MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Death of Peruvian statesman ?Belaunde Terry
Fernando Belaunde Terry, twice President of Peru, has died , aged 88. Here is an appraisal of the man and his contribution to Peruvian politics by Mercopress Correspondent Harold Briley, who knew him personally.
Of all the Presidents and political leaders I had contacts with in Latin America, I found Belaunde Terry the most charming, approachable and politically honest. He was widely regarded as a champion of democracy and freedom of speech in a continent plagued by corruption and dictatorship.
When he was swept to power for his second term as President in 1980, he invited me to join him in his car on his victory drive through Lima to his home where he gave me an interview about his plans for the future. The cheering crowds must have wondered who was the stranger in the car with their President.
Falklands peace mediator Little did I realise that the next time I had contact with him would be after his attempts to mediate between Argentina and the United Kingdom to halt the 1982 Falklands War. His peace proposals, like those of United States Secretary of State General Al Haig and fellow Peruvian United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuellar, foundered on Argentine intransigence and United Kingdom unwillingness to countenance any surrender of Falklands' sovereignty.
Belaunde Terry's peace plan came to an abrupt end, coinciding as it did with the torpedoing of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with heavy loss of life.
After the war he was still keen on acting as an intermediary to restore relations between Argentina and the United Kingdom, with whom he had friendly contacts. He asked me to carry a message to Prime Minister Thatcher suggesting a meeting to promote peace.
In Peru itself he invited me to the Presidential Palace to describe enthusiastically his ambitious dreams to develop the vast potential of his huge, poverty-stricken country by linking its disparate regions with a network of modern communications and opening up the remote jungle regions east of the Andes. He briefly visited a British hovercraft expedition on the River Apurimac with which I was involved and wanted to exploit the hovercraft's unique characteristics to penetrate the jungle areas. Five years after his 1980 election victory he relinquished power to his successor in democratic elections -- quite an achievement in a country plagued by military interference in politics.
Internationally acclaimed architect Belaunde Terry, born into a wealthy and influential Arequipa family in 1913, was a reformist and moderniser, giving political voice to the new professional classes. He was educated in France and the United States, graduating as an architect, later becoming Dean of the School of Architecture in Lima. In exile during periods of military rule, he taught architecture in some of the top US universities, including Harvard, Columbia and John Hopkins.
He was first elected to Congress in 1945 and founded and led for more than thirty years the Popular Action Party (AP).
His first term as President began in 1963 with the support of the armed forces, the United States and more than a third of the electorate. But economic difficulties and an unpopular devaluation led to his overthrow by a bloodless military coup in 1968. His second period as President also ended in 1985 amid economic chaos and a fierce war with the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement (Sendero Luminoso) and later with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. His party was defeated by Alan Garcia. In 1990 Belaunde Terry supported his friend the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who was defeated by Alberto Fujimori. Peru was plunged into another period of political unrest before Fujimori fled to Japan.
Despite his many setbacks and political disappointments, Belaunde Terry retained his personal popularity and helped to steer his country through many crises.
He is survived by two sons and a daughter from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.
Harold Briley, London
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