Juan Velasco Alvarado

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General Juan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Velasco Alvarado 1971.jpg
President of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Government of Peru
In office
October 3, 1968 � August 30, 1975
Prime Minister Ernesto Montagne S�nchez
Luis Edgardo Mercado Jarr�n
Francisco Morales Berm�dez
Preceded by Fernando Bela�nde
Succeeded by Francisco Morales Berm�dez (Constitutional President)
General Commander of the Peruvian Army
In office
1967�1968
President Fernando Bela�nde Terry
Preceded by Julio Doig S�nchez
Succeeded by Ernesto Montagne S�nchez
Personal details
Born 16 June 1910
Piura, Peru
Died 24 December 1977 (aged 67)
Lima, Peru
Nationality Peruvian
Spouse(s) Consuelo Gonz�les Arriola
Profession Army General
Military service
Allegiance Peru
Branch/service Peruvian Army
Rank General
Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado (June 16, 1910 � December 24, 1977) was a left-wing
Peruvian general turned dictator who served as the 58th President of Peru during
the dictatorship from 1968 to 1975 as the "1st President of the Revolutionary
Government of the Armed Forces".

Contents
1 Early life
2 Coup d'etat against President Fernando Belaunde
3 Military dictatorship (1968�1975)
4 Foreign and military policies
4.1 Chile
5 Overthrow
6 Death and legacy
7 Remarks
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
Early life
Juan Velasco was born in Castilla, a city near Piura on Peru's north coast. He was
the son of Manuel Jos� Velasco, a medical assistant, and Clara Luz Alvarado, who
had 11 children. Velasco described his youth as one of "dignified poverty, working
as a shoeshine boy in Piura."[1]
He was married to Consuelo Gonz�les Arriola, and had four children.[citation
needed]

In 1929, he stowed away on a ship to Lima, Peru, falsified his age, and tried to
enlist as an officer in the Peruvian Army. However, he arrived late to the exam, so
he joined as a private on April 5, 1929. A year later, he took a competitive exam
for entrance into the Escuela Militar de Chorrillos ("Chorrillos Military School"),
and got the highest score of all applicants. In 1934,[2] he graduated with high
honors and at the head of his class.[1]

Coup d'etat against President Fernando Belaunde

Main article: 1968 Peruvian coup d'�tat
During the Bela�nde administration (1963�1968), political disputes became a norm as
he held no majority in Congress. Serious arguments between President Bela�nde and
Congress, dominated by the APRA-UNO (Uni�n Nacional Odr�ista) coalition, and even
between the President and his own Acci�n Popular (Popular Action) party were
common.[citation needed] Congress went on to censure several cabinets of the
Belaunde administration, and a general political instability was perceived.

Also, between 1964 and 1965 the army had been sent to deal with two military
uprisings inspired by the Cuban Revolution. Through the use of guerrilla tactics,
both the Ej�rcito de Liberaci�n Nacional (ELN) and Movimiento de Izquierda
Revolucionaria (MIR) tried to instigate a revolution, but those movements were
quickly crushed by the armed forces. Nevertheless, these conflicts led several
military officers to the most impoverished parts of the country, and after
witnessing the reality of the country-side and studying the reasons which led to
the uprisings, they began to consider social inequality and poverty as a danger to
national security.[3]

A dispute with the International Petroleum Company over licenses to the La Brea y
Pari�as oil fields in northern Peru sparked a national scandal when a key page of a
contract (the 11th) was found missing.[4] The Armed Forces, fearing that this
scandal might lead to another uprising or a takeover from the APRA party, seized
absolute power and close down Congress, almost all of whose members were briefly
incarcerated.[citation needed] General Velasco seized power on October 3, 1968, in
a bloodless military coup, deposing the democratically elected administration of
Fernando Bela�nde, under which he served as Commander of the Armed Forces.
President Bela�nde was sent into exile. Initial reaction against the coup
evaporated after five days when on October 8, 1968, the oil fields in dispute were
taken over by the Army.[citation needed]

Military dictatorship (1968�1975)

The coup leaders named their administration the Revolutionary Government of the
Armed Forces, with Velasco at its helm as President. Velasco's administration
articulated a desire to give justice to the poor through a regime of
nationalization known as Peruanismo. Velasco's rule was characterized by broadly
social democratic, developmentalist, and independent nationalist policies, which
aimed to create a strong national industry to increase the international
independence of Peru. To that end, he nationalised entire industries, expropriated
companies in a wide range of activities from fisheries to mining to
telecommunications to power production and consolidated them into single industry-
centric government-run entities (PescaPeru, MineroPeru, Petroper�,
SiderPeru,Centromin Peru, ElectroPeru, Enapu, EnatruPeru, Enafer, Compa�ia Peruana
de Telefonos, EntelPeru, Correos del Peru, etc.), and increased government control
over economic activity by enforcing those entities as monopolies and
disincentivized private activity in those sectors. Most reforms were planned by
leftist intellectuals of the time.

