"EVO MORALES IS OUR PRESIDENT": THE ANTI-SYSTEM

C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 000924 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/26/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI SNAR BL PE SUBJECT: "EVO MORALES IS OUR PRESIDENT": THE ANTI-SYSTEM PROJECT REF: A. LIMA 899 ¶B. LIMA 918 (AND PREVIOUS) ¶C. LIMA 697 ¶D. LIMA 794 Classified By: CDA James Nealon for reasons 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Its economic success of recent years notwithstanding, Peru remains fertile terrain for anti-system radicals, with persistent endemic poverty and social inequality, the absence of the state from large swaths of national territory, and clumsy, sometimes jarring public action when the state does intervene. But if these kinds of structural factors have played a role in recent protests (refs),so has a radical anti-system political project that is seeking to take political advantage of them to undermine Peru's progress, weaken the government and lay the groundwork for a more systematic assault on the pro-growth model. Public and private statements by the diverse and not necessarily unified leaders of the anti-system movement paint a compelling portrait of their real aims, which can be summarized in the words of one Peruvian indigenous leader that "Evo Morales is our President." Foreign participation in this anti-system movement, including from Bolivia, is real but maybe not as central as some analysts maintain. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Peru has been a regional good news story for some time now, enjoying sustained, solid economic growth, burgeoning trade and foreign investment and a sense of promise and possibility unparalleled in the memory of most living Peruvians. The perspective of a Peru on the march over the last decade - successfully climbing out of the trench into which it had fallen in its years of economic and political crisis when quadruple-digit inflation and encroaching terrorism threatened the very integrity of the state - remains palpable. Many observers also insist that the statistics don't lie, that economic growth has benefited more than a select few, that poverty is noticeably down and that, whatever the structural challenges (ref A),the government is making real progress on basic infrastructure such as roads, water, and electricity. As one observer from a neighboring country noted during a recent visit to Lima, "Peru's agenda is real." ¶3. (C) That said, the progress of Peru's real agenda so far has been insufficient to overcome the serious, deep-seated challenges that underlie latent political instability. If poverty rates have fallen to below 40%, a politically significant number of Peruvians continues to live in precarious conditions, with close to 20% of the population at or near subsistence level. The distribution of wealth is also uneven, with the country's most deeply entrenched pockets of poverty located in the southern highlands and Amazon regions -- not coincidentally also the areas where the state is virtually absent and anti-government sentiment and political instability are greatest. Moreover, as Peru's Human Rights Ombudswoman recently noted to a group of mining executives, these regions also tend to be where mining and other extractive industries' activities are concentrated. This precarious and potentially combustible situation is exacerbated by clumsy, sometimes jarring public action when the state does intervene -- such as the police's recent action to end road blockades in Bagua (septel) -- and by the broader institutional weaknesses that hinder basic service delivery even where the state is present. One of Garcia's closest political advisors told us the President's principal frustration relates to the institutional dysfunctionality and inefficiency of the state apparatus at all levels, which undermines the transition from political vision, plan or marching order to real progress on the ground. Fertile Terrain for Radicalism -------------- ¶4. (C) For all these reasons, Peru remains fertile territory for anti-system radicals seeking to take advantage of an opportunity to turn the tables around, and to convert Peru from the camp of pro-growth pragmatism to that of vague "21st century socialism" a la Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. To this end, anti-system elements are pursuing a conscious and well-planned political strategy to undermine Peru's progress, weaken the government and lay the groundwork for a more systematic assault on the pro-growth model. This project has been clearly in evidence in recent protests, including Amazonian communities' successful clamoring for the repeal of a series of legislative decrees (refs B) that intended to facilitate investment and promote development (while protecting the environment and setting aside lands for native communities) in one of the country's most abandoned regions. It has been reflected in the scattered protests that have followed, which have called for stopping a planned hydroelectric project, repealing a new water law and ending concessions relating to mining and other extractive industries (still the basis of Peru's