By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on August 12, 2021
For imperialism and the ultra-racist local and international economic power groups, it is inadmissible to accept that the first cholo, schoolteacher and Andean peasant in Peruvian history should become president, in such a strategically important country, just at a time of revival of popular struggles and the rise of leftist governments in the region. Ever since the overthrow by a right-wing coup of General and President Juan Velasco Alvarado (1975) -also of humble, cholo and northern Andean origin-, imperialism took Peru for granted as its docile dependency.
In effect, all the occupants of the Pizarro Palace since then have been lackeys of the United States and the oligarchy, robbers of the public treasury in collusion with the Legislative and Judicial powers. In this context, the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori played a fundamental role in the application of neoliberalism and the repression of social protest, and today Fujimorism is the most important shock force of the extreme right.
In effect, all the occupants of the Pizarro Palace since then have been lackeys of the United States and the oligarchy, robbers of the public treasury in collusion with the Legislative and Judicial powers. In this context, the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori played a fundamental role in the application of neoliberalism and the repression of social protest, and today Fujimorism is the most important shock force of the extreme right. The political decomposition and institutional crisis led to the extreme that, as of 2016, the country has had four presidents in the last five-year constitutional period.
For his part, Pedro Castillo, a man of deep Peru who at the head of his high office will continue, by his own decision, with his modest salary as a teacher and whose government program seeks to benefit the majorities and defend the national interest unlike neoliberal presidents, has not been granted a minute of truce since he assumed the presidency just 15 days ago. He has been subjected to, along with several of his collaborators, a rain of lies, slander, insults and half-truths by the local and international hegemonic media, which furiously oppose him. These media, by exception, tell some truth, such as the categorical refusal of Castillo and his collaborators to attack Cuba and Venezuela. Over the years they have created such a mendacious and distorted opinion matrix about those two countries -dictatorships that kill and disappear, according to them, when in truth they are the most democratic in our region-, that their mere mention frightens many honest people. This is a topic to be debated relentlessly with solid arguments in the battle of ideas between the popular forces and the world media dictatorship and the handful of corporations that control them, in one of the most opposing and damaging facts even for the procedural democracy existing today. Let alone that in this climate, if not with serious setbacks, a participatory democracy and a new constitutional order such as the one promised by Pedro Castillo in his campaign.
Castillo has solid social support in the areas that voted for him and is viewed with sympathy in many others, but he only has 37 seats in Parliament plus five from his ally Juntos por el Perú, out of a total of 130, and could be deposed -vacancy as they call it – if the right wing manages to gather a majority of votes, something not improbable; eventually they could attempt a coup d’état. The small margin of victory that he gained over his rival does not favor him because Fujimorism has made many people swallow the mantra of fraud.
But it is clear that the moral symbolism of Pedro Castillo’s presidency is of extraordinary historical importance. Rarely has the left succeeded in raising to the presidency such a representative person, coming directly from the teaching and agricultural work, an expression of the Peru of “all bloods”, of the ayllu. A man whose project awakens great hope in Peru and teaming up with the other revolutionary and progressive leaders of the region. The progressive governments, the leftist and popular forces of our America must remain very alert and ready to prevent any right-wing maneuver that seeks to overthrow our beloved Andean master and president.
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
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