PERU: Right Turn

The first word of a military uprising in his native Arequipa scarcely ruffled President Jose Luis Bustamante’s customary calm. Arequipa, after all, was the “Rebel City of the South,” a traditional place for sudden risings and uproars. Moreover, Peru’s army had just proved its loyalty by crushing the bloody Oct. 3 revolt at Callao (TIME, Oct. 11). The government put out a reassuring communiqué, ordered loyal troops to move against the rebels. But nothing happened.

Unlike the Callao rising, which Bustamante had blamed on the leftist APRA party, the Arequipa revolt was led by a professional soldier and outspoken rightist, 51-year-old General Manuel Odria. He started it off by denouncing the government for not taking sterner measures against APRA (it had been outlawed, many of its leaders jailed). Then he called on the military to follow him.

Into Exile. Within 24 hours, the President had plenty to worry about. The commanders of the strong Lima garrison bluntly refused to oppose Odria, advised Bustamante to resign. Scholarly, law-minded Jose Bustamante parried by suggesting that the whole matter be left to the Supreme Court for decision. The soldiers brushed the idea aside. Bustamante knew then that he was finished, but he sat on stubbornly in his grandiose palace on the Plaza de Armas until four officers came to escort him to the Limatambo airfield and Argentine exile.

The coup had been bloodless: all important garrisons had pledged in advance to support it. General Odria flew up to the capital in an army plane, was met by 2,000 cheering Limeños and a military band. That night, in a kind of radio fireside chat, he talked vaguely of better times for labor, agriculture and the army, promised that elections would be held “after a brief transitional government.” But he gave no assurance that Peru would continue the experiment in democratic government begun under Bustamante. (Said Bustamante in his farewell: “Democracy is like the sun; its eclipses are never permanent.”) “Party politics,” cried Odria, “poison the hearts of the people and sicken their minds.” The military junta he had set up would deal severely with “outrages . . . perpetrated in the name of democracy and freedom.” That pointed to ruthless prosecution of the jailed APRA leaders and a redoubled hunt for those still at large, notably Aprista Chief Haya de la Torre.

Into Power. Peru’s new strong man is short, pudgy, but light on his feet. He has a sharp nose, bright little eyes, receding hair. He plays chess, loves bullfights and opera, enjoys an occasional pisco but does not smoke. With his wife and two sons he lives in a modest house on the unfashionable side of Avenida Arequipa.

A career officer, Odria had risen to colonel when President Bustamante made him brigadier and chief of staff in 1946. The following year, when Bustamante tried governing with an all-military cabinet, Odria held his first public office as Minister of Government (Interior). He quit the cabinet when Bustamante last summer brusquely rejected his demand for immediate outlawing of the Apristas.

The success of last week’s coup had been assured almost from the start by the essential weakness of Bustamante’s political position. He had been trying to govern without the direct support of a major party. Elected by a coalition which leaned heavily on APRA votes, he soon found himself at loggerheads with Aprista leaders who wanted to push an explosive program of social reform for Peru’s wretchedly poor Indian workers. He failed to build up a middle party of his own, soon found himself caught between the Apristas, who had the country’s real political weight, and the ultra-conservative generals, landowners and businessmen who had most of its political skill and power.

So long as the two elements balanced each other, Bustamante could govern. But last month’s Callao revolt, never completely explained, forced him to wreck the Apristas and destroy the balance. Perhaps he should have made reservations for Buenos Aires right then.