TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/032789/03278900.023

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 5.4 KB | 98 lines

WORLD, Page 54

PERU

Lurching Toward Anarchy

Can the country cope with terrorism -- and 10,000% inflation?


    On an average day in Peru, six people die by political
violence. One day it is a government agent organizing peasant
cooperatives. One day it is a ruling-party mayor. One day it is a
government-aligned journalist. Most days it is peasants who get in
the way.

    There was the day in early February when the killing came to
SAIS Cahuide, a private co-op in Peru's central Junin department.
It was a thriving agricultural concern then, boasting up to 130,000
head of livestock, 800 workers who sold 10,000 liters of milk a
day, and 170 administrative and technical advisers. A column of
guerrillas armed with machine guns, members of the 5,000-strong
Maoist revolutionary group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), marched
in to destroy everything and starve anyone who did not cooperate
with them. The rebels killed or took most of the animals, executed
one director and three administrators of the co-op, and destroyed
tractors, before disappearing into the countryside. Today the
cooperative is nearly deserted, and those who remain live in
constant fear that the guerrillas will return. "We are abandoned
here," says a co-op official, whose requests for protection from
the authorities have been in vain.

    The fate of SAIS Cahuide has become a familiar tale in Peru,
which is reeling from the double punch of guerrilla insurgency and
economic stagflation. The confluence of crises has brought the
country to the brink of bankruptcy and shaken the nation's
institutional foundations. While a military coup does not appear
imminent, the basic conditions for civilian democracy are eroding
at an alarming rate. Approximately 150,000 Peruvians emigrated last
year. Rural families who lack the money to leave have migrated to
urban centers, straining city budgets and turning the pueblos
jovenes, or shantytowns, into breeding grounds for subversion.

    Violence has become a fact of Peruvian life. Government studies
count 12,965 people dead in terrorist-related violence since 1980,
when Sendero Luminoso began its campaign to overthrow the
government. Already this year, 794 killings have been tallied,
though the actual number is no doubt much higher. Outside the major
cities, hundreds of police officers and mayors have deserted their
posts after receiving death threats from terrorists. In the area
around Huancayo, the capital of Peru's breadbasket department of
Junin, Sendero Luminoso is locked in a battle for dominance with
the Cuban-oriented M.R.T.A. rebels. The city, says Raul Gonzalez,
a sociologist and expert on the Sendero Luminoso, "is now the
critical spot to Sendero's future." From there, the Shining Path,
which already controls at least one-third of the countryside,
intends to take Lima, only 120 miles away, by encircling it and
cutting it off from the rest of the country.

    Yet despite the looming guerrilla menace, the deteriorating
state of the economy is the immediate worry of most Peruvians. The
country's inflation rate topped 1,720% last year, and could reach
an unbelievable 10,000% in 1989. Buying power has dropped 50%; up
to two-thirds of the working population is either under- or
unemployed. In the capital, bread, rice and sugar are becoming
scarce, and powdered milk is unavailable in many neighborhoods.

    Outside help is not likely to rescue the country. One of
President Alan Garcia Perez's first moves after taking office in
1985 was to reduce payments due on Peru's $14 billion foreign debt.
As a result, Peru is virtually cut off from all fresh foreign
credits. Last September Garcia imposed a rigorous austerity plan
designed to curtail imports, stimulate exports and cancel
subsidies. But critics say his efforts are still insufficient to
halt Peru's downward slide. And Garcia refuses to make any deal
with international banks that would require the country to pay more
on its debt than it would receive in new money. "It's not that Peru
is refusing to pay," says Garcia. "But we are going to negotiate
in such a way that the flow is positive or equal."

    Garcia's erratic economics have cost him his once overwhelming
popularity. A February poll by Apoyo, Peru's leading independent
polling firm, charted his approval rating at a dismal 13%. Last
December Garcia's support within his own APRA (Popular American
Revolutionary Alliance) Party eroded to the point where he was
forced to resign as its leader. Nevertheless, the President, whose
five-year term expires in 1990, has stubbornly ignored calls for
him to step down.

    Despite persistent rumors that it might attempt a coup, the
military has shown no desire to end nine years of civilian rule.
But Peruvian society is on the verge of polarization between the
extreme left and right. Last July marked the appearance of the
Rodrigo Franco Command, a death squad said to be made up of
dissident APRA Party members. The group has assassinated several
leftists and critics of the government and has threatened to kill
many more.

    At least 80% of Peru's weary populace wants the government to
open a national front against terrorism. Perhaps in response, the
government two weeks ago announced an ambitious campaign against
the rebels. Still, few Peruvians are confident the government can
quell the warfare before the economy reaches the point of no
return. As retired General Sinescio Jarama warns, "Sendero is not
winning, we are losing."