Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [24]
1990 Alberto Fujimori is elected president; his authoritarian rule leads to improvements in the economy, but charges of corruption plague his administration.
1992 Sendero Luminoso detonates truck bombs in Miraflores, killing 25 and wounding scores more; following this act, public opinion turns decisively against the guerrillas.
1992 Abimael Guzmán, the founder of Sendero Luminoso, is captured in Lima after he is found hiding out above a dance studio in the well-to-do neighborhood of Surco.
1993 Mario Vargas Llosa publishes Death in Andes, a novel based on his experience leading the commission that investigated the murder of the journalists killed in Uchuraccay.
1996 Guerrillas from the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) storm the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima and hold 72 people hostage for four months; all of the guerrillas are killed in the ensuing raid.
2000 Fujimori flees to Japan after videos surface showing his intelligence chief bribing officials and the media; the Peruvian legislature votes him out of office.
2001 Alejandro Toledo becomes the first indigenous person to govern an Andean country; Alan García returns to Peru after the statute of limitations expires on the corruption charges against him.
2003 The country’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission releases its final report on Peru’s Internal Conflict: estimates of the dead reach 70,000.
2005 Construction of the Interoceanic Hwy, which opens an overland trade route between Peru and Brazil, begins in the Amazon Basin.
2006 APRA candidate Alan García is elected to a second, nonconsecutive term as president after a run-off contest.
2009 Fujimori is convicted of embezzling; this is in addition to prior convictions for authorizing an illegal search and ordering military death squads to carry out extrajudicial killings.
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The Culture
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THE NATIONAL PSYCHE
LIFESTYLE
SOCIAL GRACES
POPULATION
MEDIA
RELIGION
WOMEN IN PERU
ARTS
SPORTS
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THE NATIONAL PSYCHE
National identity is a tricky thing in Peru, which is less a nation than an agglomeration of cultures thrown together by historical circumstance. There is the culture of the coast: a boisterous blend of Spanish tradition infused with African and indigenous ways. There is the culture of the Andes, more timid in its aspect, where Catholic belief is honored with indigenous rite. There is the culture of the Amazon Basin – not a single culture, but an only-in-the-jungle mix of enterprising frontier settlers and an abundance of local ethnicities, from Asháninkas to Shipibos. Each of these regional identities is as unique as the singular geographies they emerge from, yet each is also dynamic and elastic, continually digesting a bounty of influences from outside. Dance bands from Chiclayo play cumbias (salsa-like music) imported from Colombia. Lima’s designers incorporate traditional alpaca weaving styles into avant-garde fashion. And Cuzco restaurants serve Andean specialties prepared using Mediterranean techniques. So what is Peruvian? And what does it mean to be Peruvian? The answer all depends on who you ask – and when. Peru is still trying to figure it out.
This bubbling social tension has produced a rich legacy of art, literature, music and cuisine – but it hasn’t come without conflict. In the Andes, the area surrounding the department of Ayacucho is still recovering from hostilities in the 1980s and ’90s that left almost 70,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in a spin cycle of violence between Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas and the Peruvian military. In 2009, in the northern province of Bagua, various indigenous groups clashed with police over the development of Amazonian lands without their consent. The confrontation left roads blocked, cities cut off and almost three dozen dead.
Moreover, Peru continues to struggle with issues of race and class. Long dominated by a fair-skinned oligarchy in Lima, the country has, over the years, begun