Chronicle of a detestable
-EOLIBERALISM: Fujimori has sold off more than 150 state companies, 80%, basically in the areas of the main export products and services, like mining, fishing, oil, telephones, electricity, mail, and so, many of them at derisory prices, probably in exchange for the payment of "commissions". As we will see later, most of that money has disappeared. Almost all the workers were dismissed, many without receiving compensation.
He closed the farming development bank. He opened the doors for the free import of industrial products, thus destroying a great part of national industry. Also he opened the doors to the free import of agricultural products, some subsidized in their countries of origin, crushing national agriculture which does not receive subsidies or any help. He significantly reduced payments to pensioners and expenditure on health and education. This policy has elevated Peru to 4th place in world poverty, with 49% of the population living in poverty. More than 10 million inhabitants have an income of less than a dollar a day. He has been enthusiastic and exemplary in paying the foreign debt. When he entered government Peru owed $13 billion. Now it has paid $13 billion and owes $19 billion.
CENTRALISM: Centralism has worsened: his constitution abolished local parliamentarians, now all are chosen at national level. Until today he has not called regional elections as the law requires, the governors of the regions are civil employees named by him. The municipalities only receive 3.8% of the national budget. Their members are the only elected authorities, in addition to the president and members of parliament, the rest consists of authorities named by Fujimori. The "Ministry of the Presidency" is responsible for works in all corners of the country, where big announcements appear to remind everyone that it is the Presidency of the Republic that has carried them out.
ROBBERIES: S8 billion of the priva22 International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000 regime
THE people of Peru continue to mobilize against the fraudulent election victory of President
Alberto Fujimori in May. In this contribution a veteran Peruvian revolutionary lists the crimes of the Fujimori regime.
### HUGO BLANCO* tization receipts have disappeared. Fujimori says that it was used to buy arms and that he cannot give any account of it because it is a "military secret" . It is calculated that Vladimiro Montesinos, the power behind the throne, has $55 million in various foreign banks, the interest being paid monthly to a bank in Peru, but it is prohibited to investigate this. Fujimori says that the work of Montesinos as real head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), (the apparatus of espionage for the government against its political enemies, the independent press and "friends", , to blackmail them) is ad-honorem.
MASSACRES: Of the massacres in Lima, the most significant are those of professors and students at a teaching university, participants in a popular neighbourhood fiesta and the members of the MRTA that surrendered in the Japanese embassy. In the interior of the country there have been many more, especially of peasants. In addition there are the individual murders, like that of the main leader of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, supposedly carried out by Sendero Luminoso, but later discovered to have been perpetrated by SIN.
There are two new developments: One is that Fujimori has announced that SIN will be "redimensioned" to impel the democratization of the country. The other is that general Russel Paredes Loop, who was commander of the "antisubversive" unit Sinchis, active in one of the areas where more innocent blood was shed, Ayacucho, now will be in charge of "security" in Lima. We can calculate what awaits the popular movement against the dictatorship in the capital of the country.
FRAUD: The electoral fraud was prepared from 1996, when Congress approved the "Law of Authentic Interpretation" authorizing Fujimori to run for a second term against the stipulations of his own Fujimorista Constitution.
The Fujimorista parliament removed the autonomy of the judiciary and thus the National Jury of Elections (JNE) was changed to the taste of the government. The regime had three bodies in charge of the elections, one them, the ONE, was in charge of directing the operation of falsification of more of a million signatures for the inscription of Fujimori's organization "Peru 2000"
State funds have been used for the electoral campaign of the President. All the state apparatuses, as well as the army, have been used for the same aim. The television channels were electoral instruments of the government, closed to the opposition. The same was true of a series of very cheap semi-pornographic newspapers. An independent channel was seized from its proprietor. Exit polls showed Toledo winning in the first round. Nevertheless, the official figures indicated that Fujimori was the winner.
Toledo's programme was essentially no different from that followed by Fujimori. But, increasingly dependent on popular support, he radicalized, promising decentralization, support for agriculture, the fight against corruption, wage increases, an end to government intervention in the universities, and so on. Luckily, on the night of the first round, when the nature of the fraud was clear and with an enormous demonstration before him, he followed the people and went with them to the government palace to protest against the fraud.
With the reaction of the international press and various governments Fujimori had to back down and change his plan to win on the first count. Soon, the O.A.S. mission, the Carter center and other international and national observers requested