economy). And it is likely to be seen in diverse protests currently being planned for the future, which will have no shortage of pretexts, real and imagined, from which to borrow. ¶5. (C) Whatever the legitimacy of the protesters' disparate underlying grievances and aspirations (which are often directly connected to the kinds of structural problems described above),anti-system elements have successfully used the protests to fan a growing chorus of criticism against President Garcia, the entire government, private investment in general and the "neoliberal" economic model. (It is important to emphasize that "state abandonment" and its succession of unfortunate consequences long predate Peru's modern age, liberal economic model or current government, with roots that go back several hundred years to the Colonial and Republican eras.) "Evo Morales is our President" -------------- ¶6. (C) Public and private statements by the diverse and not necessarily unified leaders of the anti-system movement -- who are many, of different stripes and often local in their immediate focus -- paint a compelling picture of their real aims. Miguel Palacin, who leads a pan-Andean indigenous group based in Lima, is one of the movement's leading figures, organizing parallel anti-summits (during the Peru-based EU-LAC and APEC events of 2008) and painstakingly building links to bring the disorderly diversity of the anti-system opposition under one banner. Tellingly, Palacin's office displays Bolivian flags and a presidential portrait of Evo Morales. Palacin recently told us he sees Bolivia as a model for Peru, and that indigenous people consider Morales "our president." Palacin said his organization was working to repeal the remaining contentious legislative decrees (refs) and to press for the overhaul of Garcia's cabinet. In the longer term, Palacin said his group aimed to procure property titles for all indigenous land (hinting that once this had occurred there would be no land left for private development),and ultimately to write a new constitution incorporating language from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The "plurinational" agenda pushed at the IVth Indigenous Continental Summit in Puno - in which Palacin was a major protagonist - could also have far reaching consequences on fundamental social and economic principles such as who can "own" water, land and other natural resources. While not pivotal to the Amazonian drama or the more recent spin-off protests, Palacin has vocally defended the protestors throughout. Ollanta Humala -------------- ¶7. (C) Still widely seen as the political leader of the government's ideological opposition, former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala and his Partido Nacionalista Peruano (PNP) opposed the legislative decrees since 2008, claiming to represent the interest of indigenous groups in doing so. The GOP has blamed the PNP for deliberately misinforming communities regarding the content of the decrees and also for inciting violence. A recently surfaced video from 2008 showing one PNP Congresswoman telling a community that legislative decree 1090 would allow the government freely to sell off indigenous lands to private investors appears to confirm this fact. More ominously, following the violence in Bagua, Humala himself in a television interview warned security forces not to use weapons against protesters because "a future government may choose to investigate human rights abuses." Many analysts observed that Humala's statements were intended to weaken the will of an already discredited police force, undermine the ability of the government to impose order, and, more indirectly, suggest that the Garcia government's days were numbered. Aidesep -------------- ¶8. (C) Aidesep and NGO contacts close to the organization have repeatedly denied that the recent Amazonian protests were instigated by outsiders, but they have also readily welcomed outside input and assistance. Some of this assistance has been overtly political, and clearly intended to heighten native suspicions about the government's supposedly predatory plans for their land. In response, Aidesep leader Alberto Pizango, currently in exile in Nicaragua, called for "insurrection" against the Peruvian government, and while he later retracted the call, it is included in a formal written Aidesep declaration dated May ¶14. Other notable elements of that declaration include the assertion that Peruvian law does not apply in indigenous territories, that the government will be forcefully repelled if it attempts to enter community lands, and that Aidesep would join forces with other groups to "change the state model which only benefits a handful of national and international profiteers." Meantime, Pizango has continued to make public statements about Peru from his political sanctuary in Nicaragua. Latter Day Liberation Theologists -------------- ¶9. (C) In some areas, Catholic Church representatives have aligned themselves with Amazon protesters as part of an ongoing struggle against private investors in the region, arguing that the latter contaminate the jungle and impede equitable development. In San Martin, a