SINISTER PRESENCE IN PERU

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050037-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: April 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050037-5
PT! kl5FEARED TIMES
; 25 April 198'5
cm I _
Sinister presence in
SOVIel Military !ICI
til)I111C1 I hCIT have cultivated rela-
tions with Perti's offleer corps for
nearly two decades.
The U.S. Congress, having cut
back military assistance in the
region, has left us with only a hand-
ful of military attaches at our
embassy to counteract the Soviet
effort. Since the Peruvian military
establishment is the most secretive
in South Ameri-ca, ES intelligence
cannot even estimate the de ree_of
Moscow s penetration accurately,
but it is believed to be deep.
Yet Peru's recent election can be
rightly called a celebration of
democracy. Thrnout was high, the
competition keen, and the Commu-
nist guerrillas,
the most savage
in the hemi-
sphere, failed in
their attempt to
disrupt the vot-
ing.
Some loose
ends remain, but
the certain win-
ner is 35-year-old,
i left-of-center
charismatic poli-
tician Alan Gar-
cia. He is from the
third generation
of leadership of a
' party which never
before had managed to put an
elected president into power, but one
which has drifted from hard, doctri-
naire, combative leftism to a more
flexible and moderate social demo-
cratic style.
So much for the relatively good
? news. The problems are weightier.
Peru is a major South American
nation in serious economic and
social trouble. Unemployment is
running at more than 30 percent,
while inflation has pushed well past
the 100 percent mark and is
climbing. In addition, burdened by
an economy that has made little or
no progress in two decades, Peru
must try to cope with a foreign debt
of nearly $14 million.
Its economic situation worsened
despite, not because of, the previous
government of President Belaunde
Terry. With the exquisite vision per-
mitted by hindsight, the retiring
president commonly is derided as a
man of the past, a man with a talent
for mediocrity, one who made no
dent in the nation's problems.
ROGER FONTAINE
Although Washington's pre-
occupation with Central
America may imply other-
wise, the Western Hemi-
sphere does not come to an abrupt
halt at the Isthmus of Panama.
And while South America has pro-
duced no recent foreign-policy prob-
lems of great moment, the chances
are it is about to. The stirrings
involve Peru ? a major nation with
deep problems compounded by
anomalies troubling no other Latin
American country, including the
bloodiest insurgency and the largest
Soviet presence in Latin America,
after Cuba.
Peru recently made headlines
with an election which brought to
power a young, left-of-center politi-
cian who promises change and a bet-
ter tomorrow.
Clearly the Peruvian electorate
wanted change. No other political
fact can be read from its massive
repudiation of the incumbent party
of retiring President Fernando
Belaunde Terry.
But the repudi-
ation runs deeper
than a single
party or leader. It
reflects the frus-
tration of Peru-
vian voters who
have sensed no
positive social or
political changes
in several dec-
ades. Patience has
not worn thin, it
has been
exhausted. Peru-
vians want
change ? radical
change ? and they want it fast.
Contrary to the usual analysis,
that change won't necessarily result
from adopting leftist shibboleths.
Indeed, those very shibboleths are
largely responsible for the present
mess.
. - But should Peru head in the
wrong- direction ? from our
standpoint ? the Soviets stand to
benefit, and they are already well-
placed to do so.
That is why Peru is such an anom-
aly. It alone in South America has a
long-standing Russian diplomatic,
military, and intelligence presence.
Peru's military remains heavily
influenced by leftist ? even Marxist
:-,uch an assessment neglects se\
eral tact. First, Belaunde sue
cesstully guided Peru ItIrM.42.11 it
five years atter military rule, and tor
the first time in 40 years, P'' is
being transferred to an elected sui-
Cessor
Second. it considerably under-
estimates the enormity of Peru.s
economic and social problems -- a
seemingly intractable combination
of limited and unbalanced develop-
ment compounded by the horrible
mistakes made by a clique of left-
wing military officers who in the late
1960s and early 1970s promised a
third way and delivered a particu-
larly inefficient and corrupt form of
statism that set Peru back decades.
Nloreover, while President
Belaunde struggled with that, plus a
negative international economic
environment, he did so with a team
of political and economic advisers
that even critics acknowledge were
among the best and brightest that
Peru, indeed all of Latin America,
could offer.
Now it's Alan Garcia's turn. He is
half the age of his predecessor. He
is called charismatic and energetic.
He has shorn from his party, the
American Popular Revolutionary
Alliance, much of the mythology and
symbolism of the past which pre-
viously had polarized Peruvian poli-
tics-
Moreover, he has a mandate and
his party controls both houses of the
Congress. Few incoming presidents
begin with such advantages.
On top of that, he is no doctrinaire
leftist. But some of his early pro-
nouncements are not only unprom-
ising, they are alarming. IMF and
foreign-creditor bashing aside, Mr.
Garcia's belief that more state inter-
vention in the economy and
increased tariffs along with the
robust defense by a senior adviser of
Decision 24, the anti-foreign--
investment protocol of the Andean
Common Market, are all in the
wrong direction.
