Ex-President Wins in Peru in Stunning Comeback: Juan Forero reports for the AP and the New York Times, June 5, 2006.
LIMA, Peru, June 4 — Sixteen years after his presidency ended in economic collapse and heightened guerrilla violence, Alan García was elected president again on Sunday, completing one of Latin America’s most astonishing political resurrections.
Today in the Latin American press, including Globo: “More than 75% of Peruvians disapprove of Garcia.”
Response to the humanitarian crisis unleashed by a major earthquake is cited as a major factor.
The BBC, August 15:
Banners called for President Alan Garcia to tell the truth about where the $382m supposedly spent on the reconstruction had gone, and why so many people had still not received compensation to rebuild their homes.
“At this rate, reconstruction will last 10 years and a generation of our citizens, of our children, will be raised in inequality because they live in huts and have nowhere to study,” said the governor of Ica province, Romulo Triveno.
Mr Garcia’s popularity has suffered, our correspondent says, and critics argue that he has missed an opportunity to show he could use Peru’s strong economic growth to do a good job of reconstruction.
Others say with Peru’s weak institutions and poor infrastructure efforts were doomed from the start.
I find it interesting that BBC has taking to wording its foreign correspondence more cautiously: “According to our correspondent,” “our correspondent says.”
Does the BCC not wish to vouch for the accuracy or impartiality of the news and analysis it runs? Is it just passing along what it hears, without bothering to check it out. Is that it?
La Republica (Lima) cites a disapproval index of some 70%, adding:
Los últimos actos de corrupción han vuelto a poner al Congreso a la cabeza de las instituciones que generan más desconfianza entre los limeños. Un 87% de encuestados por el IOP dijo tener poca o ninguna confianza en el Legislativo. La segunda institución que genera desconfianza es el Poder Judicial.
The latest corruption cases have once against put Congress at the head of the list of institutions that Lima residents trust least. Some 87% of those surveyed by IOP said they have little or no confidence in the Legislature. The second least trusted institution is the Judiciary.
The story of a TV station in the coastal quake region forced off the air for alleged “alarmism” deserves an update.
The station was claiming that reconstruction money was disappearing into a sump of crooked dealings. See
On Juan Forero, asshole buddy of the boys from the Embassy, see:
Al Giordano of the excitable Narco News, in 2001:
Three years ago, Juan Forero — a Colombian citizen who resided in the United States — wrote for something called the “Religion News Service,” churning out sophmoric ideological propaganda with titles like “Pope’s Visit Gives Cubans Hope for Freedom.” Two years ago, Forero was a reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, in New Jersey. A year ago, Forero popped up as a New York Times correspondent, writing some stories from New York City — where, as the Times’ discredited ex-bureau chief in Mexico, Sam Dillon, once commented, that Times correspondents “learn to obey” their bosses — but quickly ended up on the Latin America beat, soon after narco-lobbyists had pushed the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia military intervention through Congress.
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