US embassy cable - 05LIMA3414

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 LIMA 003414 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
State for International Religious Freedom Office 
DRL for KBrokenshire, CNewling, KCumberland, DWalters 
G for Laura Lederer 
G/TIP for Linda Brown 
WHA/PD for Mary Dean Conners 
 
STATE FOR 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, PE 
SUBJECT: Peru's Evangelicals: A Rising Force 
 
REF: Religious Freedom Report 2004 
 
1.  (SBU) This is the first in a three-part series on Peru's 
Evangelical Christians.  This cable traces the recent 
history of this key emerging sector.  The second will 
delineate the Evangelicals' political strategy for the 
upcoming presidential and congressional elections.  The 
final cable will point to outreach possibilities and speak 
to Peruvian Evangelical Christians' potential as USG allies 
on narcotics, trafficking in persons, and in countering anti- 
Americanism. 
 
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Summary: 
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2.  (U) Peru's growing Evangelical Christian Community could 
be an important factor in the upcoming presidential 
elections.  Over the last twenty years, this highly diverse 
community has grown from 1-2 percent of the population to 10- 
15 percent today.  Peru's Evangelicals have already made a 
strong, thought not sustained, impact on Peruvian politics. 
They participated in the defeat of Sendero Luminoso (SL), 
helped transform Alberto Fujimori from a long-shot candidate 
into Peru's President in 1990, and, more recently, provided 
a counterweight to Nelson Palomino's cocalero movement in 
the Apurimac River Valley.  Since the early 90s, when 
Evangelical Christians provided key support to Fujimori, 
their numbers, levels of organization, and social reach have 
increased.  End Summary. 
 
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Evangelicals: Two Decades of Growth 
----------------------------------- 
 
3.  (U) Over the last twenty years, Peru's Evangelical 
Christian community has grown rapidly, from an estimated 1-2 
percent of the population to 10-15 percent today.  Peru's 
Evangelicals are enormously diverse.  The Union of 
Evangelical Churches (UNICEP), one umbrella organization, 
represents over 7,000 churches with 600,000 members. 
 
4.  (SBU) Poloff recently discussed the Evangelicals' 
potential influence in the upcoming presidential and 
congressional elections with a wide variety of contacts 
within the movement, including: 
 
-Robert Barriger.  An American Citizen, Barriger is the 
President of UNICEP and founder of the 12,000 member, Lima- 
based "Road to Life" (Camino de Vida) Church. 
 
-Humberto Lay Sun.  A Peruvian architect of Chinese descent, 
Lay Sun is the founder and leader of the 20,000-member 
Emmanuel Church.  He is also an announced presidential 
candidate. 
 
-Peter Hornung.  Hornung is a successful businessman who 
leads the 50,000-member Agua Viva Church in Lima.  Hornung 
is also a presidential candidate, though it remains unclear 
if his has a viable party behind him. 
 
-Cesar Castellanos.  Founder and leader of the 300,000 
strong "Road to Destiny" Church in Colombia, Castellanos' 
Church is closely allied with Hornung's.  Reportedly, 
Castellanos also enjoys close ties to Colombian President 
Alvaro Uribe.  (Castellanos' wife is Colombia's Ambassador 
to Brazil.)  Castellanos recently preached to Promise- 
Keepers style meeting of 15-20,000 men in Lima. 
 
-Walter Alejos.  The only Evangelical member of the Peruvian 
Congress, Alejos is a former professor at the University of 
Huamanga in Ayacucho (where he knew personally Abimael 
Guzman) and former Director of the NGO World Vision in Peru. 
 
5.  (U) Poloff also discussed Evangelical Christians' 
relationship to experts in other sectors.  SL scholars 
Carlos Tapia and Ponciano del Pino described the Evangelical 
Christians role in turning back Sendero in the Apurimac 
River Valley, and sociologist Jaime Antezano laid out the 
recent history of the Evangelicals' strong ideological 
divergences with the Cocaleros of that same region. 
 
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From Countryside to City 
------------------------ 
 
6.  (U) Historically, Peru had a small Protestant community. 
Evangelical Christians figured among them, but, until the 
1980s, they had confined their conversion efforts to rural 
areas, working with the poor.  Their preaching urged people 
to withdraw from an immoral society and practice faith in a 
private way.  These conditions changed dramatically in the 
1980s as the Sendero Luminoso terrorist campaign sent 
desperate campesinos streaming into the cities.  At the same 
time, the urban churches began to convert more members of 
the middle class, giving the community far more potential 
political leverage. 
 
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Grassroots Appeal 
----------------- 
 
7.  The reasons for the fast growth of the Evangelical 
Churches became evident during a recent series of visits 
Poloff made to Robert Barriger's Road to Life Church.  The 
Church's message is individualistic, positive, and relevant 
to many Peruvians, particularly to formerly middle class 
persons battered by the economic difficulties of the 80s- 
90s, and to upwardly mobile rural immigrants to the cities. 
Both in preaching and in teaching, Road to Life emphasizes 
self-improvement and family reinforcement.  Road to Life 
offers an array of workshops on family issues, particularly 
on the responsibilities of men (similar to Promise Keepers 
in the U.S.).  The Church provides a social safety net for 
members, maintaining a list of low-cost doctors.  Finally, 
Road to Life runs its own social programs, including a home 
for street children in Ayacucho and a highly successful 
program - with U.S. partners - to distribute low-cost 
wheelchairs to handicapped and impoverished Peruvians. 
 
