Peru National Security
Mochican warrior art found on a ceramic vase
THE MILITARY AND THE HISTORY of Peru are inextricably
intertwined. From 1821, when José de San Martín declared
independence from Spain, through 1991, military officials
have
served in the top political office more often than
civilians,
that is, fifty-two out of eighty-one heads of state, for
ninety-
eight out of 171 years.) Furthermore, the military has
been
instrumental in helping to bring to power by force almost
half of
the twenty-nine civilian presidents.
The constitution of 1979 was approved by an elected
civilian
Constituent Assembly during Peru's longest sustained
period of
institutionalized military rule (1968-80); however, the
constitution could not have been promulgated or put into
effect
on July 28, 1980, when power passed to an elected civilian
president, without the acquiescence of the Peruvian Armed
Forces
(Fuerzas Armadas--FF.AA.). The receipt of the presidential
sash
by Alberto K. Fujimori on July 28, 1990, represented the
first
time since 1903 that three elected civilians in succession
had
become head of state without interruption by military
action. Put
another way, the 1980-91 period represented the longest
sustained
era of electoral politics in Peru since that of 1895-1914,
the
country's only other time of continuing civilian rule
through
regular elections. It was ended by President Fujimori's
self-coup
(autogolpe) on April 5, 1992, in a manner
reminiscent of
Augusto B. Leguía y Salcedo (1908-12, 1919-30) when, after
being
elected president in 1919, he made himself dictator by
declaration.
In many ways, nevertheless, this most recent period of
elected civilian rule, with the military serving as
protectors
and defenders of democracy, was even more difficult to
sustain.
The problems faced by the government of Peru during the
1980-91
period were viewed by some observers to be the most
daunting in
the Western Hemisphere. These problems included a decline
in the gross national product
(GNP--see Glossary)
of about 40 percent
through 1991; an inflation rate of over 100 percent per
year in the early 1980s that increased to between 1,600 percent
and 7,600 percent per year from 1988 through 1990; a government that
increased its employment rolls by over 60 percent from
1985 to 1990, while its taxation capacity declined by over 75
percent and thus sharply reduced its delivery of basic services;
narcotics
production and trafficking, along with substantial
corruption,
violence, and addiction; and guerrilla insurgencies by the
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso--SL) since 1980 and the
Túpac
Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario
Túpac
Amaru--MRTA) since 1985 that resulted in over 25,000
deaths, more
than 3,000 disappearances, and some US$22 billion in
direct and
indirect property damage through 1992.
After great initial reluctance, Peru's elected
presidents
increasingly used the state of emergency decree to try to
cope
with the country's difficulties, primarily the insurgency.
Under
the constitution of 1979, the president may declare states
of
emergency to deal with threats to public order. These
presidential decrees permitted military authorities to
temporarily assume political as well as military control
of the
district(s), province(s), department(s), or region(s)
specified.
Constitutional guarantees of sanctity of domicile, free
movement
and residence, public meetings, and freedom from arrest
without a
written court order would be suspended. From five
provinces
declared to be in a state of emergency in December 1982,
the
number steadily increased to thirteen in 1984,
twenty-three in
June 1987, fifty-six in July 1989, sixty-three in July
1990, and
eighty-seven by May 1991. As of mid-1991, over 47 percent
of
Peru's 183 provinces, which included some 56 percent of
the
country's population of more than 22.3 million, were part
of
emergency military zones (EMZs) under military control.
Although
some critics called this de facto military government, the
armed
forces insisted that they were only fulfilling their
constitutional mandate to protect civilian rule and had no
interest in carrying out another coup.
Between 1980 and 1990, the size of the FF.AA. increased
by
some 30 percent, from about 92,000 to about 120,000, with
close
to two-thirds made up of conscripts. In 1992 the total
figure was
112,000. The Peruvian Army (Ejército Peruano--EP) remained
by far
the largest service, growing from 70,000 in 1980 to around
80,000
in 1990, but declining to 75,000 in 1992. The Peruvian
Navy
(Marina de Guerra del Perú--MGP) more than doubled in size
during
the decade, from 12,000 to 25,000, but declined to 22,000
in
1992. The Peruvian Air Force (Fuerza Aérea del Perú--FAP)
increased by about 50 percent, from 10,000 to 15,000 (its
strength in 1992). Peru's unprecedented economic crisis of
the
late 1980s and early 1990s substantially reduced military
salaries and maintenance capacity and began to threaten
the
excellent training and strong professionalism at all
levels--officer, technician, and noncommissioned officer
(NCO)--that had been gradually built up during the
post-World War
II period.
The FF.AA.'s close relationship with United States
counterparts from the 1940s well into the 1960s
contributed
significantly to this professional and material
development.
