Peru

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Country in South America, on the Pacific, bounded north by Ecuador and Colombia, east by Brazil and Bolivia, and south by Chile.

Government
Peru is a multiparty democracy, with a presidential executive. The 1993 constitution provides for a president, as head of state and head of government, elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term, renewable only once, and a single-chamber, 120-member national congress (Congreso), similarly elected by proportional representation from a single national list of candidates for the same length of term. The president appoints a council of ministers, or cabinet, and a prime minister, and has the power to veto legislation. Voting is compulsory for citizens aged 18 to 70 years old.

History
The Chimu culture flourished from about 1200 and was gradually superseded by the Inca empire, building on 800 years of Andean civilization and covering a large part of South America. Civil war had weakened the Incas when the conquistador Pizarro arrived from Spain 1531 and began raiding, looting, and enslaving the people. He executed the last of the Inca emperors, Atahualpa, 1533. Before Pizarro's assassination 1541, Spanish rule was firmly established.

Independence
A native revolt by Túpac Amarú 1780 failed, and during the successful rebellions by the European settlers in other Spanish possessions in South America 1810–22, Peru remained the Spanish government's headquarters; it was the last to achieve independence 1824. It attempted union with Bolivia 1836–39. It fought a naval war against Spain 1864–66, and in the Pacific War against Chile 1879–83 over the nitrate fields of the Atacama Desert, Peru was defeated and lost three provinces (one, Tacna, was returned 1929). Other boundary disputes were settled by arbitration 1902 with Bolivia, 1927 with Colombia, and 1942 with Ecuador. Peru declared war on Germany and Japan February 1945.

Dictatorships
Peru was ruled by right-wing dictatorships from the mid 1920s until 1945, when free elections returned. Although Peru's oldest political organization, (the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA)), was the largest party in Congress, it was constantly thwarted by smaller conservative groups, anxious to protect their business interests and who allied themselves with the military. APRA was founded in the 1920s to fight imperialism throughout South America, but Peru was the only country where it became established.

Military rule
In 1948 a group of army officers led by General Manuel Odría ousted the elected government, temporarily banned APRA, and installed a military junta. Odría became president 1950 and remained in power until 1956. In 1963 military rule ended, and Fernando Belaúnde Terry, the joint candidate of the Popular Action (AP) and Christian Democrats (PDC) parties, won the presidency, while APRA took the largest share of the chamber of deputies seats.

After economic problems and industrial unrest, Belaúnde was deposed in a bloodless coup 1968, and the army returned to power led by General Velasco Alvarado, forming a Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. Velasco introduced land reform, with private estates being turned into cooperative farms, but he failed to return any land to Indian peasant communities, and the Maoist guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso (‘Shining Path’) became increasingly active in the Indian region of southern Peru.

Economic and social crisis
Another bloodless coup, 1975, brought in General Morales Bermúdez. A new constitution was adopted 1979. Elections were held for the presidency and both chambers of Congress 1980 and Belaúnde was re-elected. Belaúnde embarked on a programme of agrarian and industrial reform.

However, in the 1980s, Peru faced a worsening economy, with rising inflation and external debt, and mounting political violence. Sendero Luminoso became more active, along with another rural insurgency group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Also, illicit coca drug cultivation spread in the eastern Andes.

Hyperinflation under García
In 1985, in the midst of this economic and social crisis, the young Social Democrat, Alan García Pérez, leader of the APRA, was elected president in what was Peru's first exchange of power between democratically elected leaders in 40 years. The APRA also won a majority in parliament.

President García stood out against the USA by declaring his support for the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and criticizing US policy in Latin America. He cleansed the army and police of some of its old guard, persuading 1,400 to retire by 1986. He also introduced price and exchange controls and considered nationalizing banks and insurance companies, but relented in the face of opposition.

However, the economic situation worsened, with the level of foreign debt and inflation rising sharply. In 1989 the International Development Bank suspended credit to Peru because it was six months behind in debt payments and the annual inflation rate exceeded 7,000% in 2000. There were frequent changes to the currency and during the García presidency 1985–90 Peru's GDP fell by 20%.

Fujimori in power
Concerned about the increasing terrorist threat from Sendero Luminoso, the dire economic situation, and government corruption, voters turned in the April 1990 presidential election to a little known mathematician-turned-politician, Alberto Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants and leader of a new right-of-centre party, Change 90. He defeated the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, candidate of the centre-right Democratic Front coalition, in a run-off race.

President Fujimori instituted a drastic economic adjustment and privatization programme in an attempt to halt Peru's inflation and to pay foreign debt. These measures brought down inflation to 139% in 1991, but generated opposition. In August 1990 there was a failed attempt to assassinate Fujimori. In April 1992, fearing a military coup, Fujimori allied himself with the army, suspended the constitution, and sacked half of the country's top judges, declaring them to be corrupt. He justified these actions as needed for a crackdown against rebel leaders and drug traffickers, but they brought international criticism (including a suspension of US humanitarian aid) and a challenge from his deputy, Maximo San Roman, who branded him a dictator. Fujimori said he would return to democratic rule within a year.

