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    Peru

    A good Peruvian friend, who is an activist and from an indigenous community has been active on facebook today. Turns out that former president Alan Garcia has shot himself in the neck as he was being arrested today. He's in critical condition (and it doesn't sound like he will make it to be honest). She (my friend) is happy about this, because she says he's a destroyer of the country. Reading a little it seems that Peru is possibly even more corrupt than Romania, with the last 5 presidents either in jail or under investigation. Any Peru experts on here?

    #2
    The guy died.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ical-condition

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      #3
      I was once part of a team trying to finance and build a significant infrastructure project in Peru.

      That experience leads me to think that ad hoc's description of the pervasiveness of corruption is accurate.

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        #4
        Does anyone have a handle on what's going on in Peru? The news last week was pretty unanimous in framing events as an attempted Coup d'etat. But I've seen stuff in twitter this morning with people protesting for the guy who got arrested and tying it in with wanting to rewrite a neolibral constitution.

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          #5
          I know that Paddington always looked like a complete wrong 'un.

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            #6
            Seen very little half-decent commentary on the situation, Levin

            Will share if I come across any.

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              #7
              I spent about a month travelling in Peru with an Argentinian guide. My only commentary on corruption in Peru is that the Argentinian guide told us we could do whatever we liked as long as we were willing to bribe any police who came. And without going into too many details, we found that to be very true.

              We also briefly experienced a bit of political unrest there. We were in Arequipa and one day drove past a small crowd outside a government building who seemed to have set fire to a car tyre. We didn't think too much of it as we were learning that these sort of scenes were not completely atypical for South America in 2002, so we carried on with our day of sightseeing and left for our next destination the following day with no complications.

              A couple of backpackers who we'd made friends with and who stayed in the city updated us on further events. The protest spread and expanded considerably, leading to a military crackdown complete with tanks rolling into the city and shots being fired at protesting crowds. Police were stationed outside all hotels where foreigners were known to be staying and they weren't allowed to leave for about a week.

              There's a bit of information on it here: https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/200...8981024353600/

              The border between Peru and Ecuador was also a bit hairy. You walked across a sort of mile long no-man's land with shacks and stalls, people trying to sell you currency and passports until you get to a little hut where your passport can be rubber stamped again and you're back in a country that has the relative safety of containing embassies. For many South Americans they seemed to have quite free travel between different countries as long as they made the trip regularly, but we met a stoned Ecuadorian at a hotel in Northern Peru who had forgotten to do the trip once and instead stayed in Peru for seven years rather than being jailed for overstaying his visa.

              Bolivia was interesting. There were "police" with heavy weaponry but who were just wearing khaki green t-shirts with the word "policia" written on the back in biro. I asked our tour guide whether they were really police officers. He said that for the first year, Bolivian police officers wages goes towards paying for their uniform and they're only issued with the full set if they make it through the first year, by which point they've been so desperately in need of funds that they are fully indoctrinated in the ways of accepting bribes and shaking down the general public.

              Cocaine was absolutely everywhere throughout Bolivia and Peru. Guys carrying bin bags full of it in the bathrooms of nightclubs and offering to sell you as much as someone could scoop up with their hands for five dollars.

              I don't know anything about what's happening at the moment though. None of my information is based on official sources and is all twenty years out of date, so I'd take it with a massive pinch of salt.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post

                The border between Peru and Ecuador was also a bit hairy. You walked across a sort of mile long no-man's land with shacks and stalls
                Interesting. There was quite a long standing border dispute between the two countries which culminated first in a very small "war" - 60 dead - and then final resolution in 1999. So that was very soon afterwards.

                As for the current state of affairs, like others I'd be interested to know what was going on last week. Clearly the actions of the President seem like an attempted coup, trying to dissolve congress to prevent impeachment. But were the impeachment proceedings were based on an actual crime, or whether they were fabricated? Is the replacement President (former vice-President) basically of the same political persuasion and going to follow the same policies? If so, you'd think the coup was from the President attempting to avoid genuine corruption accusations, but if not you have to wonder if this is a coup by the Peruvian congress to get rid of an inconveniently left-wing President.

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                  #9
                  Wow, it seems as though Italy would consider Peruvian politics to be cartoonishly unstable and frankly a bit much. They like their spiralling turmoil don't they?

