Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1982 Mar
Contents
officers rudely roused the leader from his presidential quarters one night and hustled him aboard a plane bound for exile. Taking up residence in the United States, President Belaunde taught at several American universities and watched from afar as the generals who ousted him took Peru on a swerving turn to the left-giving large private estates over to cooperatives, nationalizing major industries and banks, controlling the media, flirting with the U.S.S.R. and Cuba. Even Belainde admits reforms had been desperately overdue in a country ruled for centuries by a tiny elite-a country where even today, after a dozen years of leftist socialist rule, the top one percent of society gets 25 percent of the income and the bottom 25 percent must make do with 3 percent. In any case, the generals' radical experi ment failed dismally. Formerly well-run estates fell into ruin in the hands of inexperi enced campesinos, even though only about a third of the rural poor benefited from land redistribution. Nationalized industries- copper, oil, and fishing-faltered. The national debt ballooned. The price of copper plummeted. The fish disappeared, and oil did not appear in hoped-for quantities. Annual inflation topped 70 percent by 1978. Foreign debt hit nine billion dollars, and the country went bankrupt as the ruling gener als far exceeded the nation's revenues to buy Soviet jets and build an oil pipeline. HAVING TUMBLED the economy first on its head and finally on its back, the hapless generals decided at last to turn the whole mess back to a civilian government. Belaunde returned and led his centrist Partido Acci6n Popular to victory, garner ing 45 percent of the votes against 14 other candidates and capturing 26 of the 60 senate seats. To him and his colleagues now falls the job of getting Peru back on its feet-with the generals still in the wings watching closely for any misstep. Can democracy survive in Peru? If so, it will be a tremendous accomplishment in a Democracy on parade... and on trial. Peruviantroops goose-step past PresidentFernandoBeladnde Terry-reelected by popular ballot in 1980 after having been ousted by a military coup 12 years earlier.The years between saw Peruswerve to the left under a military dictatorshipthat led the economy into a National Geographic, March 1982 290
Links
Archive
1982 Apr
1982 Feb
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page