A root and branch education reform was in march looking to include all Peruvians
and move them towards to a new national thinking and feeling; the poor and the most
excluded were prioritized in this system and the D�a del Indio or Peruvian Indian's
day name was changed to D�a del Campesino or Peruvian Peasant's day every June 24,
a traditional holiday of the land, the day of winter solstice.[citation needed]

The education reform of 1972 provided for bilingual education for the indigenous
people of the Andes and the Amazon, which consisted nearly half of the population.
In 1975, the Velasco government enacted a law making Quechua an official language
of Peru equal to Spanish. However, this law was never enforced and ceased to be
valid when the 1979 constitution became effective, according to which Quechua and
Aymara are official only where they predominate, as mandated by law � a law that
was never enacted.[5]

Peruanismo was also characterized by authoritarianism, as the administration grew

away from tolerating any level of dissent, periodically jailing, deporting and
harassing suspected political opponents and repeatedly closing and censoring
broadcast and print news media, finally expropriating all of the newspapers in 1974
and sending the publishers into exile.[citation needed]

A cornerstone of Velasco's political and economic strategy was the implementation

by dictate of an agrarian reform program to expropriate farms and diversify land
ownership. In its first ten years in power, the Revolutionary Government of the
Armed Forces (GRFA) expropriated 15,000 properties (totaling nine million hectares)
and benefited some 300,000 families.[6] Peru's agrarian reform under Velasco was
the second-largest Land reform in Latin American history, after Cuba. The former
landlords who opposed this program believed that they did not receive adequate
compensation for their confiscated assets and lamented that the state officials and
peasant beneficiaries mismanaged their properties after the expropriation.[7] The
owners who opposed his program also claimed that the expropriation was more akin to
confiscation, as they were paid in agrarian reform bonds, a sovereign debt
obligation of which the government defaulted payment due to the hyperinflationary
period that affected Peru's economy in the late 1980s, leaving the current value of
the bonds up for debate and resulting in a decade-long lawsuit against the Peruvian
government.

The deposed Bela�nde administration had attempted to implement a milder agrarian

reform program, but it was defeated in Congress by the APRA-UNO coalition with
support of the major landowners. Within this framework, the Velasco administration
engaged in an aggressive program of import substitution industrialization, imposing
tight foreign exchange and trade controls.[citation needed]

The success of the Velasco administration's economic policies is still debated

today.[8] As the Peruvian military government ran deeper into debt, it was forced
to devalue the currency and run inflationary policies. This however, was in part
due to the 1970s Energy Crisis, which also affected Peru and made it impossible for
the Velasco administration to fund some of its most ambitious reforms. Economic
growth under the administration was steady if unremarkable - real per capita GDP
(constant 2000 US$) increased 3.2% per year from 1968 to 1975, compared to 3.9% per
year over the same period for Latin America & the Caribbean as a whole.[9]

Foreign and military policies

General Velasco meeting with President Nicolae Ceau?escu of Romania, in 1973.

In foreign policy, in contrast with his 1970s Latin American contemporaries, which
were mostly right-wing military dictatorships, he pursued a partnership with the
Soviet bloc, tightening relations with Cuba and Fidel Castro and undertaking major
purchases of Soviet military hardware.[citation needed]

Relations between the United States and Peru were tense and even hostile, beginning
as soon as General Velasco and his junta took power.

Just five days after Velasco seized power in 1968, the General began the
nationalization of the Peruvian Economy with the expropriation and nationalization
of the American International Petroleum Company (IPC) oil fields located in the
northern Peruvian oil port and refinery of Talara, Piura, near the Peruvian border
with Ecuador, Piura, being the region where Velasco was born.

IPC was a subsidiary of Standard Oil, and although the claims over the IPC were
ultimately resolved in negotiations between the two governments, the US after this
seizure no longer considered Peru an ally or a friendly country. Instead, the CIA
started to organize plans to destabilize and to overthrow General Velasco.

US�Peru disagreements continued over a broad range of issues including even Peru's
claim to a 200-mile fishing limit that resulted in the seizure of several US
commercial fishing boats and the expropriation of the American copper mining
company Cerro de Pasco Corporation.

