News from Peru Fujimorismo Phase Two: TOLEDO

Reprinted from El Diario Internacional, Brussels, 
July 28 2001

translated by SLALA

Dressed in his Sunday best, Alejandro Toledo has 
come out to assume the presidency in Peru. He will 
take this charge with great fanfare in the Inca 
city of Machu Picchu. While still reeking of 
Fujimorismo, Peruvian embassies abroad are 
preparing to celebrate in a big way the arrival of 
the new messiah from the Andes. 

The Peruvian press which until recently sung only 
praise for Fujimori has devoted its best 
publications to extolling the virtues of Peru's 
new chief. For his part Toledo and his brand-new 
cabinet have reaffirmed their electoral promise to 
"wage a head-on war against poverty and to 
revitalize the country's economy." 

How marvelous! What is there to say about all this 
that by every indication and in light of the facts 
appears to be a caricature of the story that has 
been repeated now for dozens of years? Fujimori 
and many others before him have promised the same 
thing without producing favorable results for the 
poor people of Peru. In our attempt to approximate 
the facts we have made three observations 
regarding this so-called government of "all 
peoples" that Toledo prepares to inaugurate. 

In summary we hold that Toledo and his team, all 
of which come from the rightist party, Popular 
Action (AP), from the trenches of Apra and from 
what remains of the legal left (IU); that they 
will go no further than establishing a second 
phase of Fujimorismo. These are our reasons: First 
observation: Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo 
have the same political origin. Both appear on the 
scene shaped by the severe decadence and the state 
crisis of official Peruvian society. Both are the 
social by-product of a corrupt system that 
manifest itself in the lumpenization of the 
political system, the most outstanding expression 
of which is the state's involvement in 
international drug trafficking and organized 
crime. Testifying to the same problem are the 
corruption of judicial power, the bankruptcy of 
the official political parties and the decay of 
the armed forces and the police, and even the core 
of the high ecclesiastical hierarchy in Peru. 

Now in 2001 Alejandro Toledo emerges in the same 
framework of general corruption that gave rise to 
Alberto Fujimori in 1990. It is no coincidence 
that both took their first steps towards the 
presidency by violating Peru's penal policies and 
trampling over basic ethical and moral norms. Just 
days before assuming the presidential throne, 
Fujimori had to bribe judges and investigators to 
cover up his delinquency and fraud in the sale of 
homes and real-estate. In the same fashion, before 
his triumph and during his electoral campaign, 
Toledo lied and employed illegal means to sidestep 
a DNA test in order to deny his paternal 
relationship to Ms. Zaraís. It is well known that 
had the DNA test been carried out it would have 
come back positive and Toledo would have been 
guilty of betraying public confidence and would 
have been disqualified from his candidacy for 
president. Second observation: The government of 
Alejandro Toledo does not offer any viable 
solution to the grave economic, political and 
moral crisis of official Peruvian society. 

On the contrary the crisis will continue its 
downhill trend. There is little doubt that in the 
upcoming 5 years hunger, misery, unemployment and 
all social evils will intensify to the extreme. In 
the economic realm Toledo's regime will continue 
to apply the same policies that the Fujimori-
Montesinos dictatorship applied for 10 years. 

In this sense, state-owned industries will 
continue to be privatized (accompanied by an 
increase in mass lay-offs), labor laws will 
continue to be violated, and above all the 
country's wealth will continue to be handed over 
to foreign powers. In the political realm, save 
for a few insubstantial differences, the 
government that has just taken charge will 
continue under the control of the armed forces, 
the American CIA and the powerful groups in Peru. 
The state will continue to be plundered by 
bandits, be controlled by mobsters and its 
exclusive role will be to repress the people, 
manage the big business of the powerful and 
basically manage the profits reaped by the 
international drug trade. That as of July 28th 
Peru has embarked on the second phase of 
Fujimorismo is irrefutably proven by the fact that 
the same individuals and political parties that 
put the Fujimori-Montesinos government in power 
and supported it, are now the ones that surround 
and support Alejandro Toledo. For example, Peru's 
corrupt ex-president, Alan García Pérez, that was 
instrumental in bringing Fujimori to triumph is 
currently one of Toledo's principal political 
allies. 

