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<font size="1"><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2021/06/12/peruvian-keiko-fujimori-burn-country-defeat/">https://thegrayzone.com/2021/06/12/peruvian-keiko-fujimori-burn-country-defeat/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Will right-wing Peruvian demagogue Keiko Fujimori burn the country down before accepting defeat?</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Daniel Espinosa · June 12, 2021</div>
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<br><h3>Despite a wave of anti-communist
propaganda and mysterious “terrorist” massacre, leftist teacher Pedro
Castillo has triumphed in Peru’s presidential election. But his
right-wing rival refuses to accept the results.</h3>
<p><strong>LIMA, PERU</strong> – Keiko Fujimori, the political heiress
to the jailed Peruvian former dictator Alberto Fujimori, appears to have
lost her third election in a row. This time, she has been defeated by
Pedro Castillo, a leftist teacher from the rural Andes who narrowly
leads in a deliberately <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillohttps:/www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillo">delayed</a>
poll. Facing a possible 30 years sentence for an array of
corruption-related charges, Keiko is now challenging hundreds of
thousands of ballots already deemed to be valid.</p>
<p>In a move that resembles former US President Donald Trump’s recent
defeat and subsequent rejection of election results, Fujimori is going
for a hat-trick: she has called “fraud” on the two last elections after
losing, both times without success.</p>
<p>This time, only a small suburban elite, a concentration of corporate
outlets controlled by the El Comercio Group and several
ultraconservative publications are on Keiko’s side. However, she is
attempting to compel the masses into the streets in a move that is as
irresponsible as it is dangerous – and which bears distinctive echoes of
Trump inciting his fanatics to storm the US Capitol.</p>
<p>So far, the Peruvian military has respected its mandate as a
non-deliberative body, and has avoided interfering in the political
contest. Even the Organization of American States and Human Rights
Watch, two bodies which normally side with right-wing candidates in
Latin America, have openly rejected Fujimori´s accusation of fraud, and
called for a swift resolution of her weak complaints. For their part,
international observers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillohttps:/www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillo"><span>agree</span></a> that the poll was clean. <span> </span></p>
<p>Fujimori firmly controlled the Congress from 2016 to 2020, shaping
years of political turmoil in what many saw as a bitter revenge for not
winning the Presidency back in 2016, when she lost a hard-fought second
round against the now infamous Pedro Pablo Kukzcynski, who now lives
under house arrest for bribery.</p>
<p>In the last years of a congressional term where her party, the highly
disciplined Fuerza Popular, enjoyed a comfortable majority and many
allies, Keiko directed everything, from an impeachment push to the
advancement of measures deemed essential by her powerful corporate
backers.</p>
<p>In 2018, for example, her party <a href="https://larepublica.pe/economia/1204675-bancada-fujimorista-se-baja-la-ley-de-alimentacion-saludable/"><span>blocked</span></a>
a law that would have informed consumers about high levels of dangerous
food additives in many popular snack products, risking the profit
margins of a business tycoon, Dionisio Romero Jr., who <a href="https://larepublica.pe/politica/2021/05/22/los-us-36-millones-que-dio-romero-paoletti-a-keiko-fujimori-son-de-origen-ilicito-dice-fiscal/"><span>covertly donated</span></a>
millions of dollars for Fujimori’s past campaigns. He did so by taking
backpacks filled with cash to Keiko and her close advisors.</p>
<p>But the years of political control also brought to light revelations
regarding Odebrecht and illegal financial backing like the one mentioned
above: millions of dollars from the Brazilian corporation tied to <i>Lava Jato</i> and the Peruvian banking and corporate elite went unaccounted for, or was “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Force"><span>smurfed</span></a>” into many fake and smaller backers, fractioning the money in lesser and legal donation amounts.</p>
<p>This year’s presidential election in Peru should have ended a few
days ago, as over 98% of votes have been tabulated. But Fujimori´s
denunciations of fraud, disingenuously accepted as legitimate by the
conservative press and sectors of the country’s political establishment,
have completely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillohttps:/www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/keiko-fujimori-claims-irregularities-peru-presidential-election-pedro-castillo"><span>stalled</span></a> Castillo’s validation as president. Today, Peru is waiting for a decision that might “take <a href="https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-06-11/pedro-castillo-ahead-in-peru-election-but-fraud-claim-by-rival-will-delay-official-victory.html"><span>weeks</span></a>,” risking a dangerous surge of social <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/peru-leftist-castillo-inches-nearer-win-sharply-divided-election-2021-06-09/"><span>turmoil</span></a> in the streets.</p>
<h3>A disgraced corporate media empire drives communist apocalypse panic</h3>
<p>A fear campaign targeting Lima, where slightly less than a third of
Peruvians live, has driven the political polarization of Peruvian
society to degrees rarely seen in decades.</p>
<p>But the deed did not go unnoticed: just a few days ago, a dozen journalists were <span><a href="https://larepublica.pe/politica/2021/06/09/despidos-y-renuncias-en-canales-4-y-n-por-no-acatar-linea-editorial/">fired</a></span>
