[Perfiles21] Susana Saldaña: "Governments have used us for the photo"

In the midst of the social upheaval and the deaths that today mourn the entire country, eyes have also turned to the commercial unions. It was expected that this year, after the pandemic, they would have a truce, but it will hardly be achieved. Below, the opinion and profile of the first woman, in almost 60 years of history, to assume the leadership of a union that has just listened to the voice of women who cover more than 60% of the jobs that are developed from the start. gamarra emporium towards the whole country. We are talking about more than 600 thousand jobs.

Biological parents

Susana Saldaña’s personal history has several episodes that she describes as “complicated”. I would have preferred not to remember them, much less break down counting them, because perhaps it is easier to be in the place of the strong businesswoman and leader that she has managed to be. However, to get there, there are those who go through profoundly difficult tests. Susana was the fruit of a happy marriage that she dared to confront her families for her love. And yet, her father died in a traffic accident when she was less than six months old. Her mother then, young and widowed, rebuilt her life by leaving her daughter with her maternal grandmother. Eleven years later, Susana believed that she would be better off with her paternal grandmother, they promised her that she would be like that, but it was practically a nightmare: “It was really terrible… I can only say that no child should grow up without love and abuse. I even stopped going to school during the year I lived there, they told me, because it wasn’t something for me.”.

In family

“Despite everything, I have never been a conformist”, she says when she explains that, without someone having taught her, she felt that she did not deserve what she was experiencing, that at most she would have to endure until she was 18 years old and then she would get out of it. Suddenly, the visit from Lima of the sister of her ‘biological father’ changed everything. Susana says that she will never know if her aunt seriously asked her if she wanted to go with her to the capital “but after 10 minutes I was at the door of that house, ready, with a couple of changes of clothes and a few other things that I had. I saw her surprise in her eyes, but she understood that something was happening and she took me to live with her, where I finally knew, at the age of 12, what it was like to have a mother and a family. My cousins are my brothers and she, my aunt, taught me all the good things I know. What it is that they stick up for you. She taught me to defend myself, to always work and never stop cultivating.”.

The sky is the limit

Her aunt had a clothing business in Gamarra, she was in the textile business and Susana was also delighted with that. “I helped to sell in the stores, to cut, I love to sew and it seems incredible to me that a garment can emerge from your hands”he says with great enthusiasm while explaining that this is how he stayed in Gamarra “until God decides”, indicates laughing. Today Susana studies Law at the scientific university At the same time, he presides over the most important union in the emporium, in alliance with eight other unions that represent a large part of the 40,000 micro and small entrepreneurs from all corners of the country, which generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Her voice, as she herself admits, represents a small Peru. It is not for nothing that she has been invited to be mayor, congressman, minister and, at one point, a member of some presidential board.

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sparks

What do they expect from politicians, from governments?

Everything in Gamarra is the absolute effort of the businessmen, there is not a single authority that can say that it helped us with something, not even with a path. We have marched against Humala, against Toledo and even against fujimori. Gamarra has always maintained a critical and proactive stance, but despite seeking dialogue, all governments have used us for the photo. PKP In the campaign, Vizcarra and Pedro Castillo too, without a single measure by Gamarra. And the mayors either, they are getting worse. If not, look at Forsyth’s last administration, which left us an inheritance to Salvatierra, one of the most disastrous administrations we have had; they have completely abandoned their work and, if not, see how La Victoria is.

What is the reading you have about the serious protests now?

I believe that there are outraged Peruvians, and we cannot be indifferent and close our eyes to that because that way no one will calm down. But I also believe that, beyond the legitimate demands that each sector may feel, of course there are organized people, characters that are generating vandalism and violence so that, from the anxiety, they can emerge as leaders.

Could you say names?

No. But I can say that there are denialist people who, for example, are incapable of condemning a coup. A coup is a coup, wherever it comes from, and whoever executes it is a coup plotter. Whether you take communion or not, whether from the left or the right, he is a coup leader and last week Pedro Castillo carried out a coup just like Fujimori 30 years ago, although he did not manage to take control because thank goodness the Armed Forces decided not to support him. Now it is up to Dina Boluarte to fulfill all the promises that her own government made.

Do you think Dina Boluarte will be able to control this crisis?

I believe that Dina Boluarte and all politicians must show that Peru comes first if they really want the crisis to be resolved. For now none of that is happening.