1992 Peruvian self-coup

A self-coup, sometimes known as the Fujimorazo,^[1][2] was performed in Peru in 1992 after President Alberto Fujimori dissolved the Congress as well as the judiciary and assumed full legislative and judicial powers. With the collaboration of the military, the Fujimori government subsequently began to implement objectives of the Green Plan following the coup.

Fujimorazo
Part of the Internal conflict in Peru
Members of the Peruvian Army guard the Government Palace during the coup
Date 5 April 1992 Location Peru Action Self-coup: Incumbent President Fujimori announced he was "temporarily dissolving" the Congress of the Republic and "reorganizing" the Judicial Branch of the government. He then ordered the Army of Peru to drive a tank to the steps of Congress to shut it down. Result Presidential victory Fujimori curtails the independence of the judiciary and constitutional rights with a declaration of a state of emergency and curfews, as well as enacting controversial "severe emergency laws" to deal with terrorism. Elections for a Democratic Constituent Congress are held in November 1992, giving Fujimori a majority to draft a new constitution. New Constitution draft is approved by popular vote in 1993.
Belligerents
Government Cambio 90 Armed Forces Joint Command  Peruvian Army  Peruvian Navy  Peruvian Air Force Pro-Fujimori protesters	Congress Judiciary Opposition APRA Popular Action Christian People's Party Anti-Fujimori protesters
Commanders and leaders
Alberto Fujimori Víctor Malca Villanueva Vladimiro Montesinos Nicolás de Bari Hermoza Ríos	Felipe Osterling Roberto Ramírez del Villar Beaumont Máximo San Román Alan García Isaac Humala
Military support
Thousands of soldiers Tanks Armored personnel carriers	None
On November 26, 2007, ten former government officials were sentenced by the Supreme Court of Peru for their role in the self-coup.

Background

Under the military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado, Peru's debt increased greatly due to excessive borrowing and the 1970s energy crisis.^[3] The economic policy of President Alan García distanced Peru from international markets further, resulting in lower foreign investment in the country.^[4] Under García, Peru experienced hyperinflation and increased confrontations with the guerrilla group Shining Path, leading the country towards high levels of instability.^[5]

Plan Verde

Main article: Plan Verde

In October 1989, Plan Verde, a clandestine military operation, was developed by the armed forces of Peru during the internal conflict in Peru; it involved the genocide of impoverished and indigenous Peruvians, the control or censorship of media in the nation and the establishment of a neoliberal economy in Peru.^[6][5][7] Initially a coup d'état was included in the plan, though this was opposed by Anthony C. E. Quainton, the United States Ambassador to Peru.^[8] Military planners also decided against the coup as they expected a neoliberal candidate to be elected in the 1990 Peruvian general election.^[8] Rendón writes that the United States supported Fujimori because of his relationship with Vladimiro Montesinos, a former Peruvian intelligence officer who was charged with spying on the Peruvian military for the Central Intelligence Agency.^[9][10] Summarizing alleged support for Fujimori's candidacy from the United States, Rendón writes, "If Vargas Llosa with liberal democracy was very polarizing and a danger to American interests in the region, Fujimori with authoritarianism was very consensual and more in line with American interests in Peru and the region".^[10]

According to Peruvian sociologist and political analyst Fernando Rospigliosi, Peru's business elites held relationships with the military planners, with Rospigliosi writing that businesses "probably provided the economic ideas which [the military] agreed with, the necessity of a liberal economic program as well as the installment of an authoritarian government which would impose order".^[8] Rospigliosi also states that "an understanding was established between Fujimori, Montesinos and some of the military officers" involved in Plan Verde prior to Fujimori's inauguration.^[8] After taking office, Fujimori abandoned the economic platform he promoted during his electoral campaign, adopting more aggressive neoliberal policies than those espoused by his competitor in the election.^[11] Fujimori would go on to adopt many of the policies outlined in Plan Verde.^[9][8] With the compliance of Fujimori, plans for a coup as designed in Plan Verde were prepared over a two-year period prior to April 1992.^[9][12][7]