or forced to resign from the most important TV channel in the country,
America Television, part of the El Comercio Group, drawing the attention
of regulators and the public alike. The local institution for ethics in
journalism had grown <span><a href="http://tribunaldeetica.org/wp-content/uploads/Pronunciamiento-003-2021-TDE.pdf">alarmed</a> by </span>the
evident degradation of the Peruvian press, where more than 70% of the
news are owned and controlled by the mentioned corporate conglomerate,
and called for a review over the way journalism is conducted the
country, and emphasized the need to reform it.</p>
<p>The aggressive propaganda campaign driven by Keiko’s campaign warned
Peruvians of a “communist” apocalypse if Pedro Castillo was elected,
sowing panic among the upper and middle classes of Lima, spawning
irrational hatred that tore friendships and families apart. The
intensity of the red-scare propagated by El Comercio, the rest of the
mainstream media and the right-wing establishment, reflected the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bddb1bec-1c26-43d7-b465-08ad035169b8"><span>paranoia</span></a> of the local aristocracy, an achievement in psychological war that nevertheless failed to stymie a Castillo victory.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Fujimori supporters cry "fraud" and say they won't accept a Pedro Castillo presidency. <a href="https://t.co/u2dxFQ4ori">pic.twitter.com/u2dxFQ4ori</a></p>
<p>— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1403140557145247745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2021</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Mysterious and expensive illuminated <span>billboards</span> suddenly appeared across the busiest avenue of Lima cautioning the public about how “<span><a href="https://twitter.com/PabloAStefanoni/status/1386866621210320902">Socialism leading to Communism</a>,</span>”
“Communism is Poverty,” and about the need to “Defend Freedom and
Democracy.” The defense of the country against the evil specter of
communism was equated with voting for Keiko Fujimori, who, like Jair
Bolsonaro before her, campaigned while wearing the national soccer <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/perus-fujimori-seeks-restore-dynasty-with-mothers-firm-hand-2021-06-04/"><span>jersey</span></a>.
Just as “anti-Americanism” was equated with promoting socialism during
the Cold War in the US, here in Peru, leftists are widely demonized as
“anti-Peruvian.”</p>
<p>Beyond the public relations scare campaign that played out in the street, major corporations <a href="https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-sabado/noticia/peru-ante-su-eleccion-mas-incierta-y-polarizada/6OCNLQBTVBHB5ASU5WAYCWGSKI/">threatened</a>
their employees with the loss of their jobs if they failed to vote for
the right-winger, an intimidation campaign that is technically illegal
in Peru and in most democracies.</p>
<p>The hysteria among Keiko’s base has reached the point where many are
not only convinced that the country is falling not only into the hands
of a stereotypical communist dictatorship, but also into the hands of
the Shining Path, a brutal Maoist insurgent group that was totally
defeated and mostly <a href="https://andina.pe/Ingles/noticia-peru-marks-28-years-of-terrorist-leaders-capture-813500.aspx">destroyed</a> in 1992 under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori.</p>
<p>A highly suspicious massacre that took place in the jungle locality
San Miguel del Ene on May 23, where sixteen people where murdered,
including two children, reopened wounds and memories of the bloody years
of terrorism that ravaged Peru.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="es">En <a href="https://twitter.com/ensustrece?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ensustrece</a>:
MONTAJE EN TORNO A UNA TRAGEDIA. La versión oficial en relación a la
masacre perpetrada en San Miguel del Ene, en el corazón del VRAEM, es
desmentida por testigos y autoridades locales. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Peru?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Peru</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hildebrandt?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hildebrandt</a> <a href="https://t.co/8PFRsAylVe">pic.twitter.com/8PFRsAylVe</a></p>
<p>— Semanario Hildebrandt en sus trece (@ensustrece) <a href="https://twitter.com/ensustrece/status/1398242396098293765?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2021</a></p></blockquote>
<h3>A mysterious massacre fuels Keiko’s anti-communist campaign of fear</h3>
<p>The attack in San Miguel del Ene was immediately attributed to a narco-terrorist group that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/peru-shining-path-jungle-massacre">splintered</a>
from the Shining Path more than a decade ago to pursue the cocaine
business. But the Militarizado Partido Comunista del Peru (MPCP), as the
remnants of the Shining Path calls itself these days, has not been
known to engage in political attacks like the aforementioned massacre.</p>
<p>Mysteriously, flyers were found at the site of the massacre with an ominous <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-57236218">message</a> that could have only benefitted one of the candidates in the race: “Don’t vote for Keiko Fujimori…”.</p>
<p>The Peruvian military’s <a href="https://twitter.com/peru21noticias/status/1397385268173357057"><span>assessment</span></a>
that the disappeared Shining Path were “definitely” responsible for the
killings drove public fear to new heights, and propelled Keiko’s
popularity. Yet the military failed to consider that the Shining Path
and MPCP are bitter enemies, or that the former group’s leadership is
either long dead or in prison. Further, the investigation into the
massacre had been fully in the hands of the police – not the army.</p>
