Peru's Indians begin to feel
their power
HERE,
From PAUL JOHNSON
Huancayo, Peru.
in the sun-soaked valley nearly 11,000ft. above sea-level, I am in the centre of a country which is the richest-and the poorest-in the world,
I travelled from the coastal export the lion's share of their plain or Láma, once the capital collar earning.
of Spain's South American The government-whose basic empire, on a crazy mountain, economic policy was drawn up rafway which carried me to by a firm of American business. 15,09311, beneath the summits consultants-is at the mercy of Agencles, the financial of the Andes. We trundled for the hours through desolate moun- Export-Import Bank and the tain valleys, hedged by gigantle International Monetary Fund.
In Lima's luxurious Hotel masses of volcanic rock.
It is virtually impossible for Bolivar,
"This is a country."
U.S. commercial
real businessman's
SETTIC
life to survive on these vast lawyer told me with satisfaction: uplands. The soll is carried away by fierce winds which strip
A Peruvian made the the earth to the bare rock. By day, the sun turns the area into point differently: "The foreign- and all they an interna; at night, the tem crs come and go,
leave US are holes
the iT perature is below freezing-point
Yet these mountains contain ground".
There is little that nationalist- some of the rie' at and most varied mineral deposits on earth. minded Feruvians can do about The lure of Peruvian gold this chronic exploitation of their Only in the last four brought the Spaniards here. And, country, Peru's riches still attract large- years las Peru been tree from scale investment of Western military dictatorship. capital.
Bewildering
Peru producus copper and lead, gold and silver, zine, vana- dium bismuth, manganese, iron coal and tungsten-as well as growing supplies of oil. Many of these rich deposits are blended together in bewildering confu- sion, so that a single mine can produce lead, copper, zine, gold and silver, together with a score or so of minor metals.
Yel virtually none of the wealth that Peru produces stays in the country.
All the big mines
are American-owned, subsidiaries of glant corporations in the United Stules, Legislation, specially drawn up to encourage U.S. Investments, allows the arms to
'MOONLIGHT'
TEST TO LIVEN
ZOO ANIMALS
EXPERIN
The leaders of Peru's biggest leftish organisation admitted to me that if they campaigned and won an election, the amilitary So would instantly take over. they are obliged to support the present conservative regime, which at least has the merit that. it rules through constit tional channels.
New force
Yet a new political force- almost unobserved by the com- placent politicians in Lima—is rowing up the highlands: the Indians.
Together with half-castes, they make up, over 80 per cent of the population. Most of them live at subsistence level, on potatoes and maize. Only a mali fraction play any part in the money economy. Yet, by a freak of hold the geography, they country's economic fate in their hands.
and
Moxl of Peru's food nearly all its mineral wealth, is produced at altitudes where the white man cammot work. Here, in Huancayo, the centre of the wheat belt, I find myself gasp- ing for oxygen after walking up a fight of stairs.
I'
THE CHINA MAIL TUESDAY, JULY 1993; 1960:
N an attempt to combat road accidents caused by drunken driving, Britain's top brauner Colonel William Henry Whithrand has buem, PEREGNE URE
the habite of his motoring customers. Licensees in 600 of his public houses have for the last four months been told to "observe"="mot "guestión customers. The pub quis they have filled up and sent to brewery, headquarters asked:---What proportion of the people in the bare own care? How many left their vehicles at home when they went for a drink? What were peak hours of drinking and the pub's car parking facilities? What did eis-coniume?
FREE CAR AU
THE HALF
Dear Colonel Whitbread,
As nehody comes in my pub since you ordered us to spy on how much motorists drink I have very little to report.......
London Express Service.
Reporting on Castro,
Castro, the neighbour who makes the U.S. see Red
DON
IDDON
IN CUBA
Havana, Cuba.
