Timeline Peru
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Peru, slightly smaller than Alaska, is the
third-largest nation in
South America. It has 3 geographical regions: Pacific coastal desert,
Andes mountain range and Amazon jungle.
(AP, 6/4/06)
36Mil BC In
2005 scientists in Peru reported the discovery of a giant penguin that
lived about this time on the Peruvian coastline. The bird was named
Icadyptes salasi. It stood over 5-feet and lived during one of the
warmest periods of the world’s history.
(SFC, 6/25/07, p.A10)
10Mil BC In 2009 researchers in Peru said an
unusually intact fossilized skull of a pelagornithid, a giant,
bony-toothed seabird that lived up to 10 million years ago, had been
found in the in the Pisco Formation, a coastal rock bed south of the
capital, Lima, known for yielding fossils of whales, dolphins, turtles
and other marine life dating as far back as 14 million years.
(AP, 2/28/09)
9600BC A site of human habitation in Peru was dated
to about this time. Later excavations indicated complex stone tools
that appeared to date back to at least 28,000 BCE.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A2)
8000BC The potato was first cultivated some 10,000
years ago by South American Indians. In the 16th century Spanish
explorers brought potatoes back to Europe, where it was first used
primarily as livestock feed. The potato was introduced to North America
in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the poor of Europe began to
use potatoes as a replacement for cereals in their diets. The failure
of the potato crop in Ireland in 1845-46 led to great famine and pushed
tens of thousands of Irish to emigrate to the United States. In 2008 it
was reported that genetic studies by potato experts indicated that all
potatoes originated over 10,000 years ago from a single ancestor,
Solanum brevicaule, found on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca.
(HNQ, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.A15)
3800BC The Supe people, a maritime farming community,
was established about this time along the coast of Peru.
(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A13)
3600BC The Supe people, a maritime farming community
along the coast of Peru, disappeared about this time. In 2009
researchers found their disappearance coincided with earthquakes and
landslides followed by massive flooding.
(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A13)
3500BC-3000BC In 2008 a team of German and Peruvian
archaeologists reported the discovery of a ceremonial plaza near Peru's
north-central coast dating to this period.
(AP, 2/27/08)
3022BC In Peru the pyramids of Aspero on the Pacific
coast dated to about this time.
(AM, 7/05, p.20)
3000BC Scientists say that the weather changed about
this time and that the first El Nino Pacific Ocean temperature flip
occurred. Analysis of Peruvian coastal middens of this period indicated
a diet change from tropical mollusks to cold water mollusks. The idea
was first proposed in 1983 and evidence was added from Japan and
Greenland. Skeptics claim that the change was due to mollusks harvested
from now vanished warm water lagoons.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.E2)
2627BC Parts of Caral, a city in the Supe Valley of
Peru, was built about this time. The 170-acre site, 14 miles from the
coast, was discovered in 1905 but not dated till 2001. The city had
pyramids up to 70 feet tall and its population was believed to have