State Reform, Coalitions, and the Neoliberal Autogolpe in Peru

Abstract

When President Alberto Fujimori suspended constitutional rule in April 1992, he ended Peru's twelve-year experiment in civilian democratic governance. Citing the growing insurgency of Sendero Luminoso, corruption in the political parties, and difficulties with the Peruvian Congress in passing his economic program, Fujimori announced that democracy would have to be temporarily suspended in order to build new institutions. This move was backed by the armed forces. Perhaps most surprising to outside observers was the widespread popularity of Fujimori's move, which reflected the growing disenchantment with traditional political parties of the right and the left. Democratic procedures and institutions during the 1980s had been precarious at best. The military's counterinsurgency campaign against Sendero Luminoso had transformed Peru into one of the hemisphere's worst offenders against human rights, with the highest number of forced disappearances in the world. But despite documented cases of torture and other violations of human rights by state authorities, Peruvian military forces acted with the knowledge that they were virtually immune from prosecution.