Peru at the Brink of Civil War?
The Uprising of the Dispossessed
by Peter Koenig / June 25th, 2021
On 28 July 2021, Peru, with her 33 million inhabitants, celebrates 200 years of Independence. The People of Peru may have chosen this Bicentennial celebration to bring about a drastic change to their foreign and national oligarchy-run country. In a neck-on-neck national election run-off on 6 June 2021, the socialist Pedro Castillo, a humble primary school professor from rural Cajamarca, a Northern Peruvian Province, rich in mining resources, but also in agricultural land, seems to be winning by a razor thin margin of less than 100,000 votes against the oligarch-supported Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, currently in prison – or rather house arrest for “ill-health” – for corruption and crimes against humanity during his presidency 1990-2000.
Election results have been considered as fair by the pro-US, pro-capitalist Organization of American States (OAS). The same organization that supported the post-election US-instigated coup against Evo Morales in November 2019. Either they have learned a lesson of ethics, or there were too many international observers watching over OAS’s election observations. Or, as a third option, Washington may have yet a different agenda for this part of their “backyard”.
Keiko Fujimori, before becoming a Presidential candidate, was in prison under preventive arrest, while under investigation into corruption and human rights abuse. She is currently collecting millions from her ruling-class elite supporters and spending her own ill-begotten money to turn the election result around. Ten days after the elections, no definite result been published yet. For Keiko becoming President is not only a question of power, it is also a question of freedom under government immunity, or back to prison, at least until the investigation into her alleged crimes is completed.
All is possible in a country where money buys everything, and may convert clearly and visibly intended cast votes either as invalid or as a vote for the opponent. This is Peru, but to be sure, election fraud happens even in the most sophisticated countries, including in Peru’s North American neighbor, who pretends to run the world.
However, should this turn-around happen, Keiko Fujimori and her capitalist supporters are working so hard to achieve, the country risks a civil war. Because this is the moment for the vast majority of Peruvians that they have been waiting for; those Peruvians that have always been considered as “non-people” by the oligarchy. They should now finally get their justice, get their piece of the very rich pie that is Peru. After two hundred years of an oligarchy-ruled nation, this mostly silent majority truly deserves a break. They were good enough to work, to rake in the millions from low paid, health-risky mining jobs, from low-paid agriculture work, from living lives at the margin by discrimination from their white capitalist rulers. No more. “ Pedro Castillo is one of us.
Looking back in history just blending in a few landmark moments. The 1989 Washington Consensus that not only “coincidentally” preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union, but more importantly perhaps for the Global South, it meant the rolling out in “warp speed” of neoliberal politics and economics, the enslavement of the Global South into poverty – many of them into extreme poverty. There was no escaping. The IMF, World Bank, FED and all related so-called regional development banks played along.
More:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/06/peru-at-the-brink-of-civil-war/