Rebel leader arrested
Fujimori's crackdown on terrorism in the countryside had success in 1992, when the Sendero Luminoso leader, Abimael Guzman Reynoso, and other high-ranking members were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment, In July 1994 Fujimori issued an ultimatum to the guerrillas to surrender within four months under a so-called ‘repentance law’. By the late 1990s the crackdown had greatly reduced the amount of guerrilla activity, but there were a number of atrocities by security forces and government paramilitary groups, and human-rights violations.

Constitutional reform
In November 1992, the governing coalition won most seats in elections to a new unicameral congress, and in January 1993 the constitution was restored. A new constitution, allowing President Fujimori to seek re-election, was approved by referendum and adopted in December 1993.

Re-election of Fujimori
In April 1995, with the economy improving, Fujimori was re-elected, easily defeating his main challenger, former United Nations secretary general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. The controversial granting of an amnesty to those previously convicted of human-rights abuses, June 1995, was seen by some as an attempt by the president to win favour with the military. In March 1996 Dante Cordova resigned as prime minister in opposition to the rapid pace of free-market reforms being introduced by President Fujimori.

Hostage crisis
In December 1996, Marxist MRTA guerrillas besieged the Japanese embassy in Lima and took hostage around 500 diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They demanded the release from prison of a similar number of their supporters, including their leader Victor Polay, and for President Fujimori to reverse his free-market economic policies. Over the ensuing weeks, several groups of hostages were released, leaving 72 still captive by January 1997, but Fujimori refused to bow to the rebels' demands and in April 1997 the siege was dramatically ended and all the 15 hostage takers were killed by specially trained government forces. Although one hostage died in the rescue, the decisive actions enhanced Fujimori's reputation.

In October 1998 Peru signed a deal with Ecuador to end a 157-year long frontier dispute.

Disputed presidential elections 2000
In early 2000, President Fujimori sought an unprecedented and constitutionally unsound third term in office, and in May, was re-elected for a third term amid claims from the opposition candidate, his supporters, and from election monitors from the Organization of American States (OAS), that the counting system had been fraudulent. The US State Department branded the victory invalid, saying democracy was under serious threat.

Fujimori pledged democratic and economic reforms and appointed an opposition leader, Federico Salas, as his new prime minister. However, soon Fujimori was engulfed by a bribery scandal involving Vladimiro Montesinos, chief of the national intelligence service, who was shown in a video broadcast on television bribing a member of congress to change sides. Montesinos fled the country to escape an arrest warrant and, faced with calls for him to resign, in September 2000 Fujimori agreed to hold new presidential elections in April 2001, in which he would not stand.

In October 2000 the vice-president resigned in opposition to Fujimori's plan to tie the election to an amnesty for human-rights abuses. In order to prevent a coup, Fujimori dismissed the armed forces chief and three top generals. However, Congress voted to oust Fujimori on grounds on ‘moral incapacity’ and its president, Valentin Paniagua, became acting president in November 2000, while Fujimori fled to Japan.

Paniagua moved quickly, appointing Pérez de Cuéllar as prime minister, purging the military of generals linked to Montesinos, and establishing, in January 2001, a Truth Council to investigate the disappearance of 4,000 people during the 1980s and 1990s ‘dirty war’ between security forces and leftist guerrillas.

In June 2001, Vladimiro Montesinos was arrested in Venezuela and extradited to Peru to face trial on charges of arms- and drug-dealing, embezzlement, directing death squads, and money-laundering. However, efforts to extradite Fujimori were frustrated by his claims to have Japanese (as well as Peruvian) citizenship.

Toledo wins the presidency
The June 2001 presidential elections brought to power Alejandro Toledo, an economist of Andean-Indian descent, who narrowly defeated ex-president, Alan García Pérez in a fair contest. After the turmoil of the Fujimori years, Toledo provided stability which enabled Peru to rebuilt its democracy, with Congress becoming more assertive. He launched a drive against government and judicial corruption and continued with economic liberalization. However, the economy remained depressed, leading to protests and strikes, most seriously in May 2003, which forced Toledo to impose temporarily a state of emergency. Sendero Luminoso also became more active and, in March 2002, was responsible for a car-bombing near the US embassy in Lima, which claimed nine lives.

In August 2003, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported to Congress on the violence of the period 1980–2000. It reported that over 69,000 people were killed in the violence and 43,000 orphaned, and blamed Sendero Luminoso as the main perpetrator of human-rights violations (assassinations, kidnapping, and torture), followed by the armed forces and then the MRTA. It recommended that human-rights violators be tried and those that suffered, chiefly rural Peruvians of Indian descent, receive compensation.

2006 elections
The June 2006 presidential election was won, in a run-off, by the populist former president and APRA leader, Alan García Pérez. He captured 53% of the vote to 47% for the nationalist, and former military commander, Ollanta Humala, of the Union for Peru, which polled strongly in the congressional elections.

Red represents work. Yellow symbolizes justice. The design is based on the French tricolour. Green stands for solidarity. Effective date: 10 November 1958. >>