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                    Wow, it seems as though Italy would consider Peruvian politics to be cartoonishly unstable and frankly a bit much. They like their spiralling turmoil don't they?
                    i don't think they do like it, no.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                      As for the current state of affairs, like others I'd be interested to know what was going on last week. Clearly the actions of the President seem like an attempted coup, trying to dissolve congress to prevent impeachment. But were the impeachment proceedings were based on an actual crime, or whether they were fabricated? Is the replacement President (former vice-President) basically of the same political persuasion and going to follow the same policies? If so, you'd think the coup was from the President attempting to avoid genuine corruption accusations, but if not you have to wonder if this is a coup by the Peruvian congress to get rid of an inconveniently left-wing President.
                      From what I've read, the VP who's taken over had become disenchanted with how the former president was going about things. But lest my location give anyone the idea that I have more of a clue than the rest of you what I'm talking about here, I should point out that I read one article a few days ago, and can't now even remember whether I read it in English or Spanish, never mind what sort of political stripe the source in question was.

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                        #12
                        Short article in the FT about the Peru 'coup' that basically said Rich people now happier and Poor not

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                          #13
                          That seems quite likely.

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                            #14
                            I remember when the election was held recently for President, where the voting pattern is the opposite of most other places I was aware of, in that the right-of-centre voters are concentrated in cities, and the left-of-centre voters in rural areas.

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                              #15
                              In part that reflects the relative disadvantage of the indigenous population.

                              The fault lines here are numerous and complicated.

                              I think that this is the FT piece referenced above (they also have a leader, which is what one would expect)


                              Peru’s new president, Dina Boluarte, on Saturday appointed a moderate cabinet that could calm investor nerves after the downfall of Pedro Castillo, who was impeached and arrested after attempting to shut down congress and rule by fiat. Investors will hope that stability is restored to the executive branch after the chaotic 16-month tenure of the leftist former schoolteacher Castillo. Over 80 ministers passed through his cabinet, including five prime ministers and three finance ministers. Lawyer Pedro Miguel Angulo was announced in the role of prime minister, while Ana Cecilia Gervasi is the new foreign minister. Former police general César Cervantes will serve as interior minister, overseeing the country’s police.

                              Alex Contreras, who served as deputy finance minister in the previous government and previously worked at Peru’s central bank, will serve as finance minister continuing with Castillo’s preference for career economists in the crucial cabinet post. Recommended Instant InsightMichael Stott Peru’s broken political system urgently needs a fix Castillo remains in custody in a police base on the outskirts of Lima. He was apprehended on Wednesday shortly after announcing the dissolution of the country’s congress and the formation of an emergency government. Lawmakers had been preparing to vote on his impeachment. That vote was then brought forward and Castillo was impeached by a margin of 101-6. Boluarte, Castillo’s vice-president, was swiftly sworn in as president and the country’s first female head of state. In an abruptly organised ceremony she vowed to bring stability to the country with a pluralist cabinet. She said on social media that her predecessor’s gambit amounted to “a coup”.

                              Peru has had six presidents in little over four years. In 2020, it had three in one week. But the economy of the world’s second-largest copper exporter had weathered the political instability until it was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the extreme dysfunction of the Castillo administration. Growth in the Andean nation was stable for much of the past two decades, though the finance ministry last month lowered its economic growth expectations for 2022 from 3.3 per cent to between 2.7 per cent and 3 per cent. In October, rating agency Fitch revised the country’s outlook from “stable” to “negative”. Markets did not move much this week, though they did seem to react slightly to Castillo’s removal, with the dollar bond maturing in 2031 trading just above 86 cents on the dollar on Friday, having dipped on Wednesday to about 84.6 cents.

                              Before this week’s fireworks, congress had twice tried unsuccessfully to impeach Castillo, while investigators launched multiple investigations into him and his family for graft. One of Boluarte’s first challenges will be to mend the wounds left by Castillo’s dramatic ouster on Wednesday. Protests in support of the leftist former schoolteacher have broken out in towns and cities across the country. Demonstrators have blocked highways calling for his release, while others have gathered outside the police base on the outskirts of Lima where he is being held. Castillo’s approval rating nationwide stood at around 31 per cent, while in rural areas it was 45 per cent, according to polls late last month by the Institute of Peruvian Studies. Castillo hails from the impoverished and rural Chota province in northern Peru. Before narrowly winning the presidency last year, he had supplemented his income as a teacher with subsistence farming.

