In December 2011, Mary Anastasia O’Grady, editorial board member at the Wall Street Journal and patron saint of the Latin American far right, cautioned that the ongoing anti-mining protests in Peru highlighted “risks to development coming from a hard left operating under the guise of ‘environmentalism.’ ”

The sinister designs of protesters “calling themselves environmentalists” were exposed via the following factoid: “Wilfredo Saavedra, president of something called the ‘Environmental Defense Front,’ also happens to be a former member of the terrorist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, which advocates Cuban-style communism.”

Given that O’Grady’s previous warnings of Cuban-style communism have suggested that the current US State Department is in cahoots with Fidel Castro, political observers might be forgiven for not lapsing into panic-induced seizures.