279 秘鲁新总统面临重重困难-英语课

时间：2018-12-08 作者：英语课 分类：VOA2001-国际风云（4）

英语课

Peru's Toledo Faces Challenges

Greg Flakus

Lima

1 Aug 2001 05:01 UTC

The government of Peru's president-elect, Alejandro Toledo, has left the 1)fanfare of the past weekend's 2)inauguration behind and is into its first week of work. After the turmoil 1 of last year, Peru's 25 million people are looking for a period of both political and economic stability. But, President Toledo may have little time to spare in meeting this challenge.

During his campaign and in his inaugural 2 address last Saturday, Alejandro Toledo made clear his prime objective was to attack the problem of 3)poverty in Peru.

President Toledo says he is fully 3 4)committed to 5)dedicating every minute of his life and his government to a full-scale war on poverty.

But the weapons on hand for this attack are limited and the problem is huge. The government's own 6)statistics show that 54 percent of the population lives below the 7)poverty line and 4.5 million people live in extreme poverty. One out of every four Peruvian children under the age of five is 8)chronically 4 9)malnourished.

To make matters worse, Peru's economy is in 10)recession and the government is burdened by commitments to international lenders.

The political scene is fairly calm for the moment, but the 11)turmoil of last year has not been fully left behind. From his self-imposed 12)exile in Japan, former President Alberto Fujimori 13)snipes at the new government from his web site - 14)energizing his supporters back here in Peru.

From his office, with a 15)balcony overlooking Lima's main 16)plaza, Caretas Magazine Publisher Enrique Zileri surveys the difficulties ahead for President Toledo and his team. "This is a government that is going to have big problems, in the beginning," he says. "It has been promising 5 a lot. All 17)candidates in the last elections promised a lot. Now is the time to get into the bullring and the bull comes out and let us see how you handle the situation."

Mr. Zileri says part of the problem is there was an eight-month gap between the time when President Alberto Fujimori left Peru, under a cloud of 18)corruption 7 charges, and the start of the Toledo Administration. He says the interim 8 government's success has set the public's expectations for President Toledo even higher. "He is going to have a very short 19)honeymoon 9 because part of his honeymoon has been eaten up by the transition government," says Mr. Zileri, " the government that took power when Fujimori left, or fled, and this transitional government, miraculously 10, handled the situation beautifully and it comes out in 20)glory."

Mr. Zileri says that, to some extent, President Toledo will now be judged in comparison to the interim government that preceded him, rather than to the 21)discredited 11 Fujimori government.

Mr. Fujimori is now viewed as a villain 12 by many Peruvians, but Mr. Zileri notes that not all of his ten years in office was marked by corruption and failure. He says Mr. Fujimori's main achievement was defeating the 22)vicious 23)insurgent 13 group known as the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path. This Maoist group recruited thousands of poor Indian peasants during the 1970's and 1980's and was responsible for bombings in Lima, as well as murders throughout the countryside. Now that both the Fujimori government and the Peruvian military have been 24)tainted by 25)scandal, there is fear that radical 14 elements could see an opportunity to rise again. Enrique Zileri says the breeding ground for such insurgency 15 is found in the poverty and 26)desperation prevalent in Peru's rural areas. "The elements for a new Shining Path have not disappeared in this country," he says. "You have a tremendous amount of unemployment. The social ingredients for an insurgency are still here. This is the thing we have to fight, the basis of the whole possibility of violence. The basis for these things are social and economic and the drug-running and so forth 16. The best way to deal with them, in the long run, is through democratic solutions."

Mr. Zileri says the Fujimori government succeeded in defeating insurgent groups militarily, but it became autocratic and corrupt 6 over time. He says President Toledo must attack poverty and injustice 17, but that is not all. He says the president must make clear that there is no alternative to the peaceful, democratic process in Peru and that no attempts to 27)undermine it will be tolerated.