local priest, Father Mario Bartolini, was an outspoken participant in roadblocks on the Yurimaguas-Tarapoto highway. The GOP has blamed several Amazon area radio stations, including one belonging to the parish of Yurimaguas, for inciting violence in Bagua on June 5. Tape recordings of the parish radio station broadcasts from mid-May include numerous propoganda spots against the legislative decrees and against private investment and investors in general. In these spots, investors are caricatured as rapacious capitalists, abrasively indifferent to the concerns of locals and plotting only to steal their land. In Cajamarca, Father Marco Arana, who leads an NGO opposed to local mining concerns, has emerged as a potential future presidential candidate for the anti-system left. The Ultra Left -------------- ¶10. (C) Apart from the relatively moderate leftist groups noted above and a spectrum of unions who typically join in solidarity with local and general strikes, Peru continues to have a cornucopia of fragmented radical groups with self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist or Maoist political philosophies. Some of these organizations are said to be fronts for remnants of Shining Path or MRTA, and sometimes overlap with the main teachers' union (SUTEP),the Marxist party Patria Roja and the radical group Vanguardia. Recent intelligence leaked to the press suggests ultra left-wing activists in Cusco embarked on their own copycat strikes inspired by Bagua, and discussed killing police officers in order to gain the attention of the GOP. Sendero Luminoso and MRTA are also cited as having infiltrated June 11 protests in Lima and elsewhere. Another press report from a reputable source alleges representatives of various local "Defense Fronts", the MRTA-related "Venceremos" group, Patria Roja, PNP, "ethnocacerists", as well as members of Aidesep met recently to discuss how the past month's events have opened up space for "People's Power" in Peru, and to plan for upcoming general strikes. Foreign Interference -------------- ¶11. (C) Foreign participation in this anti-system movement is real but probably not as central as some analysts maintain. We have heard from several sources that Miguel Palacin, for example, is close friends with Bolivia's Ambassador to Peru, Franz Solano. Moreover, according to the Foreign Ministry, Solano rarely deals with Peruvian government officials but sees himself rather as the envoy to Peru's social sector opposition, with whom he brokers meetings for visiting Bolivian government officials, including Foreign Minister Choquehuanca. Similarly, many observers argue that maintaining roadblocks for long periods of time requires real money, which comes from somewhere. A number of theories arise in this connection, and include narco-trafficking and illegal logging interests that would theoretically benefit from the absence of order or government control. But the more widepread view has Venezuelan money, and the Bolivarian Republic's informal networks in Peru, playing a role in ensuring protestors have the financial support they need (ref C). Some reports have also alleged the presence of Bolivia cash, including in connection with the recent protests in Cusco. ¶12. (C) Even if no "smoking gun" on the external finance front has been discovered, most observers believe that the influence is more "ideological" and emotional than economic. Bolivian President Evo Morales's letter read aloud at the Puno summit calling on indigenous people to rise up in a "revolution" against their government continues to ring in Peru with a lasting clarity. Morales piled on after the June 5 violence in Bagua, calling the violence in which 24 police officers and 10 protestors were killed an "FTA-inspired genocide." However counterintuitive, to many observers the message was clear: Peru's continuing problems were the exclusive responsibility of the current government and Peru's pro-growth model -- a model that, needless to say, Morales and certain other influential outsiders believe should be changed. Comment: The Plan Evolves -------------- ¶13. (C) The principal concern here is that radical actors both inside and outside of Peru are making progress in their project to destabilize the Garcia government and replace it with something more to their liking, most likely in the 2011 general elections. Recent and ongoing protests have softened the terrain (ref B); future planned actions will seek to strengthen the opposition's momentum while keeping the government on its heels. To many (and to us),the similarity of this subversive campaign to events that unfolded in Bolivia in 2003 - with the unwitting help of well-meaning actors and the active support of able political radicals is uncanny, even if we also agree that the institutional underpinnings of Peru's "system" is comparitively stronger. While the links between radical organizations and disparate protests are difficult to detect, the protestors' tactics and methods are both easy to recognize and difficult for an open society and a weak government to effectively counter. That will be a challenge for the Garcia government in its remaining two years. NEALON