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he was a gifted public speaker, he was popular – and he was the first member of the storied APRA party to win a presidential election. But his economic program was catastrophic (his decision to nationalize the banks and suspend foreign-debt payments led to economic ruin), and, by the late 1980s, Peru faced a staggering hyperinflation rate of 7500%. Thousands of people were plunged into poverty. There were food shortages and riots. Throughout all of this, Sendero Luminoso and MRTA stepped up attacks. The government was forced to declare a state of emergency. Two years after completing his term, García fled the country after being accused of embezzling millions of dollars (though he would return to Peru in 2001, when the statute of limitations on his case ran out). It was a disappointing, ignominious end for a political party that had struggled for decades – against crackdowns and illegality – to get into power.

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The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru, by Robin Kirk, covers the violent history of the Internal Conflict, and is an excellent examination of how individuals manage to survive terror.

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FUJISHOCK

With the country in a state of chaos, the 1990 presidential elections took on more importance than ever. The contest was between famed novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and Alberto Fujimori, an agronomist of Japanese descent. During the campaign, Vargas Llosa promoted an economic ‘shock treatment’ program that many feared would send more Peruvians into poverty, while Fujimori positioned himself as an alternative to the Peruvian status quo. Fujimori won handily. But as soon as he got into office, he implemented an even more austere economic plan that, among other things, drove up the price of gasoline by 3000%. The measures, known as ‘Fujishock,’ ultimately succeeded in reducing inflation and stabilizing the economy – but not without costing the average Peruvian dearly.

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Mario Vargas Llosa’s son Álvaro has become a famous political commentator in his own right, producing more than a dozen books on various aspects of Peruvian and Latin American history.

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Fujimori followed this, in April of 1992, with an autogolpe (coup from within). He dissolved the legislature and generated an entirely new congress, one stocked with his allies. Peruvians, not unused to caudillos, tolerated the power grab, hoping that Fujimori might help stabilize the economic and political situation – which he did. The economy grew. And by the end of the year, leaders of both Sendero Luminoso and MRTA had been apprehended (though, sadly, not before Sendero Luminoso had brutally assassinated beloved community activist María Elena Moyano and detonated lethal truck bombs in the Lima neighborhood of Miraflores).

Despite the arrests, the Internal Conflict wasn’t over. In December of 1996, during Fujimori’s second term as president, 14 members of MRTA stormed the Japanese ambassador’s residence and hundreds of prominent people were taken hostage. The guerrillas demanded, among other things, the release of imprisoned MRTA members, a rollback of the government’s free-market reforms and improvements in prison conditions. Most of the hostages were released, although 72 men were held until the following April, when Peruvian commandos stormed the embassy, killing the captors and releasing all of the hostages except one, who died along with two soldiers. This action later came under intense criticism as it was claimed that members of MRTA were repeatedly shot – despite attempts to surrender.

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The life of activist María Elena Moyano – assassinated by Sendero Luminoso in 1992 – is wonderfully chronicled in The Autobiography of María Elena Moyano, by Patricia Taylor Edmisten.

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By the end of his second term, Fujimori’s administration was plagued by allegations of corruption. He ran for a third term in 2000 (which is technically unconstitutional) and remained in power despite the fact that he didn’t have the simple majority necessary to claim the election. Within the year,