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The "Holy War" Against Sendero 
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8.  (U) Evangelical Christians in the Apurimac River Valley 
took a lead role in fighting off Sendero Luminoso.  The 
Valley was important to SL for the way it linked Ayacucho, 
Sendero's original base area, and the Ene River, a jungle 
region where SL remnants still exist.  Peruvian scholar 
Ponciano del Pino describes the Apurimac River Evangelicals' 
transformation from pacifist believers into holy warriors in 
a 1995 Spanish-language article, "Times of War and Gods: 
Ronderos, Evangelicals, and Senderistas in the Apurimac 
River Valley." 
 
9.  (U) When SL first entered the Valley in 1982, 
Evangelical Christians refused to take part in violent 
actions against the state.  In response, Sendero began 
killing evangelical leaders and drove all established 
religious authorities, Catholic and Protestant, out of the 
area.  Abandoned by "professional" religious authorities 
(pastors and missionaries), del Pino relates, the Indian 
peasants of the Apurimac River Valley interpreted their 
situation in apocalyptic Biblical terms.  Desperate 
conditions promoted a surge in conversions.  Many 
Evangelicals concluded that Sendero represented the anti- 
Christ and so eagerly provided much of the manpower for the 
self-defense committees (ronderos) that ultimately defeated 
the SL terrorists. 
 
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Key Support for Fujimori 
------------------------ 
 
10.  (U) Evangelical Christians made their next impact on 
Peruvian politics in 1990, when they helped transform 
candidate Alberto Fujimori from long-shot outsider into 
President.  Carlos Bustamante, a self-made millionaire and 
an important Evangelical leader, became an early Fujimori 
backer.  Fujimori then picked a prominent Evangelical, 
Carlos Garcia, to be his running mate.  Trained in outreach, 
Evangelicals proved to be expert fund-raisers for the 
Japanese-Peruvian candidate. 
 
11.  (SBU) The alliance with Fujimori proved a bitter 
experience, one that is keenly remembered by Peru's 
contemporary evangelical leaders.  After his election, 
Fujimori turned his back on his Evangelical supporters.  In 
addition, the Evangelicals who served in his government and 
those elected to Congress turned in a disappointing 
performances.  Some became involved in the scandals of the 
era.  Others, according to contemporary Evangelical 
Congressman Walter Alejos, had no idea how to go about the 
day-to-day horse-trading that is congressional politics. 
Alejos recounts how some of the 17 Evangelical Congressmen 
who entered with Fujimori tried to convert other Congress 
members during legislative sessions, a practice that puzzled 
veteran politicians.  Contemporary Evangelical leaders 
stress that to influence politics, the movement needs to 
develop a cadre of politically savvy, effective leaders. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
Countering Cocaleros: Reaction to "the Sacred Leaf" 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
12.  (U) The final Evangelical Christian incursion into 
politics has occurred recently.  Since 2000, the 
Evangelicals in the Apurimac River Valley, motivated by 
religious and ideological convictions, have proven to be 
counterweight to the Cocaleros, according to rural 
sociologist and cocalero expert Jaime Antezano.  Antezano 
said that in the 1985-1990 period when coca production 
surged, the Evangelicals ignored the issue of cultivation 
(though drug usage was discouraged among church members). 
During the 1995-2000 period, when coca production dropped 
dramatically, many farmers abandoned the crop, removing any 
potential conflict between the area's Christians and coca. 
 
13.  (U) Coca production began a comeback in the Valley in 
2000.  Two years later, Cocalero leader Nelson Palomino 
appeared on the scene and created the cocalero Federation of 
Agricultural Producers of the Apurimac River Valley and the 
VRAE (FEPAVRAE).  Palomino proclaimed that coca was "a 
sacred leaf" and wrapped his ideas in a glorification of the 
Inca Empire.  According to Antezano, the description of coca 
as "sacred" and Palomino's quasi-religious references to 
"sacred" Inca past proved deeply offensive to evangelical 
Christians. 
 
14.  (U) In response, Evangelical Christian farmers in the 
southern part of the Valley formed their own Association of 
Evangelical Producers (AEP) as a counterweight to Palomino's 
group.  AEP's leader, Andrez Allcca, publicly stepped 
forward and called coca "the damned leaf" and, according to 
Antezano, many Evangelicals began to eradicate their own 
coca plants.  Antezano added that for unknown reasons, the 
opposition to coca moderated in the beginning of 2003, with 
Allcca adopting a lower profile.  Antezano noted that 
recently anti-coca militancy among Evangelicals was on the 
rise.  He cited a recent AEP Congress in Lima where 
Evangelical farmers, threatened by the re-emergence of Coca 
and renewed incursions of narcotraffickers, came out against 
coca cultivation. 
 
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Comment: 
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15.  (SBU) In the last three decades, Evangelicals' 
membership has gone from rural to urban, from mostly poor to 
increasingly middle class.  Evangelicals have excellent 
grassroots networks throughout the country and ties to key 
groups in the U.S.  They agree with the U.S. on a number of 
key issues, including narcotics, terrorism, trafficking in 
persons, and religious freedom.  As Peru continues to 
experience a strong wave of Christian revivalism, the USG 
would be remiss to not pay close attention to this emerging 
force. 
 
Struble