Word: velascos
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...that arrived at midnight-"All flights seem to arrive in Lima at midnight," he notes-Hillenbrand spent six days covering a long round of speeches and committee meetings at the conference site at the Crillon Hotel. The rather quiet routine was enlivened briefly by the speech of General Juan Velasco Alvarado, head of Peru's leftist military junta. Resplendent in his full-dress uniform, Velasco held up Peru's revolution as a model for developing nations. But at week's end, while filing his story to New York, Hillenbrand heard a brusque announcement over the pressroom television...
...returned to work when ordered to do so, but the 1,200-man radio-patrol force based in downtown Lima held out. The police locked themselves inside the Victoria barracks and refused to leave. Instead of taking the sensible precaution of sending soldiers to protect the city from unrest, Velasco issued ultimatum after ultimatum to the strikers. Then he sent in tanks-Soviet-built T-55 models that smashed down the barracks doors as rangers trained in anti-guerrilla warfare streamed into the building. The battle was quickly over. Some of the defenders were subdued inside the building; others...
...general who led the 1968 coup that ousted President Fernando Belaunde Terry, Velasco has accomplished much during his six years in power-notably his land and education reform programs-but he has never been particularly popular. Moreover, he has grown increasingly intolerant of criticism and disposed to rule by fiat. In theory the junta does not interfere with political parties, but repression against them has grown during the past year. Some enemies of the regime have been harassed into exile; others, like former President Belaunde, have been forbidden to return. Last July Velasco expropriated all newspapers with a national circulation...
...government in Lima; and, as the success of the tank attack on the police indicated, the junta feels confident that it can effectively put down with brutal swiftness any challenge to its control. Still, with the Peruvian economy in trouble because of rocketing food prices and dwindling foreign loans, Velasco, who is seriously ailing with a circulatory disease, may now be inclined to consider retirement earlier rather than later...
...observer of last week's riots noted the "ecumenical characteristics" of the mob-meaning that its members appeared to range from the far left to the far right. That alone is a sober message for Velasco: namely, that he has managed to alienate Peruvians of every political leaning...