This is happening in a nation
already so overwhelmed by statist
red tape that it has developed the
world's largest underground econ-
omy ? yes, even larger than Italy's.
Rosy rhetoric about the Third
i World and about re-establishing ties
with the Cubans is not good news,
either. Nor is Mr. Garcia's praise for
Nicaragua as a democracy or his
Latuaae4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050037-5
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050037-5
critrAsin ot the Reagan administra-
tion', I. Lim ai American policy.
Moreo\ el, this is a man who has
recentlybceu to North Korea ?
tv, ice -- and was Impressed by it.
(But, of course, this is a Peruvian
politician who also visited Taiwan
and was impressed by the Republic
of China.)
Peruvian leaders have said and
done all this before ? as senior offi-
cers in Lima's quite professional for-
eign ministry can attest ? and have
gotten nothing for it. Also, most
observers acknowledge that there is
streah of pragmatism in Mr. Gar-
cia and a willingness to learn from
mistakes. Besides, his generation of
Aprisius are the most moderate in
the party's 60-year history.
The president-elect's anti-
Americanism is not set in concrete
? he has admitted that he does not
know the United States well and has
expressed an interest in knowing it
better.
But hard truths remain. Charisma
won't turn Peru's economy around. It
won't move mountains in the world
arena. The new president, will have
to shed his statist economic advisers
fast, and embark on a serious and
realistic path back to recovery,
working with, not against, the west-
ern world. With luck and a lot of
patience and attention from the
United States and, for once, other
western nations, Peru might make it.
Even then it won't be easy.
If the Garcia administration fails,
the fact that the runner-up in this
past election is a Marxist leading a
revitalized coalition of far-left par-
ties is the stuff of which nightmares
are made. In five years, we could be
presented an Allende-style govern-
ment in Peru ? elected to be sure,
but one utterly uninterested in pre-
serving democracy.
And this time, the Soviets will
be there in much greater
strength than they had in
Chile ? poised to exploit the
situation. .
Meanwhile, Peru's guerrillas, the
Sendero Luminoso, can be expected
to continue terrorist operations to
undermine the confidence in the
nation of Peruvians and foreigners?
alike.
As for the Soviets, they are
already deeply entrenched. Wel-
comed in by the left-wing military
government of Gen. Juan Velasco
Alvarado in 1967, Moscow has a 200-
officer embassy, and 150 military
advisers ? roughly double the size
of the official U.S. presence.
The Peruvian air force flies MiGs
and Sukhois, not f -5s. The army runs
on Soviet trucks, not Dodges, and its
firepower is Soviet-built T-54s and
artillery.
Both the KGB and the GRU are in
Peru in considerable numbers. In
fact, the GRU has in Lima its largest
station in the Western Hemisphere.
And from the Peruvian capital, its
officers fan out over all of South
America conducting intelliggnce
operations.
The Peruvian Communist Party,
wholly under the control of Moscow,
though small in numbers is disci-
plined and active. It controls a major
labor confederation, and exercises
influence on the left-wing coalition,
the United Left, well beyond its num-
bers. It also runs two newspapers,
and influences several others. Even
this is only a partial listing of the
Soviet presence, which is pervasive
and there for the long haul.
Moreover, there is not much
chance of that changing. Although
Mr. Garcia and his party are not con-
genitally pro-Soviet, circumstances
make it unlikely they will do much to
change the status quo. His predeces-
sor, far clearer in his antipathies
toward the Soviet bloc, could not.
A_
rid Mr. Garcia will be pushed
hard within his own party by
an archrival who would like to-
see APRA move to a much harder
left-wing stance. ??
The United States has not been
able to do much, either. While it has
managed to scrape together the larg-
est aid program in South America
for Peru, it has failed to wean the
Peruvian military away from Soviet
hardware, largely because it has
nothing to replace it with, owing to a
mountain of congressional
restrictions, despite some recent
indications that Lima's officer corps
would like to move to Western suppli-
ers.
Even a plan for us to supply the
spare parts for Soviet equipment
went nowhere because of the red
tape.
Congress as yet shows no sign'
of knowing what is at stake. It
has already eliminated a first-
ever $18 millibn in military assis-
tance from this year's budget and no
one expects it to be restored.
With this in mind, the best policy
this country can follow is first to
raise Peru in priority ? a difficult
task in a town 'where Latin America
still makes eyes glaze. , ,. ?
The United States must keep the
door open to the new government
while remaining candid in its assess-
ment of the consequences of more
statism for Peru's ailing economy.
In keeping the channels open, the
administration should also be pre-
pared to fight hard for the resources
from the Congress to make the seri-
ous effort required for at least the
mid-term.
The task is formidable and with
the Soviets and its Peruvian allies
holding more good cards than they
should have, we may in a few years
wonder why we weren't told earlier.
Roger Fontaine is a staff writer for
The Washington Times who formerly
served as a senior staff member of
the National Security Council.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050037-5