Peru - November 8th, 2021

While the Fujimori congressmen, under orders from the IMF and the businessmen, prepare an anti-worker bills “package” and Pedro Castillo militarizes the streets of Lima and Callao...

 The congress with a Fujimorist majority gives a "vote of confidence" to the new cabinet of Castillo´s ministers...
...to advance the attack against the employed,
unemployed workers and poor peasants

On Thursday, November 4, the Peruvian congress (which has a majority of the Fujimorist parties) with 68 votes in favor, 56 against and one abstention, gave the "vote of confidence" to Castillo's new cabinet of ministers, which is chaired by Mirtha Vásquez who is from the Frente Amplio party and was the vice president of the Sagasti (who in turn is a representative of the World Bank and the US imperialists) government.
In that session of the bourgeois parliament, the vote against was divided, not only in Keiko Fujimori's Popular Force party but in the Peru Libre bourgeois party of corrupt Vladimir Cerrón and the former premier of the previous cabinet of ministers, Guido Bellido, resulting in 16 against and 19 in favor. This had been already anticipated because days ago it was announced that a sector of the latter bourgeois party was taking away its support for Castillo since it declared that this representative of the US imperialism and the transnationals had had a turn to the "center right."
Those at the top are desperately seeking to close their crisis, as Castillo's previous cabinet of ministers only lasted two months. However, in this new cabinet one of the most important positions such as Finance Minister was again given to Pedro Francke, who is a former World Bank official; he had explicitly clarified that in this government no company was going to be expropriated or nationalized and the repayment of the fraudulent debt to the IMF was guaranteed. In other words, Castillo put new faces in some positions, but with the same pro-imperialist essence in a country looted through a FTA.
In this way, Professor Castillo is on the honor roll of the best students of imperialism, as he is applying the plan of Fujimori, the transnationals and the IMF. This is seen by workers every day, because from September 20 to 22 of this year Pedro Castillo went on a tour to USA and Mexico, where he participated in a meeting with the OAS, had meetings with the president of the World Bank and also with the managing director of the IMF to leave the country tied with triple chains to imperialism. Let us remember that just a few weeks before this trip he had approved the entry of US military troops into the country to train the police and the Armed Forces.  Thus, Castillo, who was painted as "progressive" by the Latin American left, today agrees with Fujimorism and every day he unmasks himself even more before the masses because in the facts he applies the plan of looting and privatizations of Biden, the IMF and the transnationals for Latin America.
Under orders from the IMF and the businessmen in the Congress, a brutal anti-labor bill package is being prepared while the Castillo government sends the Armed Forces and the police to the streets
In the midst of the pandemic, with the country's devalued currency, inflation worsens and workers' wages are no longer enough. Even in those miserable conditions for the masses, the president of the Congress María del Carmen Alva (from the Popular Action party) presented, at the head of the Fujimorist parties, 6 bills known as the “anti-labor package”. Among them it is standing out the collective dismissal of less than 10% of the employer's payroll, that is, massive layoffs; increase in part-time hours from 20 to 24 hours with the same salary; the hiring as public servants of retirees of the Armed Forces and the murderous police; elimination of the indefinite-term contract and prioritization of the temporary contract. These are just a few examples of the profound attack that has been prepared in that congress, which is indeed a notary office of the IMF and the transnationals. This is why this package is part of the same attack that was deepening with the anti-worker package in Colombia, which has the same type of attacks on workers.
From November 2, anticipating the response of the workers and the poor people, Castillo ordered the Armed Forces (that are trained by the US imperialist military troops) to take to the streets of Lima and Callao to support the police with the excuse of "increased crime", but it’s evident for everybody that actually, its due to the increase in protests by various kinds of workers in Lima and the regions where terrible living conditions, hunger and unemployment are rife. We have already seen the action of the police in conflicts such as the miners of Pasco or the workers mobilized in Lima, as por example in Leche Gloria dairy plant, since the repressive institutions are at the service of taking care of the properties of the bosses and the transnationals.
