A Game With No Winners

The hostage ordeal in Peru is another sad example of Latin American radicalism gone haywire. On a continent where repressive, often brutal governments have been the rule for centuries, there has been no shortage of these sorts of rebellion. But history has shown that the events--often carried out in the name of the poor--have done little if anything for the downtrodden. When the Peru crisis ends, the result surely will be the same.

The quality of life for everyone in Peru will drop a notch. Peruvians of all classes will start looking over their shoulders again. The Peruvian political and economic miracle that President Alberto Fujimori had so eloquently sold worldwide has been tarnished. Events like this help no one, and more often than not it’s the innocent whose lives are sacrificed.

What will be remembered is not heroism or idealism on either side. Among captives at the Japanese diplomatic compound, memories of terror will be uppermost. Among the people of Lima, thoughts will be of the disruption the ordeal caused in their daily lives. The terrorists, whatever their fate, will remain nameless. Fujimori will fall a level or two in esteem. Each day the ordeal continues hurts his image. He didn’t resolve it quickly, did he?

By the time Fujimori won reelection in 1995, his rate of approval was 75%. Just before the hostage crisis it had dwindled to 48%. Now?

History hasn’t been kind to revolutionaries either. Ever since its inception in 1983, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement has promised the people a just society. Did the revolutionaries deliver? They have kidnapped people for ransom and used the money to buy weapons that allowed them to negotiate a contract with drug traffickers in the Huallaga Valley region to guarantee their protection. These are “liberators of the poor”?

As the drama slowly unfolds, there is nothing but pain and anguish for the hostages and their families. There will be no sudden enthusiasm for a socialist society. Nor will the current rulers change their approach, which is not to let poverty stand in the way of doing business. Progress in Latin America will eventually stem from this approach, but the poor only know that they have little to eat. To join the terrorists, however, is to risk even the hope of coping with that problem. Progress takes time. Revolutionaries have little patience. The innocents pay the price.