Peru Exercise

Peru 1980-1992: The job of deciding whether a certain country is democratic in a certain year is a little more complicated than you might imagine at first. Using the set of facts laid out below, we will use a spreadsheet to categorize Peru as a Democracy, Semi Democracy or Authoritarian regime for the years 1980 to 1992.

Facts

The Shining Path (a guerrilla group) began operations in Peru in 1980, with an attack on an election office, during the election that Belaúnde won. Despite this isolated incident, there were no reports of fraud or other irregularities with this election, turnout was high, and there was no evidence of systematic violations of political rights. Guerrilla operations assumed greater intensity in 1981, but for a variety of reasons there was no concerted response on the part of the government until very late in 1982. In December of 1982 Belaúnde decided to turn over to the military the task of fighting the Shining Path in the highlands of Peru.

During 1983 and 1984 Belaúnde consistently handed over all initiative on counterinsurgency to the military, and even created a zone of impunity for them to operate. He criticized and discredited any human rights organization that tried to hold the military up to democratic standards. He declared states of emergency in various affected provinces, replacing civilian leadership with military control, suspending civil rights, and the like. The results are apparent from the figures on disappearances, extrajudicial executions, the prevalence of torture, and other human rights violations, which skyrocketed in this period. In other words, in addition to the increased number of deaths, disappearances, torture and similar abuses during these 2 years, the civilian government abdicated policy-making responsibility in this area, and created the political space for the abuses to take place.

Alan García took office in 1985. The 1985 election period did not show serious irregularities. All candidates felt free to campaign and the turnout was high. Immediately after taking office, García was confronted with reports of a couple of peasant massacres by the military, in its area of operation against the Shining Path. He took strong steps to investigate the reports and bring the military under control. While it is not quite enough to satisfy Amnesty International, they still give him grudging credit for trying. For the next three years, he more or less successfully worked to bring the military under control. He created Presidential commissions and took a number of steps to wrest control of the anti-insurgency effort back from the military. Again, this new attitude on the part of the civilian leadership is reflected in the results. Killings and violence dropped significantly during 1985-87, though they did not disappear, by any measure.

Beginning in 1987, however, García became too busy trying to stay in office to continue his control of the military. He was threatened by coup plots and calls for his resignation. In particular, his failure to control the insurgency had alienated most of the population and the military establishment, and he gradually lost control over policy in this regard. In 1988, state violence began to increase once again, and it never really went down until 1994, well after Fujimori had shut down congress and the supreme court, and suspended civil liberties.

The next presidential election took place in 1990. There are no reports of fraud. Turnout was high, especially among traditionally low turnout groups such as the rural and urban poor, who supported Fujimori. While Fujimori campaigned on an end to the political violence, it is clear that he never really took steps to control the military in the first couple years of his tenure (1991-92). In part because he had no party organization, he was initially fearful of a coup, so he took early steps - even before his election - to ally himself with the military leadership. After his election, he seemed to tread very carefully where the military is concerned. As a result, there was no change in counterinsurgency strategy from the final years of the García regime. The killings and disappearances proceed apace. If anything, disappearances are replaced by outright killings. Again, it seems the civilian government is, if not actively promoting, at least making space for the draconian measures favored by the military, and the negative impact on the general climate of civil and human rights follows from this. In 1992 Fujimori shut down Congress and the Supreme Court, and suspended civil liberties. Only in 1993, the year after what became known as the "self-coup," does the level of violence begin to decrease.