Peru


1948-1956:

Elected APRA government overthrown by Legion of Merit award winner and "CIA pawn" Manuel Odria. [1]

1968-1980:

Overthrow of the elected government by the military dictatorship of School of Americas graduate Major General Juan Valesco Alvarado, initiating military rule for seven years. Alvarado's junta ousts Belaunde Terry, who was resistant to nationalizing oil production and had devalued the Sol by over forty percent. Alvarado's leftist junta immediately nationalized oil production in 1968, but allowed foreign investors back in after 1971 under somewhat, for Peru, more generous contracts. The US had been providing training to Peruvian security forces for some time, similar in content to that elsewhere. [1]

1980-1990:

After the reinstatement of democracy in 1980 the US involves itself under the auspices of the drug war, during which it likely targets Peru with biological and chemical warfare programs. [1]

1990-2000:

Alberto Fujimori is president between 1990 to 2000, and the CIA delivers $1 million a year to his intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos to fight drug trafficking, knowing that Montesinos is in bed with narcotraffickers, and helps him rig elections to keep Fujimori in office. The US provides military helicopters and advisors to the Peruvian military, amid reports from human rights groups that the military is engaged in serious human rights abuses including disappearances, torture, and rape. [1]

Fujimori suspends democratic rule and engages in a violent but successful crack down against Shining Path and Tupac Amaru. He also uses the suspension of democracy to enforce economic policies that plunge Peru deeper into poverty (minus an oppulent minority of Peruvian and US business men). The SP is a brutal neo-Marxist/Leninist guerilla organization responsible for the murders of about 11,000 people, including "bourgeoisie" leftists. [1]

As part of the counter-insurgency Fujimori's security services form the Grupo Colina, headed by a former SOA graduate who was an officer in a Honduras death squad. Grupo Colina engages in numerous atrocities against civillians and contributes to the dramatic rise of human rights abuses, many targetting political opponents and journalists. Caught between a minority militant left and a dictatoral militant right: everybody else, particularly indigenous peoples living in oil rich areas. [1]

Fujimori goes into exile in Japan. Montesinos is caught on the run through Venezuela and extradited to Peru, where he is convicted of usurptation. [1]