However, in spite these provocations, the U.S. responded immediately with

humanitarian aid in 1970, when an earthquake killed about 50,000 persons and left
over 600,000 homeless.[citation needed]

Chile
General Velasco's other main goal besides the nationalization of the main areas of
the Peruvian economy and the agrarial reforms, was to strengthen Peru militarily.
Despite Chilean fears that Velasco planned on reconquering the lands lost by Peru
to Chile in the 1879 War of the Pacific, this was not Velasco's intention.[10] It
is estimated that from 1970 to 1975 Peru spent up to US$2 Billion (roughly US$20
Billion in 2010's valuation) on Soviet armament.[11] According to various sources
Velasco's government bought between 600 and 1200 T-55 Main Battle Tanks, APCs, 60
to 90 Sukhoi 22 warplanes, 500,000 assault rifles, and even considered the purchase
of the British Centaur-class light fleet carrier HMS Bulwark.[11]

The enormous amount of weaponry purchased by Peru caused a meeting between former
US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chilean president, general and US-backed
dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1976. In 1999, General Pinochet claimed that if Peru
had attacked Chile during 1973 or even 1978, Peruvian forces could have penetrated
deep south into Chilean territory, possibly military taking the Chilean city of
Copiap� located half way to Santiago.[10] The Chilean Armed Forces considered
launching a preventive war to defend itself. Though, Pinochet's Chilean Air Force
General Fernando Matthei opposed a preventive war and responded that "I can
guarantee that the Peruvians would destroy the Chilean Air Force in the first five
minutes of the war".[10] Some analysts believe the fear of attack by Chilean and US
officials as largely unjustified but logical for them to experience, considering
the Pinochet dictatorship had come into power with a coup against democratically
elected president Salvador Allende. According to sources, the alleged invasion
scheme could be seen from the Chilean's government perspective as a plan for some
kind of leftist counterattack.[12] While acknowledging the Peruvian plans were
revisionistic scholar Kalevi J. Holsti claim more important issues behind were the
"ideological incompatibility" between the regimes of Velasco Alvarado and Pinochet
and that Peru would have been concerned about Pinochet's geopolitical views on
Chile's need of naval hegemony in the Southeastern Pacific.[13]

�Juan Velasco Alvarado[1]

Overthrow
Economic difficulties such as inflation, unemployment, food shortages and increased
political opposition after the 1974 crackdown on the press ultimately increased
pressures on the Velasco Administration and led to its downfall. On August 29,
1975, a number of prominent military commanders initiated a coup in the southern
city of Tacna, nicknamed El Tacnazo.[14]

The military commanders of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th military regions
declared that Velasco had not achieved most of what the "Peruvian Revolution" had
stood for and was unable to continue in his functions. Prime Minister Francisco
Morales Berm�dez was then appointed president, by unanimous decision of the new
military junta.[citation needed]

Prior to being deposed, Velasco had been seriously ill for at least a year. He had
lost a leg to an embolism, and his cognitive abilities and personality were
rumoured to have been affected by related circulatory problems. At the time of the
coup, he was convalescing in the Presidential winter residence at Chaclacayo,
countryside 20 kilometers east of Lima.[citation needed]

General Velasco immediately called for a meeting with his council of ministers, at
Government Palace in downtown Lima, where he discovered that there was little or
nothing to do. He made a last speech to the nation on the evening of August 29,
1975, announcing his decision not to resist the coup because "Peruvians cannot
fight against each other".[citation needed]

Death and legacy

Grave of General Velasco.

General Velasco kept a low profile in Peruvian politics until his death in 1977.
Following his death, Velasco was carried on the shoulders of farmers for six hours
around Lima.[15][unreliable source?]

Although General Velasco is still remembered fondly by some left-leaning circles,

his administration oversaw average economic growth and left Peru submerged in debt.
Furthermore, his government is partly responsible for the centralization of the
country. After the agrarian reform, urbanization began occurring across the
country, as people moved into Lima and other coastal cities. The Velasco
government's failure to adequately manage the influx of people, as well as the
indifference of subsequent governments to the issue, contributed to the creation of
slums around Peru's cities.

In 1974, a then relatively unknown Hugo Ch�vez and around one dozen fellow cadets
and soldiers, all youths, traveled to Ayacucho, Peru to celebrate the 150th
anniversary of the eponymous Battle of Ayacucho. There, they were personally
greeted by General Velasco. Velasco gave each of them a miniature pocket edition of
La Revoluci�n Nacional Peruana ("The Peruvian National Revolution"). The cadets
also noted Velasco's perceived close relationship with both the Peruvian masses and
the rank and file of the Peruvian military.[16] Ch�vez became attached to this
book, and would both study its contents and constantly carry it on his person.
However, Ch�vez later lost it after his arrest for leading the 1992 Venezuelan coup
attempt.

Twenty-five years later, as president, Ch�vez ordered the printing of millions of

copies of his government's new Bolivarian Constitution only in the form of
miniature blue booklets, a partial tribute to Velasco's gift.[17]

Remarks
"Que los chilenos se dejen de cojudeces o ma�ana desayuno en Santiago" ("Chileans
better stop with the bullshit or tomorrow I shall eat breakfast in [that is,
conquer] Santiago"[1]

"�Campesino, el patr�n no comer� m�s de tu pobreza!" ("Farmer, the land owner will
never again feed off your poverty!")[2]