating in Villa, including the clean-up committees, the tree committees, the women's clubs, the popular soup kitchens, and the pre-school animadores.1 7 That same year, the municipality of Lima, under the left-wing administration of Mayor Alfonso Barrantes, developed a program to combat infant malnutrition through the provision of one glass of milk a day to children up to six years assembly meeting of the CUAVES, Villa El Salvador's grassroots govody...
...The following day, 3,000 families were transported with0l Villt Jo-Marie Burt is a Ph.D...
...The weakening of the Left, coupled with the economic crisis, gave Shining Path a window of opportunity in the city to organize at the local level...
...9 The first convention of the CUAVES was held in 1973...
...The homes of over half its residents have piped water, sewerage and electricity...
...City slumdwellers, including migrants from the countryside and Limefios, led these massive and organized invasions, which usually took place on State-owned land, since invasions of private land were violently repressed...
...Villa's special status as government showcase was revoked, and it became seen more as a political problem for the new regime...
...It was this determination that helped Villa's new inhabitants "conquer the desert," and made Villa a common reference point for virtually any discussion of grassroots organizing in Peru...
...It is necessity that forces us to participate, but there is no longer the joy that existed before...
...Dissatisfaction with the scope and pace of government support coupled with conflicts with SINAMOS over the issue of autonomy led the CUAVES to assume an increasingly critical attitude toward the regime...
...It was laid out block by block, in grid fashion...
...In the end, these critics argue, women remain relegated to issues located in the domestic sphere-such as child care, nutrition, and food preparation-while the system of class and gender domination goes unchallenged...
...The different left-wing parties vied for their quota of power within local organizations like the CUAVES and FEPOMUVES, which resulted not only in the politicization of these organizations, but in their becoming riven by political divisions...
...Some of its older areas have become consolidated both in terms of housing construction and access to basic services...
...10 The government responded with fierce repression...
...Problems remain, but through community organization and the construction of a local identity, Villa's residents transformed a squatter settlement in a vast and inhospitable piece of desert into a liveable urban community...
...I cried for days, but I was determined to stay...
...Because of the great number of people who participated in these invasions, and the government's lack of an alternative solution to the rapidly increasing housing demands, the State often had little choice but to allow the squatters to stay...
...See David Collier, Squatters and Oli- garchs: Authoritarian Rule and Policy Change in Peru (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976...
...In the first Fernando Belaunde Terry gov- ernment (1965-68), for example, several housing projects were purchased by middle-class groups, the traditional base of Belaunde's Acci6n Popular (AP...
...Years of unfulfilled promises by governments of all political stripes have fed this mistrust...
...These invasions have dramatically changed Lima's topography, expanding the city's limits to the unoccupied deserts to the north and south, and to the rocky foothills of the Andes to the east...
...The first wave of land invasions in the late 1940s occurred mostly in the eastern industrial part of Lima, which quickly became urbanized...
...It is as if the women feel that if they do not go to the soup kitchen, they can't feed themselves and their families...
...On three different occasions, Shining Path tried to assassinate Mayor Michel Azcueta in a campaign to decapitate Villa of its leadership and demoralize the rank and file...
...Villa El Salvador's evolution from a bare-bones shantytown to one of Lima's largest districts reflects the remarkable changes in Peru's capital city, especially in its barriada districts, over the past two decades...
...In response, state planners created a large planned barriada to deal with the pent-up housing needs of the urban poor...
...7 State planners mapped out Villa's urban structure with precision...
...On April 28, 1971, some 200 families invaded a small piece of state-owned land in Pamplona Alta, a peripheral area to the south of Lima...
...In 1992, she was brutally assassinated by Shining Path...
...Because the Left had promised so much, local residents' expectations were probably higher, and their disappointment consequently greater...
...families, though neighbors often helped each other construct their homes...
...Shining Path launched a smear campaign against her, accusing her of mishandling funds linked to the soup kitchens and the municipal milk program...
...y the end of the 1980s, a feeling of pessimism had set in in Villa...
...11 .The extensive literature on this stage of Villa's development does not generally acknowledge these charges of corruption, focusing instead on the withdrawal of government support for the failure of the community enterprises...
...In these times," one of Moyano's close friends told me, "people believe that everyone steals-everyone, even grassroots leaders like Maria Elena...
Vol. 28 • January 1995 • No. 4
