Word: velasco
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...leftist military revolution in Peru, as President Juan Velasco Alvarado likes to put it, had two pillars of support. One was the armed forces. The other was "the immense majority of Peruvians that have had little or nothing to do with the direction of the country in the past"-in other words, the majority of the civilian population. Last week a surprisingly varied segment of that population seemed to break ranks with the revolution, plunging Peru into its worst outbreak of violence since the military seized power six years...
Recently, Velasco, 64, has shown signs of being too sensitive for words -the words of an independent press, that is. In June, he closed down Lima's most respected weekly magazine, Caretas, and drove its publisher into hiding. The reason: the magazine had taken issue with the government's view that a luncheon attended by several prominent editors was a subversive gathering. Said Velasco, justifying his action: "The magazine called us paranoid, said we were crazy...
Last week Velasco's regime struck again, this time expropriating Lima's five remaining independent newspapers. In predawn raids, police carrying submachine guns invaded the newsrooms of the papers, including Peru's oldest and most prestigious daily, El Comercio, and pulled the front and editorial pages off the presses. Then the government's own hand-picked editors, who had followed the police onto the premises, proceeded to pull freshly minted editorials from their pockets proclaiming the takeover as "a new day of freedom...
Peculiar Style. What many Peruvians fear is that Velasco will bring them even more of his emerging peculiar style of freedom and ruin the generally progressive advances made under his rule. The government does not enjoy wide popularity, but there is little question, even among diehard critics, that the junta has made impressive strides...
...these freedoms and successes, most Peruvians concede, Velasco certainly deserves a measure of credit. As an enlisted soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, he seems never to have forgotten his own humble origins (his father was a small shopkeeper), and his concern for Peru's poor seems genuine. But since coming to office in the coup that overthrew the constitutional government of Fernando Belaunde Terry in 1968, Velasco has become increasingly entranced with defending his power. Says one diplomat: "He has a will of steel, he understands people, and he is ruthless...