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Peru Changing Constitutional Basis
The Peruvian military's relationship to the country's
politics over the years was more related to the economic,
social,
and political issues of the moment and to internal armed
forces
dynamics than it was to specific legal dispositions.
Constitutions themselves changed frequently, in keeping
with the
divergent and shifting views on the best way to build the
Peruvian nation
(see Constitutional Development
, ch. 4).
However,
Peru's constitutional history became more regularized in
the
twentieth century with the constitutions of 1933 and 1979.
Each
reflected the circumstances prevailing at the time of its
drafting, including those provisions related to the
military.
The constitution of 1933 was written in the aftermath
of the
1930 coup, the 1931 elections in which the upstart
reformist APRA
party had made such a strong showing, and the violence of
the
1932 Trujillo massacres. Members of the Constituent
Assembly, now
purged of APRA party members, were concerned about law and
order
and with protecting the political system from such
mass-based
parties as APRA. Article 213 of the constitution of 1933
clearly
defined for the military a major role in national affairs:
"The
purpose of the armed forces is to secure the rights of the
Republic, the fulfillment of the Constitution and the
laws, and
the preservation of public order." Each of the subsequent
military interventions in politics justified the action on
the
basis of Article 213--in 1934 (canceling elections), 1936
(annulling elections), 1939 (restricting eligible parties
and
candidates), 1948 (coup), 1962 (coup), and 1968 (coup),
although
not 1975 (a coup gently removing the ailing General
Velasco).
With the constitution of 1979, however, a very
different
situation prevailed. The military had been in power for a
number
of years and most of the civilians elected to the
Constituent
Assembly in 1978 were concerned with how to get the FF.AA.
out of
government and how to keep them out in the future. The
Constituent Assembly did codify the major reforms of the
military
regime, but members also noted in Article 273 and Article
278
that the role of the armed forces was to "guarantee the
independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of
the
Republic." This was a much more limited mandate for the
military
than in the constitution of 1933. The police forces were
given
responsibility for internal order. However, under unusual
circumstances as determined by the president, a temporary
state
of emergency or a state of siege could be declared in
which the
military would play an internal order role (Article 231).
The
president was commander in chief of the armed forces, with
the
authority to declare war or sign peace agreements with the
authorization of Congress.
Under the constitution of 1979, promotions to general
officer
had to be confirmed by the Senate and could only fill
existing
vacancies. Military personnel could not vote and could not
run
for public office until six months after resignation or
retirement. Military and police were subject to the Code
of
Military Justice. These dispositions were clearly designed
to
limit the political role of the military and to place them
in a
position subordinate to civilian authority.
The principle of the supremacy of civilian authority
established in the constitution of 1979 was compromised to
a
significant degree, however, by several subsequent decrees
and
laws passed in response to the unexpected development of
the
domestic insurgency in the 1980s. The Law of
Political-Military
Commands of June 1985 established and legalized the
operation of
Political-Military Commands in the areas of the country
declared
to be in a state of emergency. Another was Decree Law 171,
which
stipulated that the military in the emergency areas were
on
active duty full time and therefore could only be tried in
military courts. Furthermore, although a state of
emergency or a
state of siege could only be declared for a ninety-day
period,
these could be renewed indefinitely by presidential
decree. As of
late 1991, military personnel had the right to vote.
Each of these dispositions limited in practice the
primacy of
the role of civilian authority set forth in the
constitution 1979
and produced a potential scenario in which civil authority
was
formal and the real power was that of the military. With
the
steady expansion in the number of provinces declared by
the
president to be in a state of emergency between 1982 and
1991,
this possible scenario became more and more a reflection
of
reality. After President Fujimori's self-coup of April
1992
suspended Congress and the judiciary, decree laws defined
terrorist acts as treason, provided for trials of alleged
terrorists in military courts, and increased maximum
sentences on
conviction from twenty years to life imprisonment without
parole.
SL head Guzmán and key lieutenants were tried, convicted,
and
sentenced to the maximum penalty in October 1992 under
these
decrees.
Data as of September 1992
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