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Not long ago repression in Peru was more a matter of laws than actions. Now, however, APRA's legislation (APRA is President Alan García's party), with basic support from the ultra rightist Unidad Nacional party, and from the party of Fujimori who is now being tried for massive crimes, and with no consequent parliamentary opposition, is being used to launch a full assault against the people. The law ordered the army to undertake policing functions. It characterizes protest actions as delinquencies. And it authorized the police to kill with impunity.
The legislation was passed to frighten people who, naturally, were going to protest government conduct in the service of the huge multinationals, a role that runs totally against the interests of the Peruvian population and the environment. However, the reaction of the people was to overcome fear and hurl themselves into struggle. The campesino strike was the strongest of the most recent mobilizations at the national level. Campesinos are being crushed by increases in living costs aggravated by the miserable prices they receive for their products, by lack of credit, higher fertilizer prices, etc. The government talks a lot about its "Sierra exportadora" project. But what it has brought in practice (with the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States which subsidizes its agriculture) is an agrarian policy of "Peru - importer of agrarian produce." The campesino strike was ans