Between 1947 and 1975, the United States military trained
930
Peruvian military personnel in the United States, 2,455 in
facilities in the Canal Zone of Panama, and 3,349 in Peru.
The
United States military mission in Peru peaked at sixty-six
members in the mid-1960s, with military sales and
assistance from
1955 to 1979 totaling some US$261 million. For a variety
of
political and military reasons, the Peruvian military
regime
expelled the United States military mission in July 1969
and
began to diversify its training and supply relationships
from the
late 1960s onward. Beginning in 1973, the EP and FAP, but
not the
navy, undertook what was to become a substantial
relationship
with the Soviet Union that included the purchase of
equipment
totaling between US$1.2 and US$1.5 billion, a sizable
training
component in the Soviet Union (between 100 and 400
Peruvian
officers), and a significant Soviet military mission in
Peru
(between 25 and 100). Peru's was the only Latin American
military
besides Cuba's to equip its forces with Soviet matériel.
At the
same time, the FF.AA. received substantial equipment from
other
supplying countries to become, by the end of the 1980s,
the most
diversified in the region in terms of foreign sources of
arms and
equipment.
Despite the substantial domestic insurgency, the FF.AA.
in
1992 continued to focus on potential external problems
with
Ecuador and Chile, and based the bulk of their forces (80
percent) in these border areas. The Peruvian military was
concerned about Chile's rapid military expansion beginning
in the
mid-1970s and its efforts at that time to give Bolivia an
outlet
to the sea through former Peruvian territory, lost in the
War of
the Pacific (1879-83) with Chile. The FF.AA. were also
concerned
about Ecuador's unwillingness since the 1960s to accept
the
Protocol of Rio de Janeiro of 1942 (Rio Protocol), which
defined
a border between Peru and Ecuador that gave Peru most of
the
previously disputed Amazon territory. In 1981 Ecuadorian
forces,
using Paquisha as a base, attempted to secretly regain
access to
the Amazon through a seventy-eight-kilometer border zone,
erroneously demarcated for the 1942 Rio Protocol
(see
fig. 4).
Although the Ecuadorian forces were rebuffed militarily by
Peru
with loss of life on both sides, border problems with
Ecuador
have continued to surface from time to time. By mid-1992,
however, the proportion of Peruvian forces deployed in the
border
areas had declined to about two-thirds.
The Peruvian Police Forces (Fuerzas Policiales--FF.PP.)
faced
new and unexpected challenges in the 1980s, chief among
them the
insurgencies, the substantial and increasing drug
production and
trafficking, and the rapid deterioration of public order,
with
its attendant increase in criminal activity. The political
violence claimed 1,464 victims among police and military
forces
through 1990; most occurred between 1985 and 1990--794
police
deaths and 492 military deaths. The excessive force used
to quell
coordinated SL prisoner riots in El Frontón, Lurigancho,
and
Santa Bárbara prisons in the Lima area in June 1986, with
close
to 300 deaths among the inmates, contributed to a crisis
of
confidence among the police and military services. That
crisis
was one of the factors in the decision of President Alan
García
Pérez (1985-90) to combine the EP, navy, and FAP into a
single
Ministry of Defense; to coordinate the
intelligence-gathering
efforts of hitherto separate agencies; and to join the
various
police forces into the National Police (Policía
Nacional--PN).
Because Peru grew between 60 percent and 70 percent of all
the
coca leaf used worldwide in the manufacture of cocaine,
the
United States government provided increasing support to
the
police forces during the 1980s to assist in the effort to
reduce
drug production and trafficking. Deteriorating economic
conditions during most of the 1980s undoubtedly
contributed to
the escalation of criminal activity (almost 3 percent of
Peru's
population was arrested for various crimes between 1985
and
1988).
For Peru's military and police forces, the most serious
continuing national security challenge was the domestic
insurgency, in which the SL accounted for over 80 percent
of the
9,184 terrorist incidents from 1985 through 1990, and the
MRTA
for most of the rest. The political violence between 1980
and the
end of 1990 claimed about 18,000 lives by the most
conservative
calculation and property damage of US$18 billion, almost
half of
Peru's 1990 GNP in current dollars. Peru's accelerating
economic
deterioration between 1988 and 1990 exacerbated the
national
security problem among the increasingly impoverished
population
and sharply reduced the resources available to the
military and
police to deal with this mounting challenge. Although Peru
did
not appear to be in danger of imminent collapse in late
1992, the
country entered the decade in the midst of the worst
national
security crisis that it had had to face in over 100 years,
since
the War of the Pacific. The capture of SL founder Abimáel
Guzmán
Reynoso in September 1992 gave the beleaguered government
a major
victory, but did not presage the end of the political
violence.
Data as of September 1992
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