Thus, hundreds of workers from various unions, who were fired by the "Perfect Suspension Law" of 2020, are now taking to the streets to demand getting back their jobs because with the excuse of the pandemic, through that law and after temporarily "suspending" them, the businessmen began with massive layoffs. Likewise, the mentioned workers, the regular CAS (informal workers), the Covid CAS, nurses, obstetrics and outsourced workers from the San Juan de Lurigancho hospital (Lima province) denounced the non-payment of 4-month wages in arrears, lack of uniforms, and carried out mobilizations towards the health ministry, just as an example of the struggle of workers from different hospitals in Lima and the regions.
In the mining regions in the north and south of the country they have carried out indefinite strikes against the miserable working conditions. Thus, in October, the mineworkers were mobilizing at the doors of the Buenaventura-Uchucchacua company offices (Lima region) to demand and seek a solution to the collective dismissal that has affected more than 2000 workers and families. The inhabitants of Antamina (in the Ancash region), were also protesting against the transnational BHP Billiton for the contamination of the land.  Also in the Cuzco region there are 16 conflicts against the contamination of the multinational mining corridor.  But all these conflicts are totally desynchronized not only in Lima but throughout the country, as part of the policy of the Stalinist leadership of the CGTP.
The workers are mobilizing against the Castillo farce, which the entire left of former Trotskyists had called the workers to support "against Fujimori." Today when we see this alleged "left government" of Castillo applying the plans of Fujimorism... the Argentine PTS tells the workers that Castillo now denies "his already lukewarm campaign promises" (Izquierda Diario, 07/04/21), as if Castillo had ever been a left politician!
However, the UIT-CI and its Peruvian group of Fernández Chacón go further, because in their publications, after characterizing Castillo as a Popular Front government, they tell the workers through one of their interventions on Facebook: “We have to fight for our own laws, make ourselves respected, now we have two fellow congressmen. We have Isabel Cortez and Sigrid Bazán (from Verónika Mendoza's party, which includes the CP and Patria Roja-Red Homeland NdR) who are supporting us. Although now our colleague Minister Maraví (former labor minister of the former Castillo NdR cabinet) has just been dismissed” (from the Facebook account of Uníos Peru, October 8, 2021). That is to say, that from that corrupt, anti-worker congress that is a Wall Street clerk's office and in which the supposed "left" parties and the Fujimori fascists coexist, favorable laws for the workers can be achieved with pressure in the streets... This is not true at all; from that den of bandits only laws will come out against the workers as we have always experienced. The Argentine FIT-U parties that are in Peru such as the PTS or Uníos, in addition to the LIT-CI, have to take responsibility for the support they gave Castillo and all the anti-worker laws and actions that he applies today.
Let the CGTP organizations break with the bourgeois government of Castillo! Let us take back the CGTP from the hands of the Stalinist union bureaucracy of Red Homeland! Enough of class collaboration!
These days the workers took to the streets in defense of their rights and against hunger; however, the Stalinist leadership of the CGTP that has called for different mobilizations against this anti-labor package, in statements of October 20, 2021 “salutes the predisposition to the dialogue on the part of the president of the Congress and the conformation of a work (negotiating) table”. This earned them the criticism from the leaderships of the Mining Federation, which published an open letter to the leader of the CGTP, Gerónimo López, signaling him for being in meetings and in photos with the president of Congress that promotes these anti-labor laws.
It is time for the workers and poor peasants to be the masses that give a way out of the crisis, that from the Mining Federation a Workers' Congress of the CGTP and the peasant organizations is called to vote as the first point to immediately break with Castillo's government and the capitalists; it is time that those of us who suffer from the attacks, inflation, those fired by the "perfect suspension", the hungry, give a way out of the crisis, starting by expropriating the land of the oligarchy and expelling imperialism and the IMF out of the country. We must regroup our forces and prepare the General Strike so that all of them go out, and to defeat all the anti-worker laws!  And thus stop this offensive launched by imperialism and the IMF.
Only in this way will we be able to get bread, decent wages, decent health and end misery in the country. For only with a provisional worker and peasant government, which arms the masses and expels the US imperialist military bases, will it be possible to fight for a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, which expropriates without compensation and under workers control the mining companies, the landowners land and expel the IMF, to which Castillo has come to defend and guarantee their business.
Out with the Armed Forces from the streets! Out with the IMF from Peru and Latin America! Down with the FTA!
Down with the new bourgeois agrarian reform, the Castillo tax reform! Down with the anti-labor package!