The Arduous Task of Recomposing the Future in Postconflict Peru

• Author: Kristi M. Wilson
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19855106
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19855106

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 228, Vol. 46 No. 5, September 2019, 4–12

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19855106

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

4

Introduction

The Arduous Task of Recomposing the Future in

Postconflict Peru

by

Kristi M. Wilson

In 2000, President Alberto Fujimori fled Peru in the wake of a corruption

scandal and faxed in his resignation. Shortly thereafter, in 2001, a Truth and

Reconciliation Commission was created to investigate the atrocities commit-

ted between 1980 and 2000, a period of extreme political violence and human

rights violations in Peru that included sexual violence against women, torture,

disappearances, massacres, and extrajudicial executions. This violence,

referred to as the “internal armed conflict,” included the actions of the Sendero

Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru

(Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) and state-sponsored and indiscrim-

inate military actions against their suspected supporters in rural and indige-

nous areas especially. The years of the internal armed conflict were also

characterized by authoritarian governance and high levels of corruption. This

issue focuses on the postconflict period from Fujimori’s resignation to the

present, challenging popular notions of Peru as an exemplar of postconflict

reconstruction based on the presence of free and fair elections, separation of

powers, a robust economy, and a powerful free press. A brief overview of

recent political history will help to situate the period in its historical context.1

1968–1980: The Velasco MiliTary regiMe

The most recent military dictatorship in Peru began in 1968 and ended in

1980. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution and led by combative trade unions,

progressive forces were on the rise in Peru in the late 1960s. In October 1968

General Juan Velasco Alvarado ushered in a bloodless coup, assumed the presi-

dency, and dissolved Peru’s Congress. Faced with the abject failure of the coun-

try’s traditional political parties, Peru’s military responded by instituting an

unusual reformist dictatorship that carried out agrarian reform and nationaliza-

tion of key export industries. The general’s military-dominated administration

was committed to a participatory, cooperative-based model that came to be

known as the Inca Plan. The Inca Plan was organized as a “social proprietor-

ship,” in which enterprises, be they industrial, commercial, or agricultural, were

to be managed collectively and owned either by the state or by the workers.

Kristi M. Wilson is director of the Writing Program at Soka University of America. The collective

thanks her for organizing this issue.

855106LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19855106Latin American PerspectivesWilson / Introduction

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