Word: bela
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Progress Cost Money. Belaúnde poured money into education until, by this year, fully 25% of Peru's budget was being spent on schooling-probably the highest proportion for any country on the continent. He attempted agrarian reform and drew some 2,000,000 Peruvians, largely Indians, into Cooperación Popular projects for village improvement. Through it all, he traveled the country tirelessly...
From the outset, though, Belaúnde was at odds with the Peruvian Congress. His Actión Popular party was not strong enough to outvote his opponents, the coalition of ex-Dictator Manuel Odría's upper-middle-class followers and the left-of-center American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), headed by Old Liberal Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, His budgets rose from $400 million to more than $1 billion annually, and the country's cumulative deficit grew to $555 million. Tax dodging by the privileged was flagrant, but Bela...
...Large a Role. The shadow of scandal and corruption began to fall across his government. Some officials, dubbed the "golden bureaucrats" by Belaúnde's critics, were revealed to be getting salaries as high as $3,000 a month -stunningly generous by Peruvian standards. It was shown that a navy troopship had made no less than four trips smuggling in contraband. Then came the affair that caused the coup against him by the disgruntled armed forces. Belaúnde had rashly promised to expropriate the U.S.-owned International Petroleum Co. "the very day I am inaugurated...
...Three-Fourths. When the details of the deal were exposed, all Belaúnde's familiar opponents exploded in an outburst of nationalist indignation. So did the left wing of his own party and the army. The military leaders were furious that their counsel had not been sought in concluding a contract dealing with oil, a resource vital to the country's security. Two weeks ago, Belaúnde responded to the outcry by firing his Cabinet, making it the scapegoat for the affair. But he replaced it with one that the army considered even less competent...
...arrival in Argentina (which, along with Bolivia, promptly offered him asylum), Belaúnde asserted that he had been ousted by a mere cuartelezo-a barracks revolt. The bulk of the armed forces, he believed, was not involved. But the first communiqué issued by the junta was signed by the chiefs of all three Peruvian military services. Within hours after Belaúnde's departure, General Juan Velasco Alvarado, the 58-year-old army commander and president of Peru's Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the oath as his successor before a candlelit crucifix in the presidential...