Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0286/02866.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 29KB | 460 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02866}
$Pretitle{242}
$Title{Peru
Chapter 4C.   The Growth of Civilian Pressure Groups}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James D. Rudolf}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{party
political
government
apra
labor
national
military
peruvian
de
belaunde}
$Date{1980}
$Log{Table A.*0286601.tab
}
Country:     Peru
Book:        Peru, A Country Study
Author:      James D. Rudolf
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1980

Chapter 4C.   The Growth of Civilian Pressure Groups

     Before 1968 interest articulation through pressure groups was monopolized
to a large extent by Peru's agricultural, business, and commercial elite.
The most powerful organization was the National Agrarian Society, which
represented large landowners and agrarian interests within the modern,
export-oriented coastal plantations. For many years the National Agrarian
Society opposed agrarian reform proposals, and during the first Belaunde
government it used its influence to confine government expropriations to
lands within the Sierra. Sierra landowners were represented by the less
powerful Sheep Grower's Association of Peru. The small industrial upper class
was represented in the Chamber of Commerce, the National Industrial Society,
and the Association of Peruvian Businessmen; other associations represented
owners and managers in specific economic sectors.

     Although these pressure groups played a major role in the formulation
of national policy before 1968, analysts agree that many important
decisions affecting government policy were made within the exclusive upper
class Lima social clubs: the National Club, the Union Club, and the Jockey
Club. In addition, with the exception of the APRA-controlled La Tribuna, all
of Lima's major daily newspapers were owned by members of such traditional
elite families as Beltran and Miro Quesada and mirrored the opinion and
interests of the traditional upper class.

     The Velasco regime systematically crippled these institutions, which
had allowed the elite to determine policy outside the electoral arena. The
National Agrarian Society was dissolved as were most other associational
pressure groups of the traditional elite. The Union Club and Jockey Club were
closed and although the National Club continued to operate, it lost its
political influence of former years. The press was first intimidated and then
in 1974 expropriated.

     During the late 1970s, however, a new economic elite, tied mainly to
mining and to industries that had benefited from government import
substitution policies, emerged and began to organize pressure groups in an
attempt to secure the political influence lost by the traditional elites.
For example, the Industrial Society (the remnant of the old National
Industrial Society) added to the popular pressure for the military to step
down and also sought the reversal of various policies of the Velasco
regime, including a revocation of the 1970 Industrial Reform Law and the
return of the daily newspapers to the private sectors. The Industrial
Society and other newly formed pressure groups, such as the Union of
Peruvian Private Entrepreneurs, were likely to increase their political
influence under civilian rule.

     The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally been a bulwark of the
political status quo, although its influence as a political pressure group
also underwent marked changes after the late 1950s when factions within
the clergy were instrumental in establishing the reformist Christian
Democratic Party (Partido Democratica Cristiano-PDC). Reformist doctrine
became dominant during the 1960s, and the progressive elements from within
the church organized the National Office of Social Information (Oficina
Nacional de Informacion-ONIS), which took part in organizing labor unions
and squatters' organizational efforts of the post-1968 government in that
area. This early association with the military government further divided
the political sentiments within the church between progressives and the more
conservative main church hierarchy and, as the fortunes of the regime
declined, church leaders became quiet and cautious. By 1980 the church had
lost its former prominence as a political force and except in population
policy, seemingly had little impact on the political system.

     The once-important political role of university students was also
severely diminished under the military government. Before 1968 students
had played a central role in the articulation of the interests of the poor
and less organized sectors of society. Their ability to organize and
demonstrate-sometimes violently-brought issues such as agrarian reform and
the need for government services before the government in a forceful
manner. APRA dominated politics within the universities from the 1920s, when
its founder, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, rose out of the student movement,
until the 1960s, when students became factionalized around a number of
radical groups.

     Students played the dominant role in the short-lived guerrilla
movements of the 1960s, and violence also came to play a part in sectarian
rivalries among competing student groups. Shortly after coming to power,
the military government neutralized the increasingly radical political
influence of university students through a series of decree laws that
destroyed the traditional autonomy of universities and placed them under
the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. A February 1969 law brought
all universities, public and private, under a central system and established
the National Council of the Peruvian University as an oversight body.
After considerable protest from within the university system, the law was
modified in March 1972. A 1973 law, nevertheless, authorized the suspension
of "subversives" within the university system. Although the partial loss of
university autonomy removed them from the forefront of radical political
opposition, students did participate in a series of demonstrations and riots
between 1975 and 1978.

     In 1968 the residents of squatter settlements surrounding Lima and other
cities were largely unorganized. Concerned about the potential for the
rapidly growing urban migrant population to become a radical political force,
the military government sought to organize the shantytown residents into a
grass-roots, hierarchical structure that would coordinate self-help
projects, provide a number of services and, it was hoped, become an easily
mobilized base of political support. The Organization for the Development
of Young Towns, created in 1968, was highly centralized into hierarchical
bodies down to neighborhood committees representing some thirty families.
Like other entities within the SINAMOS superstructure, this organization was
designed to eliminate other political influences and generate support for
governmental policies. Instead, shantytown residents became increasingly
vocal in pressing demands that the government was unwilling or unable to
meet. The first indication of the growing power of the squatters was the
large-scale occupation of the Pamplona area of Lima in May 1971. As economic
pressures intensified, the earlier fears of the military government came to
pass: squatters participated in widespread looting during the 1975 police
strike, marched to Lima in large numbers in April 1976 to present demands
to the government, rioted and attacked government offices in July 1976, and
played effective roles during general strikes in 1977 and 1978 (see
Urbanization, ch. 2).

     Many Peruvian peasants have traditionally been organized into
indigenous communities (called peasant communities after 1970) that served
local needs but had little impact on national politics. Political pressure
began to be expressed through peasant federations that were first formed
in the 1950s and proliferated in the 1960s. Several of the more politically
active federations, many of which were tied to the Confederation of Peruvian
Peasants (Confederacion de Campesinos del Peru-CCP), led a series of