Peru
Wed, 2008-07-09 14:01
#1
M. Spector
Peru
Wed, 2008-07-09 14:01
#2
M. Spector
The [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=13&t=001546]P... election 2006 thread[/url] is up to 100 posts, so I'm starting a new one.
So, how is Alan Garcia's neo-liberal government doing after two years?
quote:
Thousands of Peruvians protested on Wednesday to denounce President Alan Garcia's free-market policies, which they say have failed to benefit the poor during six years of booming economic growth.Protesters waving red banners put up road blocks on highways in regions including Ica, Puno and Cuzco, snarling traffic and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru's top tourist destination, police and local radio reported.
Marchers in Lima, the capital, carried signs urging Garcia to quit and calling him "right-wing" and a "traitor."
The rallies, which coincided with a two-day farmers' strike that started on Tuesday, were the latest in a series of protests held to demand the government do more to spread the Andean country's new wealth to workers and the poor. Investors worry a high national poverty rate of 40 percent could pave the way for a leftist leader to win the presidency in 2011 and reverse the pro-business programs of Garcia.
- [url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0939633020080709]Reuters[/url]
quote:
Ollanta Humala, who nearly won the presidency in 2006 and is an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, said Peruvians were demanding change because Garcia's economic model was broken and a six-year boom had failed to trickle down to the poor."People haven't seen the benefits reach their pockets," he told the foreign press club in Lima on Monday. "If there's no willingness to change, the social tensions and political instability in Peru will continue."
Humala said he might make another run for the presidency, adding, "My candidacy depends on me getting the nomination of my party."
Since taking office two years ago, Garcia has forged free trade deals, lured foreign investment and slashed tariffs -- deepening a commitment to orthodox economic policies Peru started adopting in the 1990s by privatizing state companies.
Garcia's reforms, along with record high prices for minerals it exports, have turned Peru into one of the world's top-performing economies, with annual growth of 9 percent.
But the poverty rate still hovers near 40 percent, and while it has fallen under Garcia, the poor are demanding a share of the economic surge. Investors are worried that high rates of poverty could pave the way for a leftist leader like Humala to win the presidency in 2011.
- [url=http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-peru-politics.html]NY..., two days ago
Wed, 2008-07-09 14:01
#3
M. Spector
The [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=13&t=001546]P... election 2006 thread[/url] is up to 100 posts, so I'm starting a new one.
So, how is Alan Garcia's neo-liberal government doing after two years?
quote:
Thousands of Peruvians protested on Wednesday to denounce President Alan Garcia's free-market policies, which they say have failed to benefit the poor during six years of booming economic growth.Protesters waving red banners put up road blocks on highways in regions including Ica, Puno and Cuzco, snarling traffic and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru's top tourist destination, police and local radio reported.
Marchers in Lima, the capital, carried signs urging Garcia to quit and calling him "right-wing" and a "traitor."
The rallies, which coincided with a two-day farmers' strike that started on Tuesday, were the latest in a series of protests held to demand the government do more to spread the Andean country's new wealth to workers and the poor. Investors worry a high national poverty rate of 40 percent could pave the way for a leftist leader to win the presidency in 2011 and reverse the pro-business programs of Garcia.
- [url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0939633020080709]Reuters[/url]
quote:
Ollanta Humala, who nearly won the presidency in 2006 and is an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, said Peruvians were demanding change because Garcia's economic model was broken and a six-year boom had failed to trickle down to the poor."People haven't seen the benefits reach their pockets," he told the foreign press club in Lima on Monday. "If there's no willingness to change, the social tensions and political instability in Peru will continue."
Humala said he might make another run for the presidency, adding, "My candidacy depends on me getting the nomination of my party."
Since taking office two years ago, Garcia has forged free trade deals, lured foreign investment and slashed tariffs -- deepening a commitment to orthodox economic policies Peru started adopting in the 1990s by privatizing state companies.
Garcia's reforms, along with record high prices for minerals it exports, have turned Peru into one of the world's top-performing economies, with annual growth of 9 percent.
But the poverty rate still hovers near 40 percent, and while it has fallen under Garcia, the poor are demanding a share of the economic surge. Investors are worried that high rates of poverty could pave the way for a leftist leader like Humala to win the presidency in 2011.
- [url=http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-peru-politics.html]NY..., two days ago
Sun, 2008-07-13 17:27
#4
M. Spector
quote:
The strike unfolded peacefully in the capital, Lima, and most other areas — except in some rural areas such as Huancavelica where a local government building was set on fire and the city of Madre de Dios in the Amazon region, where a government building was also burnt.In the regional city of Cuzco — heartland of the opposition to the Garcнa government — more than 20,000 workers, students and peasants marched against the neoliberal policies of the government chanting, “Urgent, urgent, we need a new president”.
