Juan Velasco Alvarado

Juan Velasco Alvarado

Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado (born June 16, 1910 in Piura , Peru , † December 24, 1977 in Lima , Peru), general and politician, was the "President of the Revolutionary Government" in Peru from 1968 to 1975.

Life

Juan Velasco Alvarado was born in Piura on the north coast of Peru to a working class family. In 1929 he joined the Peruvian army as a simple soldier . Because of his great discipline, he was selected to attend the military academy in Chorrillos near Lima. In 1934 he passed the final exam as the best in his class. Over the years he maintained ties with his military comrades at the time, many of whom went to the Center for Higher Studies in the Army (Spanish Centro de Altos Estudios Militares - CAEM ).

Presidency

Velasco came to power on October 2, 1968 through a military coup. During the tenure of his predecessor, Fernando Belaúnde , political disputes were the order of the day, there were conflicts between the President and the APRA- UNO-dominated Congress , and even between the President and his own Acción Popular party . A dispute over the circumstances surrounding the nationalization of the International Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey , caused unrest. This served as an opportunity for the armed forces to seize power. The left-wing military government of Velasco immediately nationalized the entire oil industry. The US then threatened to apply the Hickenlooper Amendment and suspend the import of Peruvian sugar. In the months that followed, the government nationalized other key sectors of the Peruvian economy. The freedom of the press was restricted. With a decree issued in January 1970, the government gave itself a free hand to ban newspapers and magazines that violated "national interests" or represented "interests of the oligarchy". The self-government of the universities was abolished. This sparked protests and demonstrations from students and professors against whom the army acted. As early as 1969, the Sinchis paratrooper police unit in Huanta in the Ayacucho region put down student protests against the introduction of tuition fees by Velasco's military government, killing at least 20 people. Thereafter, the decree on fees was withdrawn. The Huanta-born professor Ricardo Dolorier Urbano (* 1935) wrote the song "Flor de Retama" shortly afterwards in memory of the events.

Statue of Juan Velasco Alvarado commemorating the land reform from 1969, in front of it Quechua farmers in folk costume, Uyurpampa, Inkawasi ( Lambayeque ), 2010

On June 24, 1969, land reform was initiated with Decree 17716 . More than 150 hectares of arable land were expropriated, as was property of more than 1500 hectares of pasture land in the Andes. Accordingly, 11 million hectares of land, particularly in the Andes and on the coast, were expropriated. The fields and pastures were distributed to cooperatives and farming communities ( comunidades campesinas ). The Velasco government also made use of symbols from the old Andean tradition and anti-colonial indigenous resistance, in particular José Gabriel Condorcanqui (Tupaq Amaru II). There were two types of cooperatives: The high-yielding haciendas on the coast were converted into " agricultural production cooperatives " ( cooperativas agrarias de producción , CAP), which were jointly owned by farm workers. The haciendas of the Andes, which were largely characterized by pasture farming , were transformed into so-called “agricultural societies of social interest” ( sociedades agrícolas de interés social SAIS), in which traditional, mostly indigenous farming communities ( ayllu ) and cooperatives with remunerated agricultural labor are brought together under one roof were. In 1972, with the decree 19400, the associations of large landowners were dissolved (Sociedad Nacional Agraria, Asociación de Ganaderos, Asociación de Productores de Arroz). The semi-feudal agricultural structures of Peru with the centuries-old system of peonaje ( debt bondage ) were destroyed by the land reform. In a speech on the 1969 national holiday, Velasco called the agrarian reform carried out by his government and the nationalization of the oil industry a step towards "the second independence" of Peru.

The left-wing Peruvian farmers' association Confederación Campesina del Perú supported the expropriations of the large landowners, but criticized the formation of state-controlled large farms, rather it called for the control of the rural village communities over the land. Wherever village communities took the initiative to occupy large estates and carry out expropriations “from below”, such as in the Puno department , the government had this prevented with an iron hand.

A broad popular movement arose, including trade unions, barrio movements and farmers' associations. The degree of industrialization of the country and the incomes of the normal population could be raised. Under Velasco, more unions were recognized in Peru than in the entire history of the country to date. An important pillar of Velasco was the national agricultural association Confederación Nacional Agraria (CNA), founded in 1974 by beneficiaries of the land reform.

After an earthquake in 1969, the USSR dispatched transport planes with food and medicine. The Soviet Union also made loans to the “progressive military”.

