OLLANTA HUMALA: KEYS TO HIS CHARACTER, LIKELY

C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 000248 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/13/2026 TAGS: PGOV PINS PTER PHUM PE SUBJECT: OLLANTA HUMALA: KEYS TO HIS CHARACTER, LIKELY ATTITUDE TOWARD THE US REF: A. LIMA 86 ¶B. 05 LIMA 5192 ¶C. 05 LIMA 4854 ¶D. 05 LIMA 37 ¶E. 05 LIMA 74 ¶F. 03 LIMA 4698 Classified By: Poloff David C. Brooks, Reason 1.4 (B,D) -------------- Summary: -------------- ¶1. (C) Peruvian anti-system presidential candidate Ollanta Humala has offered little direct information about his attitudes toward the United States. The absence of direct criticism of the U.S. might lead some to conclude that his ideas about the U.S. are still gestating and possibly could be turned positive. We are pessimistic about this. Despite a dearth of direct information, we know the pillars that formed Humala's thinking -- his father, the military (particularly the example of Juan Velasco Alvarado) -- and his two circles of local advisors, one civilian and the other military. None is encouraging. End Summary. -------------- The Family: A Father Forges His Sons -------------- ¶2. (C) The Humala Clan is as much a political-ideological cell as it is a biological unit. It is dominated by father and patriarch Isaac Humala, a lawyer from Ayacucho, a former communist, and founder of the Ethnocacerist Movement (MEC). Isaac has an acute sense of history, and he has reared his children, particularly his sons, to equip them to do great things. Isaac claims that the Humalas are descended from Inca nobles (called curacas),and the names he and his wife chose for their offspring reflect either Inca roots (Ollanta (named for a mythical Inca hero); daughter Ima Sumac, and Antauro) or classical heroes (oldest son is named Ulises; Ollanta also carries the name Moises). ¶3. (C) While the Humalas rooted their children's names in Inca history, they opted for a highly Eurocentric education. Isaac sent seven of his eight children (with Ollanta the exception) to the Franco-Peruvian School in Lima. Ollanta attended a Japanese-Peruvian school so that he could learn Japanese. Isaac Humala has said he streered Ollanta and Antauro to military service to prepare for a significant historical role. ¶4. (C) Isaac remained in the Communist Party until 1956. During that year, he was forced out for having led a change-oriented group. Soon after, Isaac developed Ethnocacerism. The movement represents a red-brown synthesis of racist, quasi-fascist, pro-coca, anti-Chilean, anti-US, anti-oligarchical thinking that is laid out in a lengthy manifesto (nearly 400 pages) entitled "Peruvian Army: Millenarianism, Nationalism and Ethnocacerism," reportedly written by Antauro (Ref F). While the book identifies Chile as Peru's natural enemy, it carries ample criticism of the United States. -------------- The Ethnocacerist Movement (MEC) and the U.S. -------------- ¶5. (C) To the Ethnocaceristas, U.S. political, military and cultural influence has pulled Peru away from its true Inca/Indian roots, causing Peru to lose the "ethnoracial" glue that would have made it into a successful society. Ethnocacerists believe that successful countries are those dominated by a unified, majority ethnic group. They see the downtrodden of Peru, the "cobrizos" (copper-colored people), as a potential master race whose liberation lies in Inca-style socialist reorganization and the creation of a strong native army. U.S. influence, in their view, has propped up a corrupt, white-skinned colonial oligarchy and seeks to neuter the Peruvian Army, turning it from a national instrument into a regional police force that works at the behest of Washington. ¶6. (C) Isaac Humala did more than just develop MEC doctrine, he also inculcated it, and the sense of historical destiny that goes with it, into his children, all of whom are intensely political. Of the eight, two are running for President and one, Antauro, is running for Congress. Other children and relatives are working in their different campaigns. ¶7. (C) Ollanta has been subject to Ethnocacerism his whole life. For five years, he lent his name to the Ethnocacerist movement's newspaper, which regularly publishes articles that favor coca cultivation, abhor Chile and, in recent issues, praised Hitler's economics, referred to Saddam Hussein as a martyr, and regularly pillories the United States. It would be naive to think that Ollanta Humala has shaken off this influence since November, when the family rift allegedly began. -------------- Family Feud or Tag Team? -------------- ¶8. (U) Recent events would appear (and we stress the word appear) to have challenged the vision of a united family described above. Antauro Humala publicly broke with Ollanta in a letter published in the press on 12/15. Therein, Antauro accused Ollanta of ignoring the sacrifices of Antauro's Ethnocacerista supporters and the significance of their New Years 2005 rebellion in Andahuaylas (Refs D, E). He asserts that he felt "betrayed" by Ollanta, who had been distancing himself from the Andahuaylas outbreak from the moment news broke that Antauro's men had killed four policemen. ¶9. (U) As the campaign rolled on in the fall, Ollanta's growing