Is Alan Garcia off his meds?

“Coooomrades, in this historic and revolutionary moment, we call on you to take up the anti-imperialist fight…”

“No, no! You already gave that speech. Now you have to say: Gentlemen, we call on you to take up investment in privatizations and concessions…”

“Mr. García, you’re on!”

There has long been some speculation that a certain large Peruvian leader is…um, how to put this delicately?…not a well man upstairs. Today, I found a news story on Aporrea that seems to confirm a certain degree of schizophrenia:

Alan García, the president of Peru, said on Tuesday that he did not want to affect relations between his country and Venezuela, but he approved the asylum request of opposition leader Manuel Rosales because he considered him to be “menaced” by the Venezuelan authorities.

However, he said in a press conference that “we have a friendly position toward the government of Venezuela, which is a democratic government whose character is undeniably popular, and for that reason, we do not want any circumstance to alter our good relations with Venezuela, and we will go on seeking that objective.”

Translation mine.

Yep…it’s just as I suspected. The man not only eats two breakfasts (as Otto has it), he has two personalities. And they’re at odds with each other. How else to explain his characterizing Venezuela on the one hand as a popular democracy, and on the other as a place where the opposition is “menaced” (by criminal charges, not political ones)? And how else to explain his strange willingness to shelter corruptos and crooks?

UPDATE: Peruvians have turned out in force to protest this crazy-ass decision. Too bad these sane folks don’t form the government.