WHA PDAS SHAPIRO MEETS WITH CARDINAL CIPRIANI

C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 002069 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2016 TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM PE SUBJECT: WHA PDAS SHAPIRO MEETS WITH CARDINAL CIPRIANI Classified By: Polcouns Alexander Margulies for Reasons 1.4 (b,d) -------------- Summary: -------------- ¶1. (C) APRA's Alan Garcia will almost surely win the presidential race, Peru's Cardinal Cipriani told visiting WHA PDAS Shapiro during their 5/17 meeting. While Garcia's election prospects are encouraging, Cipriani warned that Peru needed to address social inequality. He scored wealthy business persons as being indifferent to the condition of the poor majority. Cipriani said that Humala is naive and inexperienced as well as surrounded by bad advisors and will likely not be able to sustain his movement beyond the election. He thanked the USG for its strong pro-life position, which he characterized as a big boost to pro-life efforts worldwide. End Summary. ¶2. (C) APRA's Alan Garcia will almost surely win the presidential race, Peru's Cardinal Cipriani told PDAS Shapiro and Amb. Struble during their 5/17 meeting. Cipriani came across as quite comfortable, even hopeful, about this result. He expressed confidence that Garcia's own desire to clean up his tarnished image would compel him to govern responsibly as much as, if not more, than any internal moral considerations. ¶3. (C) While Garcia's election prospects are encouraging, Cipriani warned that Peru's social conditions have led to the formation of "a very dangerous opposition" in Union Por el Peru (UPP) party candidate Ollanta Humala. Garcia needs to come up with a series of new programs with "a social flavor" that can reduce Peru's extreme inequalities. While Peruvians are undoubtedly materially better off after the Fujimori and Toledo presidencies, the Cardinal said, the country's combination of extraordinary luxury for the few but still persistent misery for many makes for an explosive combination. Adding to this is an entrepreneurial class that, the Cardinal said, seems both blind and deaf in the face of social problems. Business owners only react "when their access roads are blocked." The Cardinal asked why large mining companies and others, for example, could not lend some of their engineering expertise to promote infrastructure projects in nearby communities. Garcia, he said, should work to involve business and private enterprise figures in solutions to Peru's social problems. ¶4. (C) Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani described Ollanta Humala as naive but still a threat to Peruvian democracy. He also noted the candidate's ambivalence about politics. As Cipriani put it, "Humala feels terrific when he's speaking to crowds in the plaza, but then shows his doubts one-on-one." The Cardinal recounted how, after a meeting with Humala in his residence, the candidate had seemed flummoxed as to how to address the press waiting outside. Humala wound up taking advice from both Cipriani and Humala's wife, Nadine, as to what to say to the waiting media. In the final analysis, this combination of naivete and the fragmentation inherent among his supporters means that the Humala movement is unlikely to endure. Cipriani described Humala as "very basic," a simple sort of person who could not hold together the coalition around him. "He's no (Abimael) Guzman, no Chavez," the Cardinal concluded. ¶5. (C) The Cardinal laid out the issues most important to him and to the Catholic Church: -- Abortion should remain illegal; -- The state should not permit marriage between homosexuals; -- Catholic education in the public schools must continue; and -- No forced sterilization to promote birth control. ¶6. (C) The Cardinal concluded by lauding President Bush's pro-life stand on abortion. He said that, though costly politically, the United States' pro-life policies were an enormous ally to the Church and pro-life forces on this question. ¶7. This cable was cleared by WHA PDAS Charles Shapiro. STRUBLE