| The jungle
closes in, flowers of a thousand different varieties and colors grow unmolested
on road and hillside. The road winds upward, then levels as the forest
opens up to a vista of pasture and terraced rice paddies. In six years
I haven’t lost the sense. Another world, another time.
The Presidency
of Alan Garcia (1985-1990) was notable for several things. One was
runaway inflation that at one point reached 7600% per annum. It was a common
joke that in Lima it took a wheelbarrow full of Soles to buy a loaf of
bread and that the baker would throw away the money and keep the wheelbarrow.
Another notable
event that occurred under Mr. Garcia’s watch was the rise of the Sendero
Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla movement. Their funding for weaponry
came from their alliance with the Peruvian/Colombian Coca Cartels, who
did a bang up business in the Eastern hill towns of Peru. They’re still
around to this day, in greatly reduced numbers, providing security services
for the Peruvian/Colombian Opium Cartels, amongst other things. Opium poppies
have become a cash crop in this area due to the return in favor of heroin
in the US. Our war in Afghanistan cut off the supply from that part of
the world and the ever-enterprising Coca Lords stepped in to fill the gap.
Huipoca, Aguaytia,
Tingo Maria, Huanuco and dozens of other hill towns that most of the world
has never heard of, prospered mightily during this time. The National Police
and Army were bought and paid for with US Dollars, National Bankers flew
in daily to exchange plane loads of soles for dollars and the Colombians
paved the highway that interconnected these towns, not out of any misguided
sense of civic responsibility, but in order to land their Cessnas to facilitate
fast loading and shipment of coca paste.
Those were
heady times reminiscent of the American Wild West or the Speakeasy Days
of Prohibition. But it all came with a price. The sun rose daily over
the dead in the Plazas, casualties in the Cartel’s private wars. The terrorists,
knowing no bounds, inflicted heavy casualties on the civilian population
in order to “liberate” them. The end had to come. And it did with the election
of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). He ruled with an iron fist and the common
people loved him. They still do to this day. He showed no mercy to terrorists,
coca cartels, or corrupt military and police officials. He gave the Peruvian
Marines carte blanche from the Brazilian and Colombian borders to the crest
of the foothills, an area roughly the size of New Jersey, relegating the
Army to little more than garrison duties. Known Colombian drug dealers
were shot on sight and buried in the jungle without ceremony. Terrorists
were hunted into near-extinction and corrupt military and police officials
tried by secret Military Tribunals then disappeared into the bowels of
a prison system that knows neither favor nor mercy. In 1999-2000, following
isolated mop-up operations by the Marines, the area was declared Zona Blanca
and the war was officially over.
Then came Fujimori’s
fall from grace aided and abetted by the press and by his own shadowy Chief
of Internal Security, one Vladimiro Montesinos. Scandals and accusations
followed one after the other and Fujimori fled to his native Japan, where
he remains to this day, openly plotting his return to Peruvian politics.
Montesinos, after a brief hiatus in hiding in the slums of Caracas, Venezuela
is now incarcerated in the Naval prison in the port of Callao where he
awaits trial and sentencing on a myriad of charges. He faces several dozen
consecutive life sentences. There is a dual irony here: he designed the
prison, and one of his fellow inmates is the nefarious Abimael Guzman,
as mentioned before the head of Sendero Luminoso. Not to be left unsaid,
Mr. Montesinos helped engineer the capture of the old phony Guzman.
After an interim
government and heated election in 2001, Alejandro Toledo, Andean aborigine,
former shoeshine boy, and Stanford educated economist was elected President.
Close second was his rival Alan Garcia. It appears that North Americans
aren’t the only ones with short memories. Due to his penchant for discourse
as opposed to heavy-handed action, crime is on the rise in the countryside.
Civil trials are proffered over secret military tribunals or summary executions
by the roadside, which is, perhaps, as it should be, but hardened veterans
of guerilla and/or drug wars are all too willing and able to take advantage
of the new civility. Case in point: recently an armed robber, on trial
for his crimes, attacked a judge with a chair in open court. When sentenced
to
twenty years for his crime and misbehavior, he simply laughed, knowing
he’d be released within six months. Perhaps, when dealing with savagery,
civility isn’t the appropriate response, something men like Fujimori instinctively
know, a lesson we could well relearn and reapply in the US. At any rate
the government has declared the cordillera Zona Roja once again.
The following
are the previous articles that Vagabundo wrote for the magazine:
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