The United States and Peru

Cooperation -- At A Cost

Cynthia McClintock, Fabian Vallas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317827801
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The early 1990s marked a critical turning point in the relationship between the United States and Peru. Prior to the election of Albert Fujimori in 1990, the relationship between governments had been contentious. Fujimori, however, sought to work together with the United States regarding issues such as security threats, free-market reform and narcotics control. Yet even with this new spirit of cooperation, the two governments still clashed over international standards of democracy and human rights at a time when most Latin American countries were much more democratic.

This work traces the relationship between the two countries from 1990-2000, examining political and military issues, including drug trafficking, guerrillas, human rights violations and the US role in the 1995 war between Peru and Ecuador.

Chapter I
INTRODUCTION

THE EARLY 1990S WERE A CRITICAL TURNING POINT IN THE relationship between the United States and Peru. Whereas from the 1960s to the 1980s the relationship between the governments of the two countries had been contentious, in the 1990s the relationship improved dramatically. Elected in 1990 and governing through November 2000, President Alberto Fujimori sought to cooperate with the U.S. government on most components of the bilateral agenda, including security threats, free-market reform, and narcotics control. For the most part, however, President Fujimori’s government did not meet international standards for democracy and human rights, and on this component of the bilateral agenda the two governments clashed. Still, overall the bilateral relationship was more cooperative than it had been at any time since the 1950s.

The U.S. attitude toward the Fujimori government recalls the adage about U.S. policy toward Latin America that is widely attributed to President John F. Kennedy: “An embrace for the democrat, a handshake for the dictator.” This adage highlights the long-standing U.S. preference for democratic government in Latin America, but also that nation’s long-standing willingness to cooperate with nondemocratic governments on substantive issues.

At the same time, the application of a 1960s adage to U.S. policy toward Peru in the 1990s raises important questions. Was democracy not a greater priority— for the United States, international organizations, and Latin Americans themselves—in the 1990s than in the 1960s? Was U.S. cooperation with a president arguably best described as a caudillo (the Latin American “man on horseback” or strongman, either military or civilian, who usually enjoys popular support for a time) in the long-term, overarching interest of the U.S. or Peru as of the 1990s? Especially when President Fujimori’s eminence grise was the increasingly blatantly depraved Vladimiro Montesinos (the de facto head of Peru’s National Intelligence Service)?

The U.S. government continued to shake President Fujimori’s hand until, from Japan, he faxed what he thought would be his resignation from the presidency in November 2000. This was the case despite the fact that the Organization of American States (OAS) and all other international and domestic election-observation groups judged that Peru’s April-May 2000 elections did not meet international standards for freedom and fairness. However, after Montesinos was publicly implicated in the smuggling of guns from Peru to Colombia’s guerrillas in August 2000, the U.S. government decided to withhold its handshake to him. The U.S. government did not expect that this decision would be an important catalyst in the downfall of Fujimori, but ultimately it was.

In private today, many U.S. officials concede that the Clinton administration extended its hand too enthusiastically for too long to the Fujimori government. In other words, they concede that, in the test of U.S. policy priorities posed by Peru in the late 1990s and 2000, they did not sufficiently prioritize democracy and human rights. Not surprisingly, this view is virtually unanimous among Peru’s current government—led by President Alejandro Toledo—which was freely and fairly elected in 2001.

Accordingly, the underlying question of this book is: Why did the Clinton administration place a relatively low priority on democracy and human rights in Peru? In our conclusion to this book, we integrate material from previous chapters to try to reach some answers. Of course, to resolve the question definitively, more documents will have to be made publicly available.

A critical context for this explanation—and a good part of the explanation itself, however—is the extent to which the U.S. relationship with Peru improved under the Fujimori government. In Chapter II of this book, the tensions between the United States and Peru virtually throughout the Cold War are described. In the first section of most subsequent chapters, the acrimony between the U.S. and the government immediately preceding Fujimori’s, the elected government of Alan García (1985–1990), is indicated. For the United States, the Fujimori government was a welcome change from Peru’s historical pattern—and a change that U.S. officials were not particularly confident would be maintained by its successor. For its part, the Fujimori government appeared to play shrewdly on U.S. doubts about the maintenance of bilateral cooperation under any successor.

