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Peru OKs free trade pact with U.S.Agreement still needs ratification by U.S. Congress LIMA, Peru (AP)--Peru's Congress overwhelmingly voted to ratify a free trade pact with the United States early June 28 following a six-hour debate that was interrupted by a small group of recently elected nationalist lawmakers who burst onto the legislative floor in a show of opposition. In a 79 to 14 vote with six abstentions, the 120-member legislature approved the bilateral deal reached between Peru and Washington late last year and signed in April by President Alejandro Toledo's government. The ratification received the full backing of President-elect Alan Garcia's 28-member Aprista party bloc. Toledo's administration lobbied fiercely for ratification before Garcia is sworn in July 28, along with a new Congress, which will have a strong anti-free trade opposition led by presidential runner-up Ollanta Humala, who lost the June 4 runoff to Garcia. About two hours into the debate, several legislators-elect from Humala's nationalist alliance punched and kicked their way past security guards to enter the Congress floor, pumping their fists in the air, waving placards and chanting anti-free trade slogans. The legislature's president, Marcial Ayaipoma, called a half-hour suspension of the session while the protesters were forced to leave the building. Humala's fledgling nationalist movement captured 45 congressional seats, but recently lost at least three of them to defections by politicians who said Humala--an admirer of Peru's 1968-75 leftist dictatorship of Gen. Juan Velasco--had veered too far to the left. But his group will still represent the largest single bloc, next to 36 seats for Garcia's party. Humala maintains the free trade deal, which still lacks a nod from the U.S. Congress, would flood Peru with subsidized U.S. agricultural goods, making it impossible for local producers to compete. Before the ratification debate began, the legislature approved four projects aimed at making Peru's agricultural sector more competitive, including one measure to offer monetary compensation to Peruvian producers of cotton, yellow corn and wheat. Ultraconservative Congressman Rafael Rey said that opposition to the pact has little to do with the deal, and everything to do with opposition to the United States. "The problem is not the free trade agreement. It is not the terms of the negotiation," Rey said. "The problem is the United States and it is a purely ideological issue." Peru and the United States, alongside Colombia and Ecuador, entered into talks in May 2004 for a deal to lower trade barriers. The three Andean nations already enjoy preferential trade for more than 6,000 products with the United States through a program aimed at helping countries on the front lines of the drug war, but that agreement expires at the end of this year. Colombia also reached an accord with Washington earlier this year that must still be ratified. Free trade talks between Washington and Ecuador stalled last month after Ecuador canceled U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp.'s contract and seized its facilities following a long-standing contract dispute. Date: 7/21/06
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