Page 53 - Amazon River Cruise & Rain Forest

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America. Jose de San Martin of Argentina and Simon Bolivar of Venezuela played key roles in
driving the Spanish military out of Peru, which declared independence in 1821.

A series of Bolivar’s lieutenants known as the “marshals of Ayacucho” governed Peru in the
following decades. One of the most able of these, Ramon Castilla, presided over the adoption
of a liberal constitution in 1860.
The Modern Era

Since then, Peru’s history has been a dramatic alternation between democratic and dictatorial
governments, each of which has faced pressing social and economic issues. Opposition to
dictatorship has played a prominent role in Peruvian politics since the 1920s, when Víctor Raúl
Haya de la Torre founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA).

Peruvian democratic reformers have long advocated guaranteed civil liberties and improved
living conditions for the nation’s Native Americans. There have also been radical and violent
opposition movements, including the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), whose leaders were
captured in 1992. Peru’s next four heads of state were democratically elected presidents:
Fernando Belaúnde Terry in 1980, Alan García Pérez (an APRA candidate) in 1985, Alberto
Fujimori in 1990, and Alejandro Toledo in 2001. In 2006, Alan Garcia Perez was elected
President again and—in contrast to his earlier term—he presided over a period of economic
growth until 2011 when Peru’s current president, Ollanta Humala was elected.

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