Peru’s Government thwarts general strike

Press, 20 January 1979, Page 14

Peru’s Government thwarts general strike

From the “Economist,” London

Peru’s army earlier this month launched a first strike against a general strike. Shortly before a three-day stoppage was due on January 9, the Government imposed martial law, and had 700-800 union leaders rounded up. At 1 a.m. on Tuesday, January 9, fully-equipped combat troops moved into Lima’s shanty towns and took up positions at the main crossroads in the capital. Little violence was reported. Previous general strikes in Peru have been both violent and -effective. In July, 1977, 40 people were killed in clashes between strikers and troops, causing the Govern-

ment of General Morales Bermudez to panic and break off negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for desperately needed credits. Last May, another general strike, held in protest against food and petrol price rises of up to 150 per cent, claimed almost as many lives. But on that occasion the Army stood behind the new civilian Finance Minister, Mr Silva Ruete, in enforcing the austerity measures demanded by the I.M.F. in exchange for its seal of approval. Without an I.M.F. nod, Peru would have been unable to persuade the counrty’s creditors to roll

over more than 81750 M worth of debts falling due this year and next. As part of the austerity, Peru’s armed forces have been persuaded to change their free-spending ways; the Navy, for example, was made to cancel two of four frigates it had ordered from Italy. The increase in the defence budget over the coming year has been kept down to 20 per cent — inflation is running at 75 per cent — and other government departments have accepted no increase at all. The new economics team (the Finance Minister and the Governor of the Central Bank) has staggered price increases of essential goods to make them frequent and small rather than occasional

and huge. None the less, austerity has been biting deeply in a country where some 40 per cent of the urban population is living at subsistence level, and where real wages have been cut in half in the past three years. The communist-dominated General Confederation of Peruvian Workers called the strike against this economic hardship. The Communist Party was hoping to prompt supporters of General Velasco Alvarado, the radical soldier who ran Peru between 1968 and 1975, to try to seize power again. The party is trying to prevent the General Election and the return to civilian rule promised for next year. At an election last June for

an assembly to draw up a new democratic constitution for Peru, the Communists won only 6 per cent of the vote, compared with 35 per cent for A.P.R.A., the country’s traditional Lefttalking, Right-leaning populist party, and 26 per cent for the Right-of-Centre Social Christian Party. A.P.R.A.’s leader, the octogenerian president of the Constituent Assembly, Mr Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, is now co-operating with the Government in exchange for the promise of free elections, and instructed his party’s unions not to take part in the strike. A far Left party, F.0.C.E.P., which won 12 per cent at June’s election, went along with the strike unenthusiastically