connections to monied contributors and traditional political actors ostensibly frustrated Antauro, resulting in the "break." In December, Antauro announced that he would support the Advance the Country (Avanza Pais, AP) political party, which has nominated another Humala brother, Ulises, as its presidential candidate and is running Antauro on its congressional list for Apurimac. (Note: If Antauro is elected to Congress, he will have immunity from prosecution for his actions in Andahuaylas while serving. End Note.) Patriarch Isaac has also pledged to support Ulises for the Peruvian presidency. Despite the apparent rupture with his family, pro-business daily "Gestion" reported on 1/9 that Antauro Humala had sent a second letter to his followers from prison in which he instructed them to support Ollanta should the latter make it to the second round in the presidential race. ¶10. (C) Comment: While there is speculation whether the "break" between Isaac/Antauro/Ulises and Ollanta is contrived or real, politically it enabled Ollanta to portray himself as a "democratic" yet anti-system candidate. In addition, it provided a soap opera that dominated the headlines between Christmas and New Years. We suspect that the break most likely constitutes a kind of internal family primary, with the Humala family sending out different message-bearers, some more radical, others apparently more moderate, to multiply its messengers and to test which will ultimately prosper. ¶11. (C) Comment (continued): The "break" is tactically useful. For example, it enabled the Humalas to "double team" Congressman Michael Martinez, a pro-coca politician from Apurimac, who now holds the Congressional seat that Antauro seeks. AP Candidate Ulises attacked Martinez for allegedly having betrayed Antauro and his followers -- Martinez was a mediator during the Andahuaylas revolt -- and Ollanta proposed a complete renewal of UPP's Congressional slate, an action that surprised Martinez and left him out in the cold. Martinez himself told Poloff on 1/12 that the Humala brothers were working together to get Antauro into Congress and out of jail. End Comment. -------------- The Military: Child of the Velasco Generation -------------- ¶12. (U) Ollanta Humala attended the Military Academy in Chorillos from 1976-1980, a period that followed the military "revolution from above" led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975). Breaking with traditions of Latin American military elitism, Velasco led an Army Officer Corps of increasingly lower middle class origins on a failed socialistic and nationalistic experiment during those years, one that saw mass nationalizations, the creation of state industries, a chaotic agrarian reform and Peru's attempts to enforce a 200-mile maritime limit. During the Velasco years, Peru saw itself as a "third world" power, aspiring to a leadership role in the non-aligned movement and a close relationship with the Soviet Union. ¶13. (C) Despite the failings of the Velasco program, both the MEC and Ollanta Humala hold up General Velasco as their hero. According to Javier Ciurlizza, former Executive Secretary for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, who SIPDIS has done extensive human rights training for the Peruvian Army, many Army officers see the Velasco Era as a "Golden Age" when the Peruvian military was respected, honored, well-funded and popular. The years that followed, which included a retreat into the barracks, democratic dysfunction, economic dislocation, the war against subversion and consequent criticisms on human rights, constitute a Dark Age that has caused many younger officers, Ollanta included, to look back with nostalgia to Velasco. ¶14. (C) During Ollanta's time in the military academy, the teaching and curriculum borrowed liberally from the Velasco period. Thus, Ollanta came into the military just as that institution was beginning to retreat from the ambitious social and international role it had assumed. Reportedly, Ollanta's plan for government sounds like "Velasco lite." It is said to include five-year plans for infrastructure, limits on Chilean investment in strategic sectors, revision of foreign contracts (including the FTA),and an emphasis on Latin American integration. ¶15. (C) DAO sources state that while the upper levels of the Officer Corps do not like Humala, particularly for his year 2000 rebellion (during the rebellion, Humala took his commanding officer captive),Humala is admired among his own age cohort in the upper middle ranks (Captains, Majors, Lieutenant Colonels) and on down through the institution. -------------- Ollanta's Advisors: Outer, Inner Circles -------------- ¶16. (C) Ollanta's contacts with Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales have obvious political implications that need not be repeated here. But Ollanta has other, local advisors. They fall into two distinct groups, Carlos Tapia, a rural sociologist, expert on SL and frequent critic of the MEC, told Poloff on 1/13. Tapia is a close personal friend of Ollanta's First Vice President Gonzalo Garcia, who has provided him with a description of the two-group structure of advisors around Ollanta. ¶17. (C) The first is composed of a