INDEPENDENT NEWS

Cablegate: Humala Patriarch Lays Out Strategy for "Revolt Of

Published: Wed 23 May 2007 05:40 PM
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TAGS: PGOV PTER PINR SNAR PE
SUBJECT: HUMALA PATRIARCH LAYS OUT STRATEGY FOR "REVOLT OF
THE MASSES"
REF: A. LIMA 1709
B. LIMA 248 (06)
C. LIMA 37 (05)
D. LIMA 4968 (03)
Sensitive But Unclassified, Please Handle Accordingly.
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Summary:
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1. (SBU) Isaac Humala, patriarch of the clan that produced
Ollanta Humala, recently described to us his movement's plans
to undermine the Garcia Government. Humala (pere) has
created a philosophy called "Ethnocacerism" holding that
Peru's oppressed masses must bring back a pro-indigenous,
pro-coca, statist regime that recasts the Inca Empire in
modern form. Humala referred to a recent trip to Caracas and
asserted that radical groups would work to undermine the
Garcia government in order to lay the groundwork for a
democratic "revolt of the masses," a Peruvian version of the
elections that put Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and
Bolivian President Evo Morales in power. While the elder
Humala's ideas may seem eccentric to outsiders, they appear
to resonate in the rural, highlands areas of Peru where the
state's presence is minimal. End Summary.
2. (U) In a May 11 interview with Poloff, Isaac Humala, the
74-year old patriarch of the Humala Clan described himself as
a life-long revolutionary. A former member of the Communist
Party, he was expelled from the group in 1956 for advocating
the party's restructuring. It was at that time, Humala said,
that he developed his idea of race, rather than class, being
the key to understanding history. He then incorporated this
race-based idea into his evolving philosophy of
Ethnocacerism. (For details on the movement's ideology, see
Ref D.)
3. (SBU) Humala's ideas would seem merely curious if they
hadn't proven an effective launching pad for himself and his
sons. One son, Ollanta Humala, came within six percentage
points of winning Peru's Presidency in 2006. Another son,
Antauro Humala, led an attempted violent rebellion in the
Andean region of Apurimac in 2005 that grabbed national
headlines and kindled fears of another nascent radical group
destabilizing Peru. (Refs B-C). Antauro is now in prison,
but remains active, writing books and articles for his
newspaper. Many observers believe that Antauro is actually
more dangerous than his brother Ollanta. Some of Antauro
Humala's followers, called Ethnocaceristas, told Poloff
recently that Antauro planned to run for President in 2011.
4. (U) The elder Humala said his family offers different
variants on his basic philosophy. These range from the "soft
form" of the ideology espoused by former presidential
candidate, Ollanta -- in which formal democratic processes
are used to affect the desired change -- to the "pure" form
espoused by Antauro. (He did not elucidate what was meant
with this latter adjective, but past events suggest it might
be interpreted as a kind of Peruvian "any means necessary.")
The apparently genuine differences between the visions of the
Humala brothers have served the family's political ambitions
well, in effect providing a menu of Humala options for Peru's
frustrated and dissatisfied. While Ollanta Humala succeeded
in swaying some moderates to his cause in last year's
elections, Antauro remains admired by the Ethnocaceristas'
hard ideological core for his unrelenting discipline and
focus, even in prison.
5. (SBU) The Humalas remain politically active, even as they
have conducted most of their recent activities under the
public radar. Antauro recently published a book on
"ethno-geopolitics," the study of competition between the
worlds' major races, which his father has presented at
various fora in Lima. Antauro's newspaper (or political
pamphlet) appears intermittently in rural areas like
Ayacucho. The Ethnocaceristas reportedly run about 40
schools around the country in which they indoctrinate
followers, mostly lower class and mestizo Peruvians,
indigenous army veterans, in their philosophy of racial
revolution. During a May 13-15 trip to rural Apurimac, the
APRA Mayor of Huancarama told Poloff that Antauro's followers
were actively organizing in the small villages around his
town (septel). Isaac Humala also mentioned his recent trip
to Caracas, suggesting the group's larger regional
connections. (He did not specify when he traveled to the
Venezuelan capital.)
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Humala Sees Things Moving His Way
---------------------------------
6. (SBU) Humala (pere) asserted that the time of armed
revolts in Latin America had passed, and been replaced by
"revolts of the masses." He described this phenomenon with
reference to recent democratic elections in Venezuela and
Bolivia, in which Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales had overwhelmed
opposition candidates in votes that featured massive lower
class participation and took place under the shadow of
potential social unrest. He described Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales as leaders who
represented "unconscious manifestations" of his idea of
racial revolution in Latin America. Humala stated that for
something similar to happen in Peru, radical groups like his
had to work to weaken and to undermine the Garcia government.
A weak, beleagured and ineffective government would pave the
way for the emergence of a Chavez/Morales-style anti-systemic
candidate to win Peru's 2011 presidential elections.
7. (SBU) Isaac Humala alleged that, to prevent the otherwise
inevitable election of a radical candidate, President Garcia,
Peru's elites and the United States would rig the 2011
presidential election in their favor. He claimed that this
had already been done in 2006, when the conspiring elites had
engineered Garcia's (as he saw it) illegitimate victory over
Lourdes Flores in the first round of voting. Humala was
certain that, had Lourdes Flores faced Ollanta Humala rather
than Garcia in the second round, his son Ollanta would have
won the presidency, and cited Lourdes Flores' own accusations
of electoral fraud as proof of this imagined plot.
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Comment: Peru Still Vulnerable to Radical Ideologies
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8. (SBU) The elder Humala's ideas may seem eccentric to
outsiders, but they appear to resonate in the rural,
highlands areas of Peru, where government presence is nearly
nil, and among the country's diminishing but still
significant population of dispossesed. Under the right
circumstances, this highly volatile population may be easily
convinced and readily mobilized. While recent reports that
Ollanta Humala had masterminded recent cocalero, mining and
agricultural protests seemed to us unrealistic and overblown,
the larger Humala group has successfully tapped into
preexisting demonstrations of discontent and, in some cases,
claimed a measure of credit for them. Recent press reports
indicated that Ethnocaceristas had inserted themselves into
the ongoing protest over ownership of Lima's Santa Anita
market (Ref A). Should the Garcia government fail to deliver
on its promises to improve the lives of poor Peruvians,
Humala and his scions will be ready to harvest the growing
discontent.
STRUBLE
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