The bulk of Chapters IV, V, and VI of this book describes the cooperation that evolved between the U.S. and Fujimori governments on key components of the bilateral agenda: (1) national security, (2) free-market reform, and (3) narcotics control. We believe that the cooperation on security issues was most pivotal to the bilateral relationship and have accordingly placed it first. It was in the context of cooperation on security issues that there was the development of the relationships among U.S. and Peruvian actors—namely, among Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and Vladimiro Montesinos—that appear to have been fundamental to the policies on narcotics control. It was the CIA that took the lead in downplaying issues of democracy and human rights at interagency meetings on U.S. policy toward Peru in the late 1990s and 2000 (see Chapter VII). Further, it was in the context of a scandal on security issues that the relationship between U.S. officials and Montesinos frayed, an estrangement that was one of the various catalysts of the Fujimori government’s eventual demise.

Free-market reform was also very important, however, and is described in Chapter V. For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, economic issues tended to top the bilateral agenda (see Chapter II). Also, economic issues were arguably at the top of President Clinton’s own agenda; the influence of the Treasury Department increased markedly during the Clinton administration, and its highest officials were among Clinton’s closest colleagues on international affairs (see Chapter III). Clearly, the Fujimori government’s shift to the free market was a sine qua non for the improvement in the bilateral relationship.

Narcotics control, described in Chapter VI, was very important as well. Of course, narcotics control is an issue of great salience to the U.S. public. In the late 1990s and 2000, the issue engaged a wide spectrum of U.S. agencies in Peru, in particular the CIA and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). Peru’s apparent success in narcotics control was vital to these agencies’ raison d’etre. It seems possible that the U.S. and Peruvian military presence in the Amazonian areas of northeastern Peru was advantageous not only for narcotics control but also for counterinsurgency.

In short, the shift from bilateral acrimony to bilateral partnership was dramatic. Although no Peruvian government from the 1960s through the 1980s considered itself Communist or even socialist, leftist political currents flowed strongly in Peru during these decades. Socialist and nationalist attitudes were common not only among lower strata and the growing middle class but also— and unusually in Latin America—among military officers. Especially during the military government (1968–1980) and the government of Alan Garcia, Peru rejected free-market principles: U.S. companies were nationalized, tariff barriers were raised, and international debt obligations were not serviced. At the same time, Peru purchased significant quantities of arms from the Soviet Union, and Peru’s previous relationship with the U.S. military was disrupted. Peru was an active participant in the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and other regional blocs that excluded the United States; Peru rarely voted with the United States in the United Nations.¹

When the Cold War ended, leftist political currents ebbed in Peru. Of course, the end of the Cold War was interpreted as the victory of capitalism over socialism and of U.S.-style democracy over Communism. Peru would no longer enjoy moral or material support from the Soviet Union. Also, the leftist policies of the García government appeared to have led to disaster: Peruvians’ living standards were plummeting and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) insurgency was expanding relentlessly. Still, Peru’s coalition of pro-Marxist parties, Izquierda Unida (United Left), was the strongest electoral left in South America during the mid- to late 1980s.

Peru’s 1990 elections were held about six months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Whereas until 1989 it had appeared that Izquierda Unida might win the 1990 presidential election, the coalition ruptured and secured less than 10 percent of the first-round presidential tally. The presidency was won by Alberto Fujimori, whose nonideological platform “Work, Honesty, Technology” was appropriate to the nascent post-Cold War era. Also, Fujimori’s Japanese heritage was an asset for the candidate; in an era of globalization, Peruvians were aware of Japan’s economic progress and respected it, and hoped for support from that country. A plurality of seats in the legislature was won by the coalition of parties called the Frente Democratico (FREDEMO, Democratic Front), led by the staunchly pro-free-market and pro-U.S. novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

At the time of Peru’s 1990 elections, the bilate...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• SERIES PREFACE
• CHAPTER I Introduction
• CHAPTER II U.S.-Peruvian Relations Prior to 1990
• CHAPTER III Bilateral Policy Making During the 1990s: Trends and Actors
• CHAPTER IV The Bilateral Agenda From the 1980s to 2000: National Security
• CHAPTER V The Bilateral Agenda From the 1980s to 2000: Free-Market Reform
• CHAPTER VI The Bilateral Agenda From the 1980s to 2000: Narcotics Control
• CHAPTER VII The Bilateral Agenda From the 1980s to 2000: Democracy and Human Rights
• CHAPTER VIII Conclusion
• POSTSCRIPT Challenges for Peru and the United States in the Construction of a New Bilateral Relationship
• NOTES
• INDEX