IF Nikita Khrushchev comes to this island this month he will be given a delirious and ecstatic welcome, Prime Minister Fidel Castro will see to that. work a 12-hour day without
At nearby Oroya, the biggest mineral centre, mining is carried on at nearly 15,000ft-higher- ¿XPERIMENTS have be-than the summit of the Matter
Some of Peru's must gun at the London Zoo horn. to find out if some of the valuable mines are at 17,000ft. animals can be "condition- and the Indians can, and do, ed" to become more active strain. during public visiting hours. "Artificial moonlight" and "simulated sunlight" will be
used to reorientate the lives of a number of animals including bush babies, lemurs and some species of South American monkey. These at present sleep most of the day.
The nocturnal wanderings of each will be monitored by in- struments linked to a new type of cage with a foor on springs Every movement of the animal is registered, hour by hour.
Over the mouths, a complete "night behaviour pattern" will be built up by zoologists.
HOODWINKING
So the Indians, who in Chile and the Argentine have virtually disappeared are indispensable to the Peruvian economy. When they become aware of their power, and begin to exploit it, the gracious, feudal social structure of Peru will collapse.
Unions formed
There are signs that this time is coming. The Indians even the peasants are beginning to form unions. Though most are literate
During the past few days I have wat hed the militia training-men, women, children, even blind boys-in the parks and squares of this steaming capital which was rocked by the explosion of an ammunition dump only recently and which has been shaken by bombs in cinemas and stores four times since I arrived here
weeks ago.
ไป
Mr Khrushchev, who spurring and manipulating the Castro Government, will be greeted like a hero, but Prest. dent Dwight Eisenhower cannot even come here at all, although Cubs speak Spanish) they are learn-is only 90 miles from the United Ing the vocabulary of militant States' southernmost tip at Key syndicalism.
(half cannot
Later, lamps giving an In Huancayo, thousands were their Bnnual equivalent light and heat inten-assembling for
alty to the moon and sun will feast-Indian's Day, it is called be tried out in the hope that the Mingling in the crowds were
West.
Prestige
American prestige is not
animals will believe it is the the inevitable plain-clothes demerely at zero point here. The right Ume around.
entire United States Is the ob- to start moving tectives. For the authorities are ject of decision and contempt, watching the dawn of Indian and the Cuban people, whipped with by a ferocious Castro propaganda
campaign,
consciousness
If the experiment is success-political ful a special "nocturnal house" growing fear. may be built under the Zoo's 10
RAADE IN
RUSSIA)
Odd man out in Havana,
because they take me
for an American
a state of shrieking. A crippled kitten lay are in The Peruvian Indians last re- hysteria against all Americans,
sleeping in the corner. A Cuban year modernisation programme. volted nearly 150 years 880. I have had the most uncom- assistant sat before the TV sel A Zoo spokesman said: "We and were savagely curbed. Bul fortable and nerve racking murmuring to himself "Ready want to see if some of these today-as Sharpeville showed-seven days of my life. Because to fire....ready to fire." He was creatures, which the public only governments cannot rely sees curled up asleep, can be machine-guns alone. The day American sul, arrived in a soldiers.
on have been wea ing lightweight watching rifle practice by Cuban induced to give a better display, may soon be coming when the plane from New York, and or- It may mean that each animal descendants of the. Incas once dered drinks with los cubes has to have an adjusted cage to more take possession of their suit its own, habits,"
empire. -London. Express Nervire
—-{London Express Service).
MEET MR CLOGGHEAD*
*CLOG; ANYThing that HINDERS' MOTION
OR RENDERS DIFFICULT.
Mr. Clogghand has discovered that the easiest way to get t
the queue la to keep in the lane of traffic turning had when thece in
thee: sign. What does it matter if he blocks the mand for tini pengha ska wint sa kura infa
Mrs Phillips said: "The Castro
1 Government hates us like poison.
have been mistaken frequently I have been, here for years and for an American and treated on what I say is not sensational or several occasions like a leper. blased. Castro is handing over The other day, after being this country 20 2. platter to rubjected to studied rudeness by
a waiter, I put a dollar in small change on the table. The waiter picked up, the coine and flung
Soviet Russia.
Unholy
them in my face. This has been "The Castro Goverment 15 Castro's mercly one of a series of insults Communist and it is and humiliations,
ambition to Communise as. Sometimes I felt that I was much of Latin America as he
the last. Westemmer on the island, ca He is spending millions of
Tragedy
RADUL CASTRO
ERNESTO. SHETAL With Fidel they are befplag tu wreck and rain. Cala
Bay, dazzling bright under the blazing sur
That night I went to see Fidel Castro.