The strike comes on the back of a nationwide miners strike on June 30 called by the Federation of Miners of Peru for better wages and against the reduction of mining royalties, as well as rolling strikes in the countryside against a new law that allows the government to privatise vast tracts of land and clear off some 7000 traditional indigenous and peasant communities.
“The government wants to liquidate us, to disappear the communities so they can hand over our land to the foreign investors, the big landowners and the mining companies … And with the free trade agreement everything is going to be worse … this government is a disgrace”, Julio Pumayari, a community leader from Yupango, near Cuzco, told the July 9 [url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-107470-2008-07-09.html]Pagina 12[/url].
The government tried to downplay the strike, describing it as a “failure”, but with his approval rating sinking to 30%, Garcнa is Latin America’s least popular president.
According to [url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-107530-2008-07-10.html]Pagina 12[/url], Efraнn Yйpez, general secretary of the Cuzco Defense Front said: “If the government doesn’t listen we will radicalise our protests. We will go for an indefinite general strike.”
[url=http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/758/39189]Source[/url]
Sun, 2008-07-13 17:27
#5
M. Spector
quote:
The strike unfolded peacefully in the capital, Lima, and most other areas — except in some rural areas such as Huancavelica where a local government building was set on fire and the city of Madre de Dios in the Amazon region, where a government building was also burnt.In the regional city of Cuzco — heartland of the opposition to the Garcнa government — more than 20,000 workers, students and peasants marched against the neoliberal policies of the government chanting, “Urgent, urgent, we need a new president”.
The strike comes on the back of a nationwide miners strike on June 30 called by the Federation of Miners of Peru for better wages and against the reduction of mining royalties, as well as rolling strikes in the countryside against a new law that allows the government to privatise vast tracts of land and clear off some 7000 traditional indigenous and peasant communities.
“The government wants to liquidate us, to disappear the communities so they can hand over our land to the foreign investors, the big landowners and the mining companies … And with the free trade agreement everything is going to be worse … this government is a disgrace”, Julio Pumayari, a community leader from Yupango, near Cuzco, told the July 9 [url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-107470-2008-07-09.html]Pagina 12[/url].
The government tried to downplay the strike, describing it as a “failure”, but with his approval rating sinking to 30%, Garcнa is Latin America’s least popular president.
According to [url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-107530-2008-07-10.html]Pagina 12[/url], Efraнn Yйpez, general secretary of the Cuzco Defense Front said: “If the government doesn’t listen we will radicalise our protests. We will go for an indefinite general strike.”
[url=http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/758/39189]Source[/url]
Sat, 2008-10-04 16:15
#6
M. Spector
quote:
Social movements, trade unions, peasant farmer and indigenous organisations are holding strikes and demonstrations to demand that Peruvian President Alan Garcнa fulfil the social commitments he has made, in writing and at negotiating tables."We are organising throughout the length and breadth of the country to plan a day of repudiation and condemnation of a political programme that lacks credibility, because the government does not keep its word and is ignoring our social demands," the vice president of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), Olmedo Auris, told IPS.
The CGTP is preparing for a [b]nationwide day of demonstrations against the government's economic, political and social measures on Oct. 7[/b], because in its view the administration is failing to respect 34 agreements signed by the authorities over the past two years, nearly all of them as a means of temporarily halting protests.
Public school teachers, construction workers, farmers, miners and regional associations will join the strike action begun Sept. 15 by public sector medical personnel, who are demanding salary increases and a larger budget for the health sector....
The Garcнa administration has adopted two misguided strategies in handling social conflicts, Carlos Reyna, a sociologist at the Catholic University, told IPS. "On the one hand, it is postponing problems and signing agreements that it does not fulfil, instead of resolving the disputes. On the other, it has encouraged polarisation by attacking representatives of social sectors."...
The head of the Cuzco Regional Assembly, Efraнn Yйpez, told IPS that 16 provincial umbrella groups have confirmed they will take part in the strike, many of them from the south of the country and the jungle areas, where the centre-right Garcнa did not win a majority of votes in the 2006 elections.
Indigenous and peasant organisations in the Amazon jungle, which are demanding the repeal of dozens of decrees they regard as violating their collective rights, will begin an indefinite strike on Nov. 10.
