Hombre de la Gente? (Man of the People?)

I've heard a little about the country of Peru. The usual things come to mind – llamas and Andean pipes and colonial Spanish architecture. Despite publicity surround ing the fraudulent elections that returned Fujimori to power, most of us in the U.S. still have no picture of the country. But there is something that I read once that lodged itself in my mind's eye. It is a brief description of the poverty that is so profound in Peru. The writer tells of walking down the street of a barrio, an impoverished a one and only one of many in Lima, and seeing a child and a pig side by side rooting for garbage in the sewer.

Poverty that debasing is incomprehensible to me and yet millions live in that same degree of poverty in the beautiful Andean highlands. The Peruvian Communist Party says that unemployment is up to 80% from 50% in the pre Fujimori years. The writing is angry, enraged, ideological and determined. Could it be any other way? Am I a communist? No, I'm a middle class American whose ancestors came here from famine in Ireland and thrived through guts, brutally hard work and the fact that there were no other options in the new land. Mine is a different heritageas well as a very different present reality. But it seems obvious to me why a Peruvian peasant is a pure communist or why young girl in Colombia takes up the cause and shoulders an Ak-47.

The Washington Post article on Toledo, the opposition candidate, features him as a man of the people. Indian blood and from the barrio. But it seems that his path in life has taken him to the high altar of success --a job at the World Bank and a wife of European origins. Is he a real opposition candidate or merely the next in the line of succession as Fujimori embarrasses his handlers with excessively blatant fraud.

Nationalist writer, Maria Vargas de Llosa, also accuses the OAS of being complicit in the election cover-up. Will there be elections in Peru at the end of July or not? And if so, will they be any more honest or make any substantial difference? Peru -- GlobalSpin 's Next Stop on its South Amercian adventure.