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Peru Guardian of the New Liberal Elite
Peru was left prostrate as a result of the War of the
Pacific. To pay war debts of over US$150 million, it gave
up its
income from guano to British creditors, along with its
railroads
(for sixty-six years) and a great tract of Peruvian
jungle. Most
of the country's economic elite was ruined financially.
The
government became one of the smallest in Latin America in
terms
of revenues, and the stage was set for an attempt at
nation-building. Military leadership returned to the
presidency
for a time, vested in General Cáceres (1886-90, 1894-95)
and
Colonel Remigio Morales Bermúdez (1890-94), and the
capability
and morale of the armed forces began to be restored.
However,
much of the credit for the creation of Peru's modern
professional
military goes to civilian president José Nicolás de
Piérola
(1895-99). Under his leadership, conscription was
initiated, a
French military mission was invited to train Peruvian
counterparts, and the Military Academy at Chorrillos was
established.
Peru's one extended period of civilian rule
(1895-1919), with
regular national and municipal elections, had begun with
elected
governments, except for one brief coup period in 1914-15.
If the
civilian dictatorship of Augusto B. Leguía y Salcedo
(1919-30)--
brought on by his election followed by a "self-coup"--is
included, then the period of civilian rule extended to
1930.
Elected or not, these civilian governments represented the
newly
emerging and consolidating liberal elite. This elite was
protected by Peru's armed forces as long as it provided
the
resources the military believed it needed. This
partnership,
although sometimes an uneasy one, continued under civilian
governments (1939-45, 1956-62) or military rule (1930-39,
1948-56) almost continuously until the 1960s.
For well over half a century, the FF.AA. viewed with
suspicion political parties organized from the middle or
lower
classes. The Democratic Party's 1912 presidential victory
by
populist Guillermo Billinghurst provoked a coup two years
later.
A far more serious concern arose in 1930 and after, with
the
challenge of the avowedly reformist American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria
Americana-
-APRA) party. APRA emerged publicly in the aftermath of
the 1930
coup overthrowing the Leguía oncenio, or
eleven-year rule.
The coup occurred as the Great Depression was ending the
previous
foreign investment- and export-led growth years, and was
led by
Colonel Luis M. Sánchez Cerro, Arequipa garrison
commander.
Sánchez Cerro then headed the 1930-31 military junta and
ran for
president in the 1931 elections. APRA mounted a
surprisingly
strong challenge but lost, claimed fraud, and provoked a
strong
mass protest.
On July 7, 1932, in an atmosphere of tension, APRA
militants
confronted an army garrison in the north coastal
stronghold of
the party, Trujillo, and killed about sixty officers after
they
had surrendered and had been disarmed. Army reinforcements
soon
carried out massive reprisals in the city in which at
least 1,000
APRA militants and sympathizers were also killed. This
event
poisoned relations between the army and APRA for over
thirty
years and was a major factor in postponing the advent of
sustained civilian rule in Peru. Sánchez Cerro's
assassination in
1933 by a young APRA militant only exacerbated the
hostility.
APRA was not allowed to run openly for election again
until 1962;
the military's fear of increased APRA influence in the
executive
branch through a pact with the conservative National
Odriist
Union (Unión Nacional Odriísta--UNO) was a major factor in
its
July 1962 coup, which followed an indecisive election.
Data as of September 1992
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