Time to Reform

On a recent tour through the backlands of his mountainous country, Peru's Premier Pedro Beltran, 64, a descendant of the Spanish conquistadors, stopped off in the ancient Inca city of Cuzc0,11,200 ft. up in the Andes. A howling, Communist-led mob of Indian peasants, descendants of the defeated Incas, greeted him with a barrage of rocks and cries of "To the wall!" Few places in Latin America know a wider chasm between rich and poor, between the white aristocracy and the Indian masses, who, 400 years after the conquest, still live in misery. Though Beltran is an alert and enlightened statesman, his efforts to bring social and economic reform to his country are hampered by centuries of hatred and suspicion.

Scattered Llamas. Peru's Indians have much to remember, unforgivingly. The country, lying along the continent's western bulge, is harsh at the best of times. The chilled winds that blow in from the cold Humboldt Current pass over the dust-dry coastal plain (Lima's last rain was 13 years ago), unload their moisture on the stony Andes. Yet in ancient times Peru flourished. The highly civilized Incas built stone-surfaced roads and bridged rivers; aqueducts spanned valleys, and canals cut through solid rock to carry irrigating water to elaborately terraced mountainside gardens. The welfare of every Indian was assured by a clear chain of governmental responsibility that went from the Inca himself down to officials responsible for watching over units as small as ten families.

In 1532 Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate swineherd from western Spain, captured the Inca emperor by trickery, and had him strangled. Within a decade the bridges were tumbled, irrigation systems shattered, imperial warehouses emptied; the enormous llama herds that provided meat and clothing were scattered and slaughtered. The conquistadors cut the richer lands of the Andean foothills into immense haciendas worked by Indian peasants held virtually as slaves. Today, while Peru exports cotton, sugar, silver and copper, it must import food to maintain even a marginal existence for the bulk of its 10 million people. Half the population is illiterate; undernourished children die of such simple maladies as measles and diarrhea.

Converted Aristocrat. The division between masters and servants has grown so explosive that Peruvians from all factions are anxiously working to snip the fuse.* The most effective reformer so far has been Beltran, who holds power through a truce between the moderate right and anti-Communist left.

Trained in conservatism and orthodoxy at the pre-Laski (1915-18) London School of Economics. Beltran came home to put the modern miracles of science to work on the family hacienda and to criticize governments from the pages of his daily La Prensa. His criticism of ex-Dictator Manuel Odria landed him in jail; his criticism of Odria's successor, President Manuel Prado, gave Prado an idea--he asked Beltran to help run the country.

Among the Savages. Beltran accepted the job with a wry comment: "Like missionaries who go among the savages, we must be prepared to be eaten." He took over at a time when the currency presses were speeding up, the sol was slipping down, and foreign debts were climbing. He clamped on an austerity that stabilized the economy so impressively that the U.S. has pumped $79 million worth of loans into Peru. Beltran anticipated the Alliance for Progress by channeling funds into "social" projects--mainly housing. He tightened tax collections (although the maximum tax is still a painlessly low 30%), tried (with little success) to push land reform through Congress, put units of the army to work building roads.

The ability to bend toward the masses makes Beltran a first-rank contender for next May's presidential election, running along the middle road. He also has an innate courage that may yet convince the Indians of his desire for change.

At Cuzco fortnight ago, he ignored the hail of stones to walk two miles from the airport to his hotel. From a balcony, he warned the Indians about Communism: "Do not believe their foreign doctrines, do not believe in their paradise." When a delegation of Communists demanded "in the name of the people" that he leave town, Beltran replied: "I question your claim of representing the people of Cuzco. Good day, gentlemen." When the Red-controlled Cuzco Workers' Federation tried to run him out of town with a 24-hour general strike, Beltran saw to it that local police and troops guaranteed protection to anyone who wanted to work. The strike failed. By the end of his Cuzco visit, as he broke ground for a $500,000 housing project in the city's slums, the Communists had decided to leave him alone.

* To prevent Fidel Castro from lighting fuses across the hemisphere, Peru last week tried to convene an inter-American meeting to consider means of dealing with Communist Cuba. The idea was pigeonholed by other Latin American nations still reluctant to face the problem.

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