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, former economic advisor to 
Fujimori in 1990 and "shock" engineer, a 
Fujimorist responsible for sinking 14 million 
Peruvians into misery now appears as the spanking 
new minister of economics and finance. Carlos 
Ferrero Costa, someone who made a political 
"career" through Fujimorismo and who appears in 
several videos next to Montesinos is now a 
"Toledoist" and president of parliament. Gloria 
Helfer who was Fujimori's 1990 minister of 
education now appears in parliament as a militant 
for the ruling party. Henry Pease who in 1990 
pointed out that Fujimori's victory was "a popular 
victory and an alternative for change" is now a 
"Toledoist" and a vice president of parliament. 
Beatriz Alva Hart, a Fujimorist trusted by 
Montesinos (appearing in several videos) has been 
promoted by the Toledoist faction to participate 
in what is known as parliament's "Commission of 
Truth." 

What must be considered apart from these examples 
is that no economic or political changes can be 
expected in Peru while the ministers of the new 
government are persons committed to the most 
reactionary sectors of the Peruvian right. For 
example, Roberto Dañino who was named prime 
minister by Toledo is a militant for the rightist 
AP and served as prime minister during the 
disastrous second term of Fernando Belaunde in 
1968. The Fujimorist story of 1990 repeats itself 
with Dañino. Fujimori's prime minister and 
economic minister was Juan Carlos Hurtado Miller, 
also a rank and file AP militant who now finds 
himself accused of receiving millions of dollars 
from Montesinos. And yet another example: Raúl 
Diez Canseco, Toledo's vice president and recently 
named for the industrial fund is also an AP 
militant. Apart from this nothing can be expected 
from a government whose electoral campaign was not 
financed by the poor people of Peru but by the 
wealthy people of Peru and of the United States. 

It is known that the most important entrepreneur 
in the country, Dionisio Romero who was linked to 
Fujimori and Montesinos was also one of the 
financial supporters of Toledo's electoral 
campaign. In a similar fashion, George Soros who 
is a well known American entrepreneur with large 
investments in poor countries "contributed" $1 
million to finance Toledo's presidential campaign. 

It is no exaggeration to say that the recently 
installed government--amusingly called "a 
government of all people" by Toledo--is nothing 
more than a new government of the Peruvian right 
and American imperialism whose class essence is 
the big bourgeoisie and the landlords. 

Third observation: Contrary to the official 
propaganda, the government led by Alejandro Toledo 
is not based on democracy and is not on its way to 
"reconstituting a free and democratic Peru." 
Today's Toledoism is based on the eccentric 
constitution of 1993 and the laws dictated by the 
Fujimori-Montesinos government whose purpose was 
to legalize a reactionary and dictatorial narco-
government. The entire judicial and legal 
apparatus employed by Fujimori that is now 
employed by the new tenant at the government 
palace exists to prolong a dictatorship and 
disguise it as civility. How can there be talk of 
democracy when there are more than nine thousand 
political prisoners and prisoners of war slowly 
being murdered by a prison system designed for 
extermination? How can there be talk of democracy 
when 90% of the prisoners suffer tuberculosis or 
other serious illnesses and are denied even the 
most basic medical attention? There can be no talk 
of democracy when the armed forces, the police and 
paramilitaries (civil defense groups) continue to 
forcefully control thousands of towns in the 
Andes. It is impossible to speak of democracy when 
more than 11 thousand Peruvians have to live 
clandestinely to avoid capture and jail terms of 
20 to 25 years. Under no circumstance can there be 
talk of democracy when more than 2 million 
Peruvians have had to go abroad to flee repression 
and escape hunger and misery. There can be no talk 
of democracy when judicial power is a hub for 
corruption and where the judges are the same ones 
who served Fujimorismo. And there can be no talk 
of democracy when the military and the police that 
are responsible for thousands of abominable 
kidnappings, tortures and murders continue to run 
free under the protection of the armed forces and 
the judiciary. Many persons guilty of genocide are 
not only free but continue to hold high political 
and military positions. There can be no talk of 
democracy when the illegitimate parliament is 
composed, almost in its entirety, by Fujimorists, 
fugitives, and those that have made politics a 
life of corruption, whose activities include 
deception, racketeering, and conspiracy. 

There can be no talk of democracy when the 
national media-- including the press, television 
and radio--remain in the hands of persons of 
little ethical and moral character, that under the 
pretext of the "struggle against sendero" 
justified and supported the brutality of the 
previous regime, its crimes and genocides during 
the 10 years of Fujimorismo.