History
The indigenous Inca civilisation of what is now Peru was conquered by Spain in the early 16th century. The city of Lima was founded in 1535 and Spain ruled the country until the early 19th century, using the rich silver reserves to finance its costly imperialist struggles with France, England and The Netherlands. After the 1821 declaration of independence was challenged by the royalists, the new government appealed for assistance to the revolutionary leader Bolivar who arrived from Colombia. The royalists were defeated at the Battle of Ayacucho in December 1824, after which Bolivar became Head of State.
The first of Peru’s military coups was in 1914. The junta lasted five years, before giving way to the civilian Government of Augusto Leguia. Between 1919 and 1930, despite rampant corruption, Leguia instituted important reforms in education and social services. His tenure ended with another military take-over. While the military has always been a powerful force in Peruvian politics, its principal opponent and the country’s largest political party for much of the 20th century has been the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), founded by Dr Victor Raul Haya de la Torre in 1924, as a continent-wide anti-imperialist movement, although increasingly moderate and Peruvian-centred in its appeal.
APRA has nevertheless been illegal for much of its history. Civilian administrations from 1963-67 and 1980-85 were headed by right-wing President Belaunde Terry of the Accion Popular Party, although APRA was usually the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies. Under Alan Garcia, APRA took power for the first time in 1985. Garcia’s administration was a failure on both the political and economic front. On the political front, Garcia was faced with the continuing growth of the Maoist guerrilla movement, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which benefited substantially from the deteriorating economic situation. The failure of the Garcia Government froze APRA out of the 1990 Presidential election, which then developed into a 2-way race between Mario Vargas Llosa, the world-renowned writer who led the Democratic Front coalition, and the comparatively unknown independent centrist candidate, Alberto Fujimori, an agricultural engineer of Japanese extraction, who was the surprise landslide winner.
On April 5, 1992, with the backing of the security forces, Fujimori staged a constitutional coup; congress was suspended indefinitely and the entire judiciary sent on leave pending ‘reorganisation’, with Fujimori ruling by decree. Accusations of corruption and human rights violations forced his resignation in after controversial elections in 2000.
Since the end of the Fujimori regime, and through an unexpected period with Alan Garcia back in power, Peru has tried to fight corruption while sustaining economic growth. The country faces a number of challenges: whether to invest in developing areas of the Amazon basin, how to deal with the resurgence of Sendero Luminoso around Ayacucho and the continuing chasm that exists between rich and poor, indigenous and white people. In 2011 Ollanta Humala, the first leftist president since Juan Velasco Alvarado, was elected, defeating Keiko Jujimori (daughter of Alberto).
2016 saw Pedro Pablo Kuczynski come to power championing the indigenous peoples’ rights.