Dr Castro. still denies that he
is a Communist and says: "
.
drugs and Hquor. He drisica. On occasional! beser my brandy; But he does not need, stienulanta.
"We will take over all Ameri- can interests in Cuba in the face of United States economic aggression, against Cuba," Castro said. "We haven't yet confiscated American or nationalised any
firm in Cuba (this is hardly true), but we will not remain passive in the face of econotnic
am not Rod; I am olive grean?— aggression.
a reference to the battle uniform.
"Just as American interests
he west and which he wore now remain here as irrefutabla. when he battled his way across proof that the revolution has the island and caused Batista to not acted in excess, perhaps in
the future they will not be there.
flee:
Warned
My meeting with Prime Minis- as irrefutable proof that we will ter Castro was not at the Pre not kneel before threats.... sidential Palace, but at the Riviera Swimming Pool in a setting quite incongruous for the
wined the three foreign, great revolutionary.
off refineries Juara-Taso, Shell, The swimming pool is larger and Selain that they than anything in Miami or have a few days left to recon- Beverly Hills, and the cabanas sider their refusal to refine surrounding it are lavish suites. Russian oils The rainag
At the entrance, which was obligated to do so under guarded by police with revolvers Cube of May 5%, taniwhi opulent and lavish hotels in the on their hips and one or two is still in force, g world. Workmen were removing bearded Castro men cradling the giant blue neon electric sign Belgian tommy-guns, I decided "Hilton" and preparing to install to abandon, the pretence of the word "Libre The Habana being a tourist, which had Hilton, plush and glossy, is now deceived no ons, and showed my the Habana Libre Castro took Press card issued by the New party pamama it over a few weeks ago.
York police.
I was led upstairs and down- He took over an even more stairs through the kitchen, with opulent hotel and casino, the an armed export and then back Riviers, which was built by Log again.
I have gone into one deserted dollars on huge intensive faith in Castro, so had so many Habana Hilton, one of the most restaurant and bar after an- propaganda campaign while a other people. other. There are no tourists any lot of Cubans go hungry.. more, only a handful of news- "He is a megalomaniac. The "He has not even been smart papermen, and they are in daily two other members of the un- He could have played the honest fear of arrest.
holy committee who are wreck broker between the United ing and running this island are States and the Soviet Union, but bis younger brother Raoul and instead he has fumped into the the Argentinian Emeals Communist camp and sees him- The best-informed person on Guevarn who is president of self as anaker Khrushchev, the Cuban tragedy is Riby Hart, the National Bank and a well- Phillips, the distinguished cor- known international Communist. respondent of the New York: There is not the slightest Times. She has represented this doubt in my opinion that "What he doesn't realise is Vegas gambling money, recently. ner used as yours and Costume the mat when America gets tough. He has taken over-the-famous thought looked pale hour. Day after day he ranta
husband up to the time of and Bellan
and she will finally have to get old botel the National. his death was ita Havana cor- wekildes than next few neke tough Bussis, which doesn't, I respondent.
WET BLIZE" "EVERything link, want a shooting was, WAL climbed up the steep stone Americas he can lay his handa steps to the tiny, balinger bok on and there with boots say to Castro: Goodbye, you comes of the New York Times compensation if any made good by-too bad you're
and there was Baby banging Buby chain-smoked and wank vznik
her" typwriters A and "ke-all coubt bes parrot happent about on the floor different, I had great hopes and step
Opulent
from, exhaustion, sad, haggard from lack of stapp. Ha- În
Castro has made free radio and TV speeches since I have been here. One lasted for seven-
with wrath and hale: sgainst the United States
went upstairs-to-my-ber- gainrate suite on, the 17th floor tall sim and his carbines to drama that the corduroy douch, plus silic of wow evangelist and looked at the bright green with the frog, der from the Tack curtains, vid bile, cynich and
chairs, and then out on to the some American newspapers have mielling of tobaces
Havana/dane that he is