Archive for the ‘Regional Politics’ Category
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Controversy over a new law prohibiting public schools from hiring teachers who did not finish in the top third of their class during their studies has intensified, with Peru’s Education Minister threatening criminal charges against many of the country’s regional presidents who say the law is unconstitutional and discriminatory.
In an attempt to improve Peru’s ailing public school system, the Education Ministry established through Supreme Decree 004 that applicants for public teaching positions are required to have completed their education degree within the top third of their class
“Peru needs to make a quantum leap forward in education and with mediocre people who finished last we aren’t going to take that step,” daily Correo reported Cabinet Chief Jorge Del Castillo saying.
The president of La Libertad Department, José Murgia, said his department will implement the law. “Our children deserve the best teachers,” he said. “Don’t we want the best teachers for our children?”
However, 17 other regional presidents have argued the law is unconstitutional and discriminatory. Some say they will not implement it. (more…)
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
State prosecutor Luz Loayza’s lawyer said he will appeal a decision by Peru’s Supreme Council of Prosecutors ordering Loayza’s return to her post in the city of Iquitos, where she would be at the mercy of drug traffickers. Aníbal Quiroga told daily La República they will appeal the decision in the judiciary and are prepared to bring the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with support from the Lima Bar Association.
In November 2005, Loayza, 47, brought charges against Peru’s cocaine kingpin, Fernando Zevallos, who is currently serving a 20 year sentence for money laundering and drug trafficking. She reportedly received numerous death threats and escaped an assassination attempt in Iquitos during the year and a half trial against Zevallos.
Loayza has argued her life would be at risk if she returns to her post in the jungle city, capital of Loreto department, where drug traffickers have promised revenge.
However, the Supreme Council ordered Loayza’s return to Iquitos on Friday, arguing she failed to report death threats to her superiors. According to daily El Comercio, the Supreme Council echoed earlier comments by Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar saying prosecutors are inherently at risk. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Criminal Justice, Politics, Regional Politics, Women | No Comments »
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
Chile’s Congress has rescinded the fast-track status of a Senate bill seeking free trade negotiations with Peru, citing Peru’s decision to file suite in the International Court of Justice in The Hague to settle the maritime border dispute between the two nations.
Peru’s Foreign Minister José Antonio Garcia Belaunde told reporters that Chilean lawmaker were only hurting their own country by annulling the free trade deal’s priority status. “This isn’t some kind of cooperation accord or a donation, but rather a commercial accord in which both parties expect to benefit,” he said. “The ones damaged by this will be on both sides of the border.
The maritime dispute dates back to the 1879 – 1883 War of the Pacific, in which Peru and Bolivia lost substantial territory to Chile. Central to the row is 38,000 square kilometers, or about 14,500 square miles, of fishing-rich sea which Chile currently controls.
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Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
Residents in an Andean town near Peru’s southern border with Bolivia took justice into their own hands early Monday morning by drowning a father and son who they suspected of killing a 30-year-old man.
According to daily La República, Lorenzo Mamani Vilca and his son were captured by the mob in the town of Ilave, in Puno Department, around midnight on Sunday. The mob accused the father and son of killing the man, who allegedly did not pay a debt from a livestock purchase.
After the men were captured, municipal guards arrived some 30 minutes later and tried to persuade the mob to hand them over to police. Instead, they dragged them to the Ilave river where they were subsequently drowned.
Vigilante justice is not new to Ilave. The town made international headlines in April 2004 when thousands of its residents dragged their mayor, Cirilo Robles, into the street and beat him to death for alleged corruption. Robles was later exonerated.
Posted in Criminal Justice, Regional Politics | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Peru’s Defensoría del Pueblo — the national ombudsman organization — reported yesterday that almost half of the country’s social conflicts it tracked in December were related to environmental concerns.
The state-sponsored Defensoría, in charge of protecting the basic and constitutional rights of Peruvians, released a summary of its 46th Social Conflicts Report, stating that 47 percent of 78 social conflicts it tracked in December are “socio-environmental” in nature. (more…)
Posted in Environment, Mining, Regional Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, December 15th, 2007
Peru will loom slightly larger than usual in the headlines in U.S. newspapers this weekend after President George W. Bush signed into law a free trade agreement between the two nations.
The bill passed following a contentious feud in Congress that ended only after Republicans agreed to Democratic demands to include labor union protection and environmental standards, both in the Peru deal and in future trade pacts.
Bush said before signing Friday that he is hopeful the Peru deal will pave the way for approval of deals with Panama, Colombia and South Korea before he leaves office in 2009. And President Alan Garcia assured Bush that his government will make good on its pledge that the trade deal will favor Peru’s poor, particularly “the population in the Andes and their small enterprises.”
“You should be sure, as well as the members of the Congress and the American people, that in Peru this treaty would not exclude the poorest of the Peruvian workers,” Garcia said moments before Bush signed the pact. “On the contrary; using the words of the great Abraham Lincoln, it will be a free trade agreement of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
But not everyone in Peru is comforted by that assurance.
Weeks before the House approved the deal on Nov. 8 in a 285-132 vote, David Bayer, a former deputy executive officer for USAID in Lima until 2002, sent out the following appeal. He wrote it from his home in Ica, the coastal city devastated by the magnitude-8 earthquake last August (it is reprinted here with David’s permission):
What is wrong with the Peruvian-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA)?
Chapter X is the most insidious part of the US-Peru-FTA in terms of its damage to the vast majority of Peruvians. The GRADE analysis ( a conservative NGO) points out the the poor and extreme poor in Peru will get poorer with the implementation of the FTA:
Chapter X boils down to this: when the FTA is signed, everything favorable to the big private corporations and multinationals gets “frozen in time” or “shielded.” If the companies are exonerated from taxes (as is the case with the Peruvian agro-exporters) or have a special low-tax regime (as is the case with 80 percent of the major Peruvian mining companies) THEN NONE OF THESE PRIVILIGES CAN BE CHANGED by the national, regional or local government without violating Chapter X . (more…)
Posted in Business, Earthquakes, Environment, Law, Mining, Natural Disasters, Politics, Regional Politics | No Comments »
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
Peruvian President Alan García is celebrating after the United States House of Representatives approved a free trade agreement with Peru today. “Peru will have open access to the largest economy in the world. The United States, economically, is 150 times larger than Peru,” García told reporters. The 285-132 vote in favor of the accord was a major hurdle for the pact and means the FTA will become law if approved by the U.S. Senate.
Supporters say the agreement will help Peru’s economy expand by 10 percent in 2008 and 2009. “The FTA is a blow against poverty, against those that want an isolated Peru, against those that refuse investments and want to see povery continue,” said the president of Peru’s Congress, Luis Gonzales Posada. (more…)
Posted in Business, Environment, Mining, Regional Politics | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Cuban Ambassador Luis Delfín Pérez will appear before a Peruvian congressional subcommittee to answer questions about the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) on November 13. Delfín Pérez will be followed by ambassadors from Nicaragua on November 20, Bolivia on November 27, and Venezuela on December 4.
ALBA’s activities have been viewed with suspicion in Peru because of its ties to the Venezuelan and Cuban governments. In July, Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of “unacceptable meddling” in Peru’s internal affairs after an ALBA office was inaugurated by local authorities in Juliaca, in Peru’s southern Department of Puno. Del Castillo alleged the purpose of the ALBA office was to “destabilize the nation.”
Chavez dismissed the allegations as a typical overreaction by “Latin American Oligarchs,” and added: “We are not going to get ourselves involved in any internal process with any nation, unless we have an alliance to do so, as we have with Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia.” (more…)
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