                              We’ve always supported Castillo because he is one of us,” said Pilar Pillaca, who had travelled from the southern province of Ayacucho to attend a protest in downtown Lima. “We’re from Andes and we want a government that represents us, not just the people in Lima.” Another protester said Boluarte was illegitimate. “Castillo is our legitimate president,” said Wilmer Díaz, a taxi driver from the capital. “Boluarte shouldn’t be there, congress should be closed.” The relative newcomer joined Castillo’s ticket during last year’s bitter election campaign, and served as both vice-president and his minister for development and social inclusion. But her resume in public life does not run much longer — aside from a failed bid to run for mayor of one of Lima’s districts, she worked as a practising lawyer for 18 years. The personal and political stakes are high too. If she is forced from office, new elections must be called. She previously broke with Peru Libre, the Marxist party on whose ticket Castillo campaigned. The party holds a minority bloc in congress. “Her main challenge is to build a pro-government bloc,” said Gonzalo Banda, a Peruvian political analyst and columnist. “In Peru, not having a bench is a symptom of the president’s weakness.” “At the moment there are protests which, although they are not massive in the regions of Peru, do suggest that the government will be very shaken by social discontent.”

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                                #16
                                This whole "six presidents in four years" thing. So I agree that's it's less than ideal but it's being presented as an outrageous thing that could only happen in a third world country.

                                The UK has had four prime ministers in the last three years and you only have to go back six years for it to be five prime ministers plus Nick Clegg as deputy when we had the coalition.

                                Though admittedly this is more an example of the brokenness of the UK's current political system rather than the stability of the Peruvian one.

                                Italy has to go back 8 years to 2014 before it gets to its sixth most recent prime minister.

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                                  #17
                                  My grandfather was born in 1913. He lived for nearly 95 years and saw 18 prime ministers. Though some of those prime ministers left and returned (Winston Churchill, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin).

                                  My mum is 71 and has lived through 15 different prime ministers.

                                  I'm 40 and have lived through 9 different British prime ministers.

                                  My oldest niece is 25. She's seen 7.

                                  My youngest niece is 15. She's seen 6.

                                  My daughter is 9. She's seen 5 prime ministers already (or 6 if you include Nick Clegg).

                                  My son is 6. He's seen as many prime ministers as his big sister.

                                  There is definitely a trend of accelerating prime ministers.

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                                    #18

                                    a moderate cabinet that could calm investor nerves
                                    Couldn't they just take beta blockers instead of overthrowing governments

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                                      #19
                                      Well he did try to shut down Congress which isn't exactly the mark of a democrat.

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                                        #20
                                        Unless Congress’s motives for impeaching him were corrupt and political rather than because of any actual wrongdoing on his part. Which is the key question.

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                                          #21
                                          Oh yeah totally. This all looks murky as fuck.

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                                            #22
                                            I remember when the election was held recently for President, where the voting pattern is the opposite of most other places I was aware of, in that the right-of-centre voters are concentrated in cities, and the left-of-centre voters in rural areas.
                                            I think there's quite a lot of that across Latin America tbh. If you look at some of the radical/leftish movements of the past two or three decades - yer Landless Movement in Brazil, yer Zapatistas, etc - they're rural movements almost by definition. Whether that's to do with levels of industrialisation (or not), land ownership patterns, country size (the difficulty of migrating to cities if you're rural and working class perhaps), I don't know. I'm thinking off the top of my head here but these patterns do interest me.

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                                              #23
                                              A friend who I did my MA with is an indigenous activist in Peru. She is calling for new elections and says the following on facebook, which roughly translated says, more or less, 'they're all cunts"

                                              Hace muchos años yo también pensaba que la violencia era la partera de la historia. Luego vino Sendero con su violencia sin fin y caí en cuenta que toda vida era valiosa y que quienes hacemos política tenemos la responsabilidad de ayudar a construir salidas y no dedicarnos a agudizar más las contradicciones que ya se han llevado al menos a tres vidas jóvenes. Pedro Castillo con su reciente carta no hace otra cosa que poner más leña al fuego. El Congreso hace lo mismo con su aprobación express del levantamiento de sus garantías. Dina declara estado de emergencia y la gente sigue muriendo. No me representan.

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                                                #24
                                                Which of them would she vote for in new elections?
                                                Last edited by DCI Harry Batt; 13-12-2022, 10:17.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I think her sympathies closest lie with Castillo, but in the post above she despairs of him "putting wood on the fire". She's very against "Dina" the new president.

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