public group of technocrats who are now working on Ollanta's plan of government. The majority are left-intellectuals, a number of them professors at the Catholic University. They see Ollanta as a vehicle to promote "progressive" social change. (Note: Javier Ciurlizza, a Professor at the Catholic University, told Poloff on 1/12 that some of his colleagues think that Ollanta has been unfairly demonized by the press and that some are interested in a chance to "shape" the candidate's views. Ciurlizza does not share their sentiments. End Note.) ¶18. (C) The second group, not known to the public, is composed of a dozen mid-rank (up to Lieutenant Colonel) retired military officers who were friends of Ollanta while in the Army. They manage Ollanta's security, his agenda, his meetings, and determine campaign strategy. According to Tapia, they planned the candidate's recent surprise visit to Caracas, arranging the trip in secrecy so that Ollanta and wife Nadine would burst onto local news from Venezuela and then setting up a post-visit press conference (Ref A) in Lima that would create a news whiteout to obscure the other candidates. ¶19. (C) There is potential tension between the two groups, expressed in anxious remarks Garcia had made to Tapia. Garcia said his role in the campaign was purely technical and that Ollanta calls the shots. He stated that if the party came out with some truly crazy ideas, he would leave. In addition, Ollanta knows that he needs technocrats to govern. He does not intend to try to repeat in literal fashion the experience of the Velasco years, when Velasco tried to militarize public policy decision-making. -------------- The Candidate's Character in the Campaign -------------- ¶20. (C) Ollanta's background has cultivated a (so far) highly effective anti-political, anti-institutional style of operation. On repeated occasions, Ollanta has held out his hand to party leaders offering an alliance, only to take their followers or take over their organizations. Last fall, Ollanta indicated his interest in an alliance with the left (Refs B, C),but leftist leaders pulled back when he refused to cede any ground in actual talks. After Chavez' endorsement, this scenario repeated itself. Leftist Broad Front candidate Alberto Moreno complained that Ollanta offered his group nothing in talks about forming an alliance, and reportedly Ollanta did not even show up for a scheduled meeting with Socialist Party nominee Javier Diez Canseco. While Ollanta flirts with and then ignores leftist leaders, he has walked off with a number of their followers, as demonstrated by the leftist intellectuals in his group of public advisors. ¶21. (C) This pattern repeated itself in Ollanta's adopted political party, the Union for Peru (UPP). Officially, UPP has merged with Ollanta's Peruvian Nationalist Party, with Ollanta as the candidate of the combined party, the Nationalist Party Uniting Peru. The merger, however, was more like a hostile takeover. Ollanta unilaterally announced at a UPP Congress last Saturday (7/7) that the entire UPP Congressional list would be "completely renewed," a maneuver that would prevent three sitting UPP Congress members from running for re-election, including pro-cocalero Congressman Michael Martinez, the UPP leader who first invited Ollanta into the party. Martinez reacted strongly, calling Ollanta's action a "betrayal" and stating to the press that "betrayals are paid in blood." ¶22. (C) A visibly depressed Martinez told Poloff on 1/12 that he was hoping that Ollanta would "reflect on his decision" and reverse it. Even so, he concluded, Ollanta is an authoritarian who plays to the crowd. Martinez glumly acknowledged that if Ollanta did not change his mind, Martinez would be compelled to leave UPP. He was confident that Ollanta could keep a substantial fraction of UPP and go on to win the presidency. Longer term, Martinez predicted that, if elected, Ollanta's anti-political style would come back to haunt him. At the end of the interview when asked about Ollanta's attitudes toward the United States, an heretofore open Martinez told poloff that "there are some conversations that always stay confidential." (Note: A somewhat shaken Congressman Martinez announced that he would not run for re-election on 1/14, following a meeting of UPP's directorate. Martinez is not leaving UPP and supports Humala's campaign. End Note.) -------------- Comment: -------------- ¶23. (C) Ollanta presents the picture of a "new face," as he puts it, that many find intriguing. Despite this, a complex of constants has governed Ollanta actions at every stage of his life. These are: a disciplined focus on long-term goals pursued through secret plans expressed in theatrical action. From the cradle to the campaign, these elements have been present. They have brought success to Ollanta, prominence to his family, and have transformed him from unknown Army Major into presidential contender in just over five years. ¶24. (C) While we may some day have to deal with Ollanta, the influences that shape his life do not lead us to be optimistic about his likely attitudes toward the United States. He may be evolving as a politician, but he is by no means a tabula rasa. End Comment. STRUBLE