NY Times, July 19, 2002 Still Poor, Latin Americans Protest Push for Open Markets By JUAN FORERO
AREQUIPA, Peru, July 13 � The protest that shook this colonial city last month was very much like others in Latin America recently. There were Marxists shouting 60's-era slogans, and hard-bitten unionists. But there was also Fanny Puntaca, 64, a shopkeeper and grandmother of six. Though she had never before protested, Ms. Puntaca said, she could not bear to see a Belgian company buy what she called "our wealth" � the region's two state-owned electrical generators. So armed with a metal pot to bang, she joined neighbors in a demonstration so unyielding that it forced President Alejandro Toledo to declare a state of emergency here, suspend the $167 million sale and eventually shake up his cabinet. "I had to fight," Ms. Puntaca said proudly. "The government was going to sell our companies and enrich another country. This was my voice, my protest." Across Latin America, millions of others are also letting their voices be heard. A popular and political ground swell is building from the Andes to Argentina against the decade-old experiment with free-market capitalism. The reforms that have shrunk the state and opened markets to foreign competition, many believe, have enriched corrupt officials and faceless multinationals, and failed to better their lives. Sometimes-violent protests in recent weeks have derailed the sale of state-owned companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The unrest has made potential investors jittery, and whipsawed governments already weakened by recession. The backlash has given rise to leftist politicians who have combined pocketbook issues and economic nationalism to explosive effect. Today the market reforms ushered in by American-trained economists after the global collapse of Communism are facing their greatest challenge in the upheavals sweeping the region. "The most worrying reading is that perhaps we have come to the end of an era," said Rafael de la Fuente, chief Latin American economist for BNP Paribas in New York. "That we are closing the door on what was an unsuccessful attempt at orthodox economic reforms at the end of the 90's." full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/international/americas/19PERU.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
