Alan según Oppenheimer

[enrique2]

Andres Oppenheimer | Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted May 15, 2006

Here\'s one of the biggest ironies of Latin America\'s current history: Alan Garcia, the populist-leftist former Peruvian president who suspended his country\'s foreign-debt payments and nationalized the banking industry in the mid-1980s, may become the leading regional critic of Venezuela\'s firebrand socialist, President Hugo Chavez.

If somebody had forecast this only a few months ago, it would have been seen by most political analysts as a joke.

Indeed, Garcia, the leading candidate for Peru\'s June 4 runoff elections, is a persuasive speaker -- his critics call him a snake-oil salesman -- who has long been seen as the quintessential Latin American populist.

At the beginning of his 1985-90 term, he lashed out against the Peruvian oligarchy and the International Monetary Fund, gaining wild applause at home. But investors fled the country, the economy collapsed, inflation rose to 7,500 percent a year and unemployment soared. When Garcia left office, he had a 5 percent approval rate, and had to flee the country amid a barrage of corruption charges.

When I interviewed Garcia for an hour recently for a soon-to-be-televised interview, I could barely believe what I was hearing: Garcia is not only trying to bring about a political resurrection as a moderate who cites Chile\'s pro-free market leftist government as one of his top role models, but is using his extraordinary oratory skills to lash out against what he calls the \"Chavez imperialism\" in Latin America.

Chavez has an \"obsessive\" compulsion for the limelight and a habit \"of meddling and imposing his outdated model on us, a model that is only supported by the amount of money he has,\" Garcia told me. \"Without the millions of dollars in oil revenues that he has, I don\'t think he could talk the way he does.\"

According to the Peruvian candidate, Chavez is using his oil revenues to carry out a geopolitical \"domino strategy\" in Latin America, aimed at encircling U.S.-backed Colombia with \"Chavista republics.\"

Once Chavez realized that Bolivia has a near monopoly on natural-gas sales to Brazil, \"he promoted Bolivia\'s nationalization of the gas industry, to put Brazil, and by extension Argentina, against the ropes,\" Garcia said, referring to Chavez-backed Bolivian President Evo Morales\' May 1 nationalization of the gas industry.

\"Now, the domino is headed toward Peru,\" Garcia continued. \"If Peru falls under the influx of the Chavista republics, the next step will be Ecuador, which is economically weaker and thus more vulnerable. And, finally, Mr. Chavez will be able to isolate Colombia, which is the ultimate goal of this entire plan.\"

Granted, Garcia\'s criticism of Chavez is probably a calculated move to win centrist and right-of-center votes in the June 4 election. And it was also partly motivated by the Venezuelan president\'s repeated public endorsements of Garcia\'s rival in Peru\'s upcoming election, Ollanta Humala, a leftist-nationalist former lieutenant colonel.

And there are other reasons to wonder whether Garcia\'s political resurrection as a moderate is sincere.

As recently as a March 27 speech, Garcia said that his party, known by its acronym APRA, \"stands for anti-imperialism, stands for anti-colonialism, stands for the struggle against (free market) neo-liberalism. Therefore, we will try to change the economic model, to put it at the service of the majority of the people.\"

Isn\'t that old-style, Chavez-like populism? I asked him. Garcia answered with characteristic slickness, \"Not at all. I am anti-imperialist because I don\'t like the American presence in Iraq and because I don\'t like Chavez\'s presence with his oil and his money in Peru. That\'s being anti-imperialist.\"

My conclusion: The bad news is that, as weird as it sounds, Peruvians decided in the April 9 election that Garcia -- rather than other candidates with a less questionable past -- will be Humala\'s challenger in the runoff vote.



Alan sorprende sólo a periodistas nacionales. Reenvien esto a sus amigos del extranjero.

[miguelo]

NO HAY DUDA QUE LOS HUMALISTAS SOLO VEN LA PAJA EN EL OJO AJENO. LO MAS INTERESANTE ES QUE AHORA TODA SU CAMPAÑA SE BASA EN ATACAR AL APRA, LO CUAL HACIA TAMBIEN FERNANDO OLIVERA Y MUCHOS OTROS PARTIDOS TRADICIONALES LOS CUALES EL TANTO CRITICA. Y AHORA SALEN CON OPPENHEIMER, PERO YA SE OLVIDARON ACASO LA ENTREVISTA EN LA CUAL OLLANTA HUMALA QUEDO MUY MAL PARADO EN EL PROGRAMA DE OPPENHEMIR. AQUI LAS CONCLUSIONES DEL MISMO PERIODISTA.

\" Mis conclusiones: Humala es un político astuto y más preparado de lo que yo pensaba. Lo que me preocupa de él no es su línea económica, que podría cambiar en el futuro a medida que descubra que Perú no puede crecer sin inversión, sino el hecho de que no tome distancia de su pecado original: la rebelión militar que encabezó en el 2000.

¿Por qué es preocupante eso? Porque estamos viendo -primero, en Venezuela; después, en Ecuador; ahora, en Perú- el mismo fenómeno: un oficial del ejército con ambiciones políticas organiza una rebelión militar, gana notoriedad sin gastar un centavo en publicidad, sale de la prisión con un discurso radical destinado a mantener su nombre en las primera planas, sube en las encuestas, se postula para presidente y gana.

Quebrar el estado de derecho se está convirtiendo en una receta para ganar elecciones. Eso es un precedente peligroso.

Por Andrés Oppenheimer\"

[RAUL DE JULIACA]