<p>Predictably, the pro-Keiko El Comercio media conglomerate seized on
the army’s version of the killings to determine the Shining Path’s
culpability <i>ipso facto</i>. When independent <a href="https://ojo-publico.com/2731/narcoterroristas-de-jose-acusados-de-matar-16-personas?fbclid=IwAR09zb6vbTpjsvtuh4rFjri5QjaOuf_f2M-GzHMIV1iSNN94Dtb6pezxlzo"><span>reporters</span></a> went to the scene of the crime, however, they heard testimony that raised serious questions about the official story.</p>
<p>Instead, every local in a hundred miles around San Miguel del Ene,
the village where sixteen were brutally murdered, provided testimony
completely <a href="https://ojo-publico.com/2731/narcoterroristas-de-jose-acusados-de-matar-16-personas"><span>at odds</span></a>
with the official version. Villagers said they knew the
narco-terrorists well, referring to them as “cousins” and “uncles” when
they enter their towns. They explained that killing civilians in such
fashion would not only deprive the narcos of workers for their coca
fields, but also risk alienating the people from those localities, which
they depend on for information, services, and labor.</p>
<p>Among many other details disregarded by the mainstream press and
authorities, many witnesses told the independent Peruvian outlet <a href="https://twitter.com/ensustrece/status/1398242396098293765"><span>Hildebrandt en sus trece</span></a> that moments before the attack, phone and electrical services were <a href="https://www.hildebrandtensustrece.com/reportaje/articulo/572"><span>cut-off.</span></a>
Locals said this happens every time the military is about to initiate a
raid against the narco-traffickers. One female survivor described the
attackers as “normal” people, dressed not like terrorists, the police or
the army.</p>
<p>Immediately after the killing, three to five attackers were seen
fleeing the scene in motorcycles – a vehicle not normally associated
with narco-gangs – in the direction of a locality called Valle
Esmeralda, where a military detachment is based.</p>
<p>As expected, the papers comprising El Comercio’s pro-Keiko tabloid
empire ignored every piece of witness testimony detailed above.</p>
<h3>Is the fear of Castillo justified?</h3>
<p>During the first round of voting, a whopping 70% of voters did not
choose either Pedro Castillo or Keiko Fujimori. Despite that fact,
neither candidate attempted to moderate their tone to appeal to a wider
constituency until the very end of the campaign.</p>
<p>Although the talk about nationalization of natural resources and key
industries is obvious red line for the country’s conservative
right-wing, Castillo has also been notoriously inconsistent, telling one
thing to certain audiences in his tour around Peru, and then another to
television cameras, concerned authorities and opposition journalists.
Castillo’s economic gaffes during several press conferences highlighted
his urgent need for PR support and careful political management.</p>
<p>Even after Castillo toned down his rhetoric, only a small portion of
the undecided segment of voters said they would consider voting for him.
Many had been convinced that Vladimir Cerron, the avowedly Marxist
leader of Castillo’s party, Peru Libre, was calling the shots from
behind the scenes. In fact, one of the main themes of the right-wing
propaganda blitz of recent weeks has been presenting Cerron as the real
power <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/peru-s-castillo-has-a-marxist-and-a-fiscal-hawk-in-inner-circle"><span>behind</span></a> Castillo’s throne.</p>
<p>The focus on Cerron was particularly damaging given that a criminal verdict against him was recently <a href="https://elcomercio.pe/politica/vladimir-cerron-tras-habeas-corpus-no-tengo-interes-de-volver-al-gobierno-regional-de-junin-ni-ocupar-cargo-publico-nacional-nndc-noticia/"><span>lifted</span></a>
by a notoriously unscrupulous judge. Issued during the most heated days
of the election, the decision appeared suspicious, and now poses a
serious risk of inflaming an already explosive situation by sending more
people to the streets in opposition to Cerron’s return to political
influence.</p>
<p>Peru Libre is constituted in part by education syndicalists like
Castillo, but also maintains loose ties to MOVADEF, a political movement
that seeks amnesty for convicted terrorists. Its members actively
participate in different branches of the same public syndicate as the
left-wing teacher and de facto President. This is why many citizens
taken in by the right-wing media’s fear mongering regard the surge of
Peru Libre as a “terrorist threat.”</p>
<p>However, the accusation is simply baseless. In reality, Castillo was a “<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/06/02/understanding-perus-elections-from-the-peasant-patrols-to-fujimorism/"><span>rondero</span></a>”
who helped lead peasant civilian militias that were officially
recognized by the Peruvian government to defend small towns in the Andes
against the Shining Path terrorist cells during the 1980s and early
’90s.</p>
<p>Indeed, the stigmatized MOVADEF members do not promote violence;
instead, they advocate political participation and reconciliation
between fully rehabilitated former terrorists and the citizenry at
large.</p>
<p>Following a deluge of anti-communist propaganda aimed at reviving the
ghosts of modern Peru’s darkest days, and without an impartial or
remotely professional press to counterbalance it, the country is
entering into dangerous territory. History, however, seems already
written: international institutions, and even establishmentarian
entities, are rejecting Keiko’s caustic ploys and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/11/peru-electoral-earthquake/"><span>recognizing</span></a> Pedro Castillo as the next president of Peru.</p>
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