"Our position is consistent, because we have never backed Garcнa," said Yйpez, who also said that the CGTP's Political and Social Coordinating Committee, to which the provincial opposition groups belong, is promoting a proposal to hold a referendum to remove the president from office. - [url=http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44106]IPS[/url], Oct. 2
Sat, 2008-10-04 16:15
#7
M. Spector
quote:
Social movements, trade unions, peasant farmer and indigenous organisations are holding strikes and demonstrations to demand that Peruvian President Alan Garcнa fulfil the social commitments he has made, in writing and at negotiating tables."We are organising throughout the length and breadth of the country to plan a day of repudiation and condemnation of a political programme that lacks credibility, because the government does not keep its word and is ignoring our social demands," the vice president of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), Olmedo Auris, told IPS.
The CGTP is preparing for a [b]nationwide day of demonstrations against the government's economic, political and social measures on Oct. 7[/b], because in its view the administration is failing to respect 34 agreements signed by the authorities over the past two years, nearly all of them as a means of temporarily halting protests.
Public school teachers, construction workers, farmers, miners and regional associations will join the strike action begun Sept. 15 by public sector medical personnel, who are demanding salary increases and a larger budget for the health sector....
The Garcнa administration has adopted two misguided strategies in handling social conflicts, Carlos Reyna, a sociologist at the Catholic University, told IPS. "On the one hand, it is postponing problems and signing agreements that it does not fulfil, instead of resolving the disputes. On the other, it has encouraged polarisation by attacking representatives of social sectors."...
The head of the Cuzco Regional Assembly, Efraнn Yйpez, told IPS that 16 provincial umbrella groups have confirmed they will take part in the strike, many of them from the south of the country and the jungle areas, where the centre-right Garcнa did not win a majority of votes in the 2006 elections.
Indigenous and peasant organisations in the Amazon jungle, which are demanding the repeal of dozens of decrees they regard as violating their collective rights, will begin an indefinite strike on Nov. 10.
"Our position is consistent, because we have never backed Garcнa," said Yйpez, who also said that the CGTP's Political and Social Coordinating Committee, to which the provincial opposition groups belong, is promoting a proposal to hold a referendum to remove the president from office. - [url=http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44106]IPS[/url], Oct. 2
Fri, 2008-10-24 11:48
#8
M. Spector
[url=http://intercontinentalcry.org/indigenous-communities-warn-oil-company-t... communities say NO to Canadian imperialism[/url]
quote:
More than two dozen indigenous communities from Nuevo Alegrнa, in the Morona district of northern Peru, have issued a stern ultimatum to the Canadian oil exploration company Talisman Energy — warning them that they have until November 15th to withdraw from their territories or the communities will have no choice but to force them out.To quote Cesar Zuniga Butuna, a local leader and president of the National Achuar Federation of Peru (FENAP):
“We do not want our forests, rivers and earth polluted, because this is our natural market.”
“We as the indigenous people reject the Canadian company Talisman. We do not want them working in our territory, we want the Peruvian state to respect us, and the armed forces must stop supporting the company.”
“If they do not want to leave we will force them out; this is the agreement that has been coordinated with the Awajъn brother (people) and the Huambisas of the Amazon. It is time that the government listens to us and we will make them respect us.”
“We have proof that pollution already exists, damage to nature and to indigenous people in the communities where petroleum activities are developed. For 37 years in the Achuar brother communities of the Corrientes River, petroleum has not brought any development to them; on the contrary they are sick and poverty stricken.”
Talisman has casually responded to the ultimatum by [url=http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/10/22/afx5591692.htm... they have no intention of leaving.[/url]
See also: [url=http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2008/10/talisman-energy-has-no-charm-in... has no charm in Peru[/url]
Fri, 2008-10-24 12:46
#9
Boom Boom
Talisman is a huge Canadian oil company, with a global reach. Didn't the CBC run an expose of Talisman in South America early this year?
Fri, 2008-10-31 19:44
#10
M. Spector
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=76965]Yves Engler writes:[/url]
quote:
Already this year Canadian resource companies in Peru have been responsible for a number of socially damaging events: an oil and gas company entered an area inhabited by a nomadic tribe that has refused contact with the outside world; a mine destroyed pre-Columbian carvings; the government declared a state of emergency over fears that arsenic, lead and cadmium from a mine near Lima could pollute the capital's main water supply. And in recent years Toronto-based Barrick Gold's operations in the country have been engulfed in a number of violent protests, one of which left a couple of protesters dead."In Peru," notes McGill professor Daviken Stuenicki Gizbert, [b]"40 per cent of conflicts involving local communities are over mining. The majority of the mining sector in Peru is Canadian."[/b]