Salvador Allende , Juan Velasco Alvarado and Clodomiro Almeyda . While Peru's relations with Chile relaxed under Allende, the two countries were on the brink of war after the Pinochet coup

In 1972, under Velasco, an educational reform was carried out, which included bilingual education for the indigenous peoples , who at that time made up almost half of the population of Peru. On May 27, 1975, the Velasco government declared Quechua an official language with equal rights ("official language of the Republic of Peru"). After his fall, this law was in fact no longer applicable.

In the first five of the 1970s, the left military government spent up to $ 2 billion on Soviet weapons. The purchases were financed with very large government loans. Allegedly Velasco is said to have planned an invasion of Chile after the coup by Augusto Pinochet . After an economic crisis, Velasco was ousted in a coup in 1975.

Loss of power

On August 29, 1975, several important military commanders initiated an overthrow (known as "El Tacnazo") in the southern Peruvian city of Tacna . The commanders of the first to fifth military regions said that Velasco had missed most of the objectives pursued by the "Peruvian Revolution" and was unable to continue in office. Prime Minister Francisco Morales Bermúdez was unanimously chosen as the new president by the new military junta.

At least a year before his withdrawal, Velasco was seriously ill, had lost a leg to an embolism, and there were rumors that related circulatory problems were affecting his cognitive abilities and personality. At the time of the coup he was on a convalescent stay in the small town of Chaclacayo near Lima. When the uprising became known, he immediately convened a meeting with his Council of Ministers, but had to realize that he had no way of maintaining power. He made a final speech to the nation in which he declared that he would submit to his removal.

Until his death on Christmas Eve 1977 in the military hospital in Lima, he rarely appeared in public.

See also : History of Peru

Web links

Commons : Juan Velasco Alvarado  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Juan Velasco Alvarado: El general que cambió al país (Spanish)
• Daniel Chiarenza: El fin de la revolución nacionalista y anti-imperalista peruana. loquesomos.org, 19 de diciembre de 2009 (Spanish)
• Francisco del Carpio: Velasco volverá sobre los hombros de los trabajadores. Jornal de Arequipa, 12 de octubre del 2009 (Spanish)
• Javier Garvich, Jornal de Arequipa (2005): Sobre el Gobierno del General Velasco, 38 años después (Spanish)
• Terrorismo made in USA en las Américas (Spanish)
• Biografía (Site of the Peruvian Army, Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Julio Cotler: Political Crisis and Military Populism in Peru . In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, ISBN 3-87294-026-0 , pp. 25-112, here p. 27, p. 63 and p. 66-67.
2. ^ Julio Cotler: Political Crisis and Military Populism in Peru . In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, pp. 25–112, here p. 68.
3. ^ Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, here p. 18.
4. ^ Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, here pp. 77–79.
5. ^ Roger Saravia Avilés: Rebelión en Huanta, Junio ​​de 1969 . Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle "La Cantuta", Lima 2007.
6. ↑ Abilio Vergara: La tierra que duele de Carlos Falconí : Cultura, musica, identidad y violencia en Ayacucho. Capítulos IV + V, pp. 139-222. Capítulo IV. La Tierra que duele de Carlos Falconí. La historia de la violencia en la canción popular , pp. 139–169, here p. 152. Universidad Nacional de San Cristóbal de Huamanga. Ayacucho, 2010.
7. ^ The Law on Agrarian Reform . In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, pp. 117–160.
8. ↑ Law on Agrarian Reform, Art. 28.
9. ↑ Law on Agrarian Reform, Art. 29.
10. ^ Julio Cotler: Political Crisis and Military Populism in Peru . In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, pp. 25–112, here p. 81.
11. ↑ Fernando Bossi, Coordinadora Simón Bolívar, June 14, 2010: Juan Velasco Alvarado
12. ↑ El proceso de reforma agraria en la web del Ministerio de Agricultura ( Memento of the original of December 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ^ "Message to the Nation" by President General Juan Velasco Alvarado. On the 148th anniversary of national independence. Lima, July 28, 1969. In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, pp. 161–187, here p. 162.
14. ^ Julio Cotler: Political Crisis and Military Populism in Peru . In: Heinz Rudolf Sonntag (ed.): The case of Peru. “Nasserism” in Latin America to Overcome Underdevelopment? A critical inventory . Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1971, pp. 25–112, here p. 88.
15. ↑ ^{a b c} David X. Noack: Allende was part of a larger movement. In: amerika21. January 25, 2011, accessed January 26, 2011 . 
16. ↑ Historia de la Confederación Nacional Agraria del Perú
17. ^ Decreto Ley No. 21156 que reconoce el quechua como lengua oficial de la República , accessed September 26, 2019.
18. ^ Gobierno Peruano de Juan Velasco Alvarado estaba decidido a declararle la guerra a Chile . Diario crítico de Perú, December 2006.