However it is clear that the turmoil is only beginning. On November 7, 1991 there was an impressive general strike throughout the country called by the various union confederations. The authorities replied with dozens of killings and arrests. There were violent clashes and buses were burnt. The Perez' government's hard line neo-liberalism has weakened the traditional role of the Venezuelan state. Fewer and fewer people continue to believe that the institutions can be the mediators of conflict. The different social classes are arming themselves to defend their interests. * 1. Carlos Andres Perez was re-elected president at the head of the Democratic Action (AD) party with 54.5% of the vote on December 4, 1988. He had previously been president from 1974 to 1979. He has for a long time been the most prominent Social Democratic leader in Latin America, involved in various diplomatic initiatives relating to the Central American conflict. 2. The poor of Caracas are confined to the slopes on the sides of the motorways which surround the capital. From these shanty towns the whole city can be seen; as a result their people can easily control the means of communication and encircle the middle class neighbourhoods. 3. See Alai, no. 142. 4. Since 1989 there have been several mini-caracazos in some up country towns and villages such as Merida. 5. Owing to the economic crisis, many armed gangs of youth have been formed in some neighbourhoods, 27 involved in robberies and drug trafficking.
April 27, 1992 •
PERU From the Fujishock to the Fujicoup "WE are already seeing the first fruits of the government formed by such men. The country has regressed to governmental individualism. The authority of the Congress has been subordinated to the whims of the President of the Republic. A little bureaucratic organism has been created to fabricate representatives. The most tranquil and most effective of electoral coups realized in the Republic has been accomplished".1
This phrase of the historic founder of Peruvian Marxism José Carlos Mariàtegui aptly sums up the coup d'état carried out on April 6, 1992 by the Peruvian President traffic. The first decree put out by the so-called "emergency government of national reconstruction". ", nominated after the coup, grotesquely claims that its objectives are to "punish drastically all cases of immorality and of corruption in public administration".