Humala Has Four-Point Advantage in Peru

[Judi Lynn]

Angus Reid Global Scan : Polls & Research
Humala Has Four-Point Advantage in Peru
March 24, 2006

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Ollanta Humala heads to next month’s presidential election in Peru as the frontrunner, according to a poll by UNI. 28.8 per cent of respondents would vote for the Peruvian Nationalist Party (PNP) candidate in the first round.

Lourdes Flores Nano of the Popular Christian Party (PPC) is second with 24.8 per cent, followed by former president Alan García of the American Revolutionary People’s Alliance (APRA) with 16.3 per cent, former head of state Valentín Paniagua of Popular Action (AP) with 5.3 per cent, and Martha Chávez of New Majority (NM) with 3.8 per cent.

The presidential election is scheduled for Apr. 9. If no candidate garners more than 50 per cent of all cast ballots, a run-off will take place on May 7.

Yesterday, Humala accused his rivals of creating an ambience of fear around his candidacy, adding, "Now that they perceive us as an unstoppable force, they are looking for ways to assemble, before the election, the ‘Everyone Against Humala’ party."
(snip/...)

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11329



Ollanta Humala

[Peace Patriot]

1. Viva the Revolution! A very, very, very important election!

Leftist governments have swept South American elections over the the last several years--in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile and Bolivia. Bolivia just elected its first indigenous Indian as president, Evo Morales. Humala is also indigenous. Morales has said, of Humala's campaign: "The time of the people has come."

And it appears that the Bush junta is already trying to destabilize neighboring Bolivia during the Peruvian election. Morales suspects our junta is behind the hotel bombings yesterday. It would certainly not surprise me. The Bushites backed a coup attempt in Venezuela a couple of years ago, and have poured money into the minority rightwing Venezuelan opposition (against Venezuela law), for a recall against Hugo Chavez (which he handily won in the most highly monitored election in the world). Further, Condi Rice has been sniffing around the new socialist president of Chile, Michele Batchelet--first woman president of Chile, just elected--more than likely trying to stir up trouble between Chile and Bolivia over their old sea access dispute. I trust that Batchelet isn't buying whatever bribes, threats or lies that Condi is trying to sell. There have been peace moves afoot between the two new leftist governments--Chile and Bolivia--to settle this matter. The Bush junta doesn't want peace in South America. It wants war, chaos and looting opportunities, as it does everywhere else.

The South Americans seem to be on to these people, in a very big way--partly the result of TRANSPARENT elections (U.S. voters, take note!*), and partly, I'm sure, with disgust and weariness, and seering memories of, decades of horrendous US interference. (--in the case of Batchelet, direct experience of being tortured by the US-backed dictator Pinochet). In Argentina, the US-backed junta threw leftists out of airplanes to their deaths--thousands were 'disappeared.' And of course there were the US-trained death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere. And that doesn't even begin to describe what US governments and US-based global corporate predators have done to Latin Americans.

"The time of the people has come."

I think Humala will be elected. I think this revolution is unstoppable. And I think it is a great lesson to us that, no matter the horrors of today, and no matter what has gone on before, you CAN achieve or restore democracy by dedicated grass roots work, and by mere word-of-mouth communication, if necessary. It may take time. But it CAN be done! Latin America is showing us the way.

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Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

[Judi Lynn]

2. In reference to the right-wing reign of terror throughout South America,

I'd like to add this article about Chile under Pinochet, and recent facts uncovered about military leaders involved in the "Caravan of Death." (Chile also is notorious, under Pinochet, for having flung countless suspected "leftists" into lakes and the sea from helicopters and airplanes)

JUDGE IN CHILE INDICTS ‘CARAVAN OF DEATH’ PROTAGONISTS

13 Retired Military Officials Condemned By Judge Victor Montiglio

(March 22, 2006) Thirteen retired military officials were indicted Tuesday for their role in the deaths of 42 of the more than 70 people killed in the ‘Caravan of Death Case’ in 1973, one of the most emblematic of the Pinochet-era human rights cases.
snip)

Those indicted were not the Caravan members themselves, but rather the local military officials who collaborated in carrying out the crimes in 1973, or who years later collaborated in digging up the buried corpses of the victims in order to toss them into the ocean. The exhumations were apparently ordered by the military regime to safeguard any possible discovery of the bodies.

Among those arrested were retired generals, brigadiers, and lower ranking officials. Eleven of the indicted men have been arrested and jailed, while two others are being sought: Ramón Zúñiga Olmedo, who lives in Iquique, and Carlos Minoletti Arriagada, who lives in the United States.

Judge Montiglio’s indictment of the 13 officials comes four days after his controversial decision to change the formal charges brought against the defendants from “permanent kidnapping” (secuestro permanente” or disappearance), to murder.
(snip)

Among those killed in Calama were labor leaders, professionals and one journalist – Carlos Berger – who had been condemned to a 61-day jail term for refusing to play military music on his radio program the day of the coup. Berger’s wife, Carmen Hertz, is now one of Chile’s best known human rights attorneys.

Also indicted was the former mayor of Calama, Carlos Minoletti, who led a company of engineers to dispose of the bodies in an unmarked desert grave. At the end of 1976 Minoletti directed the exhumation of the corpses so that they could be thrown into the ocean. The exhumation was done with a backhoe, which left hundreds of bone fragments at the site – enough to allow investigators in the 1990s to reconstruct the facts and identify some of the victims.
(snip/...)

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=10915&topic_id=1


Judge Victor Montiglio: so glad he wasn't snuffed before he could perform this great service to his country.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Anyone know what would happen in a runoff?

Which way the other candidates' supporters would go?

[High Plains]

5. I expect a real "Anybody But Humala" campaign

with Lourdes appealing to voters for other candidates to rally to her side against the crazy Indian.

[bemildred]

7. I have seen it stated that if would be 50-50 in that case.

Same polls that give Humala the lead.
However, I am skeptical that anybody actually knows.

[fshrink]

4. Indians finally get to run their own land again.

[yellowcanine]

6. An Anti-Bush trifecta! Chavez, Morales, and Humala. WWWD?