Economy & Trade, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

PERU: Protests, Unrest Spread in Wake of Privatisations

Abraham Lama

LIMA, Jun 18 2002 (IPS) - Protests against the privatisation of public services continues to spread throughout Peru, in spite of the state of emergency and military intervention that the Alejandro Toledo government ordered in the southern city where the disturbances erupted.

University student Edgard Pinto died Monday from injuries he suffered during protests on the weekend in Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city. At least 100 people have been hurt in clashes with the police.

The government suspended the right to assemble and imposed a curfew from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am daily. Some 700 soldiers and 1,000 police are patrolling the streets of this city of 750,000 people.

Some districts of Arequipa are deserted due to the general strike convened by the Frente Amplio de Defensa (Defence Front of Arequipa), though protests continued in the city’s central plazas and demonstrators set up roadblocks and burned tires at several locations.

A mission led by the Catholic archbishop and including five government ministers headed for Arequipa on Tuesday to find a way to quell the unrest.

In Tacna, a city in the extreme south, near the Chilean border, an estimated 4,000 people gathered Tuesday for a demonstrations led by former army recruits. The shirtless former soldiers were at the head of the protests and the clashes with the police.

Demonstrators in Tacna have damaged the federal government offices in that city and attacked the government-run TV station, the Supreme Court and some local banks. Authorities reported 30 arrests and five people wounded.

The municipal government in Cusco, in the southern sierra, announced a strike Tuesday in support of the protests in Arequipa, despite a declaration by the president of Congress that the local hydroelectric plant will not be privatised.

In Iquitos, at the other extreme of the country, in the northeastern Amazon jungle, the powerful local political group known as the Patriotic Front is preparing a protest “against the privatisation of the forests,” referring to the logging concessions the federal government has granted in the area.

And in Lima, the banner against privatisation is being carried by those who oppose the project to sell the state-run waterworks and sewerage firm.

Opinion polls indicate that just 17 percent of the Peruvian population supports the government’s privatisation efforts. Those opposed to privatisation cite several reasons for their position, which vary by region and by case.

But the predominant arguments heard are that public services should be managed by the regional authorities, that the private companies pay less than what the enterprise is worth and that when they take the reigns of the company there are massive layoffs and service prices increase.

Juan Manuel Guillén, mayor of Arequipa and president of the Frente Amplio de Defensa, joined 23 mayors from cities of various departments of the southern region in a hunger strike in protest against the Toledo government’s privatisation plans. The hunger strike is in its sixth day.

The mayors of Arequipa, Tacna, Puno and Cusco – all southern cities – are planning to gather for a “summit” meeting on Wednesday.

Military supervisor Gen. Oscar Gómez, reported Monday that there were no arrests or detentions in Arequipa and that his soldiers were only defending public buildings and local shops.

“We will not take any action against the media, which can continue issuing their opinions free of censure or pressure from anyone,” said Gómez.

Arequipa attorney Eduardo Zapater commented that the military “has been burned by the charges of human rights violations during the government of former president (Alberto) Fujimori (1990-2000), and I don’t think that they are willing to risk new accusations. They will only do what the civilian authorities request in writing.”

“Television Channel 4 and Melodía Radio continue reporting on the street protests and disseminating the communiqués of the Frente de Defensa, in spite of the fact that Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliossi called them propagandists of violence,” said Arequipa journalist Ursula Rondó.

“Housewives have joined the massive demonstrations by banging on pots and pans outside their homes. Since this morning, the sound of the banging spreads across the city in waves, from one extreme to the other,” she reported Monday.

The disturbances erupted Friday, a day after Arequipa’s state- run electricity companies, Egasa and Egasur, were sold to the Belgium-based corporation Tractebel for 167 million dollars in a public bidding process that attracted no other bidders.

The sale took place in spite of a court ruling prohibiting the transaction.

Most of the Arequipa population and the city authorities have opposed the privatisation since the possibility was first announced by the former Fujimori government.

Fernando Olivero, the current justice minister, denounced last year that legal authorities in Belgium were investigating Tractebel, which was accused of bribery in obtaining contracts.

The relatively peaceful protests Friday drew harsh repression from the police, who used tear gas grenades as projectiles against the demonstrators, injuring nearly a hundred people as a result.

The police crackdown and the statements by Interior minister Rospigliossi, who asserts that only a tiny group is opposed to the privatisations, only aggravated the tension and the violence, which on Saturday included the takeover of the local airport and the torching of several public buildings.

Leaders of the Frente Amplio de Defensa rejected President Toledo’s promise – announced Sunday on television – to invest 85 million dollars, nearly half the revenues from the privatisation, in social programmes for the city.

Mayor Guillén said he would not engage in dialogue with government representatives as long as the state of emergency and suspension of constitutional rights continues in Arequipa.

“We propose a referendum so that the government in Lima can verify that more than 90 percent of the population of Arequipa is against the privatisation of Egasa and Egasur. In the meantime, the sale must be stopped. There is no other road to conciliation,” said the mayor.

Former president Alan García (1985-1990), leader of the opposition Peruvian Aprista Party, has suggested creating a mediation commission made up of lawmakers from the non-governing parties in order to put an end to the climate of confrontation.

“The problem is not only the rejection of privatisation of a public services company – always a sensitive issue – but also the political dishonesty entailed when a president breaks the promise he made during his electoral campaign,” said García.

The Aprista leader pointed out that Toledo signed a document in the presence of mayor Guillén in March 2001 in which he promised not to privatise the companies that are now being sold.

Opposition lawmaker Arturo Valderrama distributed copies of that document during the bidding process in which only Tractebel participated.

“Such insistence and haste is a strange way to handle such a vulnerable contract, not only because it does not meet the legal requirement of a minimum of three bidders, but also because there is a judicial ruling pending on the matter,” García said.

Southern Peru is where Toledo garnered strongest support in the 2001 elections, which is what put him in the presidency.

 
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