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)

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Summary:
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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