Neoliberal economic proposals

Hernando de Soto – who with the assistance and funding of the Atlas Network created the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), one of the first neoliberal organizations in Latin America^[13] – served informally as Fujimori's "personal representative" for the first three years of his government and recommended a "shock" to Peru's economy, stating "This society is collapsing, without a doubt, ... But the problems here are so entrenched that you have to have a collapse before you can implement fundamental changes in the political system".^[14][15] De Soto convinced Fujimori to travel to New York City in a meeting organized by the Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, secretary general of the United Nations, where they met with the heads of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank, who convinced Fujimori to follow the guidelines for economic policy set by the international financial institutions.^[14][16] The policies included a 300 percent tax increase, unregulated prices and privatizing two-hundred and fifty state-owned entities.^[14]

Congressional disputes

Through Fujimori's first two years in office, congress – which consisted mainly of opposition parties – granted Fujimori legislative power on fifteen separate occasions, which allowed him to enact 158 laws.^[17] However, congress resisted Fujimori's efforts to adopt policies advocated by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, especially austerity measures.

In response, Fujimori mounted a self-coup (Spanish: autogolpe, sometimes Fuji-coup or fujigolpe) on Sunday, April 5, 1992.

Self-coup d'état

On the night of Sunday April, 5, 1992, Fujimori appeared on television and announced that he was "temporarily dissolving" the Congress of the Republic and "reorganizing" the Judicial Branch of the government. He then ordered the Peruvian Army to drive a tank to the steps of Congress to shut it down. When a group of senators attempted to hold session, tear gas was deployed against them.

That same night, the military was sent to detain prominent members of the political opposition. Fujimori was convicted in 2009 for the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer, both of whom were detained by the military on the night of the self coup.

One of the most criticized moves that Fujimori took was the attempt to arrest former president Alan García, in order to have him face numerous trials. Also contributing to the coup was Fujimori's desire to remove García, who was serving as a Senator, as a political rival and potential future presidential candidate. However, García managed to escape arrest and sought political asylum in Colombia.

Results

Fujimori issued Decree Law 25418, which dissolved the Congress, gave the Executive Branch all legislative powers, suspended much of the Constitution, and gave the president the power to enact various reforms, such as the "application of drastic punishments" towards "terrorists".^[18] Fujimori called for elections of a new congress that was later named the Democratic Constitutional Congress (Congreso Constituyente Democrático); Fujimori later received a majority in this new congress, which later drafted the 1993 Constitution. Fujimori also set about curtailing the independence of the judiciary and constitutional rights with a declaration of a state of emergency and curfews, as well as enacting controversial "severe emergency laws" to deal with terrorism.

The Prime Minister, Alfonso de Los Heros, and the Minister of Agriculture resigned while the rest of ministers supported the de facto government. Máximo San Román, then the first vice president of the republic, did not support the coup. He was not in the country at the time of the coup, and he was not informed about this move.

The legislative branch responded by activating the constitutional clauses that allow the Congress to remove the president from office. Fujimori was removed and Máximo San Román was formally sworn into the presidency. Prominent politicians supported this move: former President Fernando Belaúnde Terry and most of the Acción Popular Party supported San Román, while former FREDEMO presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa called for a civil insurgency to overthrow Fujimori. However, neither the military nor the big majority of the people ever supported San Román, and he never became the de facto president.

Reactions

Domestic

Following the coup, Peruvian newspapers, radio and television stations were occupied by the military beginning at 10:30 pm on 5 April and remained for forty hours until 7 April, limiting initial response from domestic media.^[19] During the period, only the Fujimori government was granted to communicate with the public and all newspapers were printed under military observation and contained similar content; every publication was ordered to not include the word "coup".^[19]

The only poll allowed to be published following the coup was presented by APOYO Opinión y Mercado, with Rendón writing that the Fujimori government "had the information monopoly and the company APOYO the monopoly of measuring the effects of this information monopoly on the citizenry".^[10] The APOYO poll stated that of respondents, 71% supported the dissolution of congress and 89% supported the restructuring of the judiciary, with the government and media promptly promoting the results to the public.^[19][10] David Wood of the University of Sheffield described the poll as an example of "semantic shepherding"^[19] while Rendón wrote that "APOYO was dedicated to doing the surveys that the regime would use in its favor, to legitimize itself politically".^[10] In the years after releasing the poll, director of APOYO Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos would continue to defend Fujimori and would be involved with his government's programs.^[10]

According to of Manuel D'Ornellas of Expreso in 1994, the military's oversight of the media was only momentary due to international condemnation Fujimori received.^[19] Another group of military officers led by General Jaime Salinas Sedó attempted to overthrow Fujimori on 13 November.

International

International reactions to the self-coup were different: International financial organizations delayed planned or projected loans, and the United States government suspended all aid to Peru other than humanitarian assistance, as did Germany and Spain. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations, and Argentina withdrew its ambassador. Chile joined Argentina in requesting that Peru be suspended from the Organization of American States. The coup appeared to threaten the economic recovery strategy of reinsertion, and complicated the process of clearing arrears with the International Monetary Fund.

Even before the coup, relations with the United States had been strained because of Fujimori's reluctance to sign an accord that would increase U.S. and Peruvian military efforts in eradicating coca fields. Although Fujimori eventually signed the accord in May 1991, in order to get desperately needed aid, the disagreements did little to enhance bilateral relations. The Peruvians saw drugs as primarily a U.S. problem and the least of their concerns, given the economic crisis, Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, or S.L.) guerrillas, and an outbreak of cholera, which further isolated Peru because of a resulting ban on food imports.

However, two weeks after the self-coup, the Bush administration changed their position and officially recognized Fujimori as the legitimate leader of Peru. The Organization of American States and the U.S. agreed that Fujimori's coup may have been extreme, but they did not want to see Peru return to the deteriorating state that it had been in before. In fact, the coup came not long after the U.S. government and media had launched a media offensive against the Shining Path rural guerrilla movement. On March 12, 1992, Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs Bernard Aronson told the US Congress: "The international community and respected human rights organizations must focus the spotlight of world attention on the threat which Sendero poses... Latin America has seen violence and terror, but none like Sendero's... and make no mistake, if Sendero were to take power, we would see... genocide." Given Washington's concerns, long-term repercussions of the self-coup turned out to be modest.

Punishment of those responsible

On November 26, 2007, ten former government officials were sentenced by the Supreme Court of Peru for their role in the coup. Fujimori's Minister of the Interior, Juan Briones Dávila, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Former Fujimorist congressmen Jaime Yoshiyama, Carlos Boloña, Absalón Vásquez, Víctor Joy Way, Óscar de la Puente Raygada, Jaime Sobero, Alfredo Ross Antezana, Víctor Paredes Guerra, and Augusto Antoniolli Vásquez were all also sentenced for various crimes such as rebellion and kidnapping.

See also

• 2022 Peruvian self-coup d'état attempt, a similar incident

References

1. "El "fujimorazo" y otros casos en América Latina que se comparan con la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de Venezuela sobre la Asamblea Nacional". BBC. 1 April 2017.
2. ""Fujimorazo" y el golpe de Bordaberry: cómo fueron los antecedentes del "Madurazo" en Sudamérica". Infobae. 30 March 2017.
3. Brands, Hal (15 September 2010). "The United States and the Peruvian Challenge, 1968–1975". Diplomacy & Statecraft. 21 (3). Taylor & Francis: 471–490. doi:10.1080/09592296.2010.508418. S2CID 154119414.
4. "Welcome, Mr. Peruvian President: Why Alan García is no hero to his people". Council on Hemispheric Affairs. 2 June 2010. from the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
5. Burt, Jo-Marie (September–October 1998). "Unsettled accounts: militarization and memory in postwar Peru". NACLA Report on the Americas. 32 (2). Taylor & Francis: 35–41. doi:10.1080/10714839.1998.11725657. the military's growing frustration over the limitations placed upon its counterinsurgency operations by democratic institutions, coupled with the growing inability of civilian politicians to deal with the spiraling economic crisis and the expansion of the Shining Path, prompted a group of military officers to devise a coup plan in the late 1980s. The plan called for the dissolution of Peru's civilian government, military control over the state, and total elimination of armed opposition groups. The plan, developed in a series of documents known as the "Plan Verde," outlined a strategy for carrying out a military coup in which the armed forces would govern for 15 to 20 years and radically restructure state-society relations along neoliberal lines.
6. Gaussens, Pierre (2020). "The forced serilization of indigenous population in Mexico in the 1990s". Canadian Journal of Bioethics. 3 (3): 180+. doi:10.7202/1073797ar. S2CID 234586692. a government plan, developed by the Peruvian army between 1989 and 1990s to deal with the Shining Path insurrection, later known as the 'Green Plan', whose (unpublished) text expresses in explicit terms a genocidal intention
7. "El "Plan Verde" Historia de una traición". Oiga. 647. 12 July 1993.
8. Avilés, William (Spring 2009). "Despite Insurgency: Reducing Military Prerogatives in Colombia and Peru". Latin American Politics and Society. 51 (1). Cambridge University Press: 57–85. doi:10.1111/j.1548-2456.2009.00040.x. S2CID 154153310.
9. Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt (2006). "Chapter 5: Elites, Cocaine, and Power in Colombia and Peru". The politics of organized crime and the organized crime of politics: a study in criminal power. Lexington Books. pp. 114–118. ISBN 9780739113585. important members of the officer corps, particularly within the army, had been contemplating a military coup and the establishment of an authoritarian regime, or a so-called directed democracy. The project was known as 'Plan Verde', the Green Plan. ... Fujimori essentially adopted the 'Plan Verde,' and the military became a partner in the regime. ... The self-coup, of April 5, 1992, dissolved the Congress and the country's constitution and allowed for the implementation of the most important components of the 'Plan Verde.'
10. Rendón, Silvio (2013). La intervención de los Estados Unidos en el Perú. Editorial Sur. pp. 145–150. ISBN 9786124574139.
11. Gouge, Thomas. Exodus from Capitalism: The End of Inflation and Debt. 2003, p. 363.
12. Cameron, Maxwell A. (June 1998). "Latin American Autogolpes: Dangerous Undertows in the Third Wave of Democratisation". Third World Quarterly. 19 (2). Taylor & Francis: 228. doi:10.1080/01436599814433. the outlines for Peru's presidential coup were first developed within the armed forces before the 1990 election. This Plan Verde was shown to President Fujimorti after the 1990 election before his inauguration. Thus, the president was able to prepare for an eventual self-coup during the first two years of his administration
13. Pee, Robert (2018). The Reagan Administration, the Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 168–187. ISBN 9783319963815.
14. Pee, Robert (2018). The Reagan Administration, the Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 178–180. ISBN 9783319963815.
15. Brooke, James; Times, Special To the New York (1990-11-27). "A Peruvian Is Laying Out Another Path". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
16. Times, Paul Lewis and Special To the New York (July 1990). "New Peru Leader in Accord on Debt". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
17. Degregori, Carlos Iván (2000). La década de la antipolítica: auge y huida de Alberto Fujimori y Vladimiro Montesinos. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. p. 28. ISBN 9972510433.
18. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-29. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
19. Wood, David (2000). "The Peruvian Press under Recent Authoritarian Regimes, with Special Reference to the self-coup of President Fujimori". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 19 (1): 17–32. doi:10.1111/j.1470-9856.2000.tb00090.x.