Posted on 03/08/2006 7:28:48 PM PST by blam
Peru's dynasty-in-waiting prepares to deliver another anti-US president
By Jeremy McDermott in Lima
(Filed: 09/03/2006)
One of Latin America's most extraordinary political families is poised to produce another of the continent's Left-wing authoritarian leaders with no love for Washington.
Ollanta Humala is one of two favourites to become Peru's next president, a role for which, to believe his mother, he has been groomed from birth.
Ollanta Humala: ‘I am a nationalist and anti-imperialist’
"We have been preparing our children to take power since they were born," Elena Tasso has said of her eight progeny. "If the boys are not successful this time, then it will be the turn of the girls."
In fact two of her sons, Ollanta and Ulises, are standing as rivals in next month's presidential election and a third, Antauro, is running for parliament.
Faced with not one but two sons to support, the head of the family, Isaac, backs Ulises.
But the father's real enthusiasm is for the eccentric philosophy of "Etnocacerismo".
This racist creed, which Isaac founded, calls on indigenous Americans, whom he calls "coppers", to take on the "whites", and their sidekicks the "blacks", and keep the "yellows" at a safe distance.
"Isaac Humala should be investigated by child care agencies," said a former interior minister, Fernando Rospigliosi. "God only knows what he put into his children's heads during their formative years."
Whatever it was, it prompted his children to take radical action, although Ollanta, 43, is now coy about his own attitude to his father's philosophy.
"The new world struggle is not between the Left and the Right, it is between the globalisers and the globalised and Peru falls into the latter category," he said.
"We have to fight the pernicious effects of globalisation. I am a nationalist and anti-imperialist."
The former army colonel and coup leader is now only a few points behind the frontrunner for the April 9 elections, Lourdes Flores, in polls that underplay his support among the poor. His victory would usher into power yet another Latin American Left-winger hostile to the United States, like his friends Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and President Evo Morales of Bolivia.
He espouses a socialist agenda of nationalisation, xenophobia, (aimed mainly at America and neighbouring Chile), and, like Mr Morales, the legalisation of coca, the raw material for cocaine.
What exactly he would do in power is unclear but a plan to recover Peru's assets from foreign hands and banish neo-liberal economics enjoys huge support from the poor.
One of his first brushes with fame was achieved with Antauro when the two brothers led an unsuccessful military rebellion in October 2000.
Undaunted by his first failed effort at insurrection, Antauro tried again in January last year, taking over the town of Andahuaylas but then surrendering after the death of four policemen.
Antauro is still in prison but running for parliament on Ulises's ticket. These two now accuse Ollanta of "pandering to established political interests".
Ollanta's main rival for the presidency, Miss Flores, 46, is a Right-winger and the darling of the business elite and Lima's middle and upper classes.
Sounds really bright.
Are they going to whine and complain if the USA cuts off aid money?
We could have had an anti-US president here if we'd elected Gore or Kerry in the last few elections.
...He a Yale man?
Ollanta Humala is a quirky character who as an army officer fought the "Shining Path" guerillas, regularly tortured peasants to get information, and is now campaigning for restoration of the death penalty. It is true that he is pals with Chavez and Morales and would be bad news for the United States - and would probably put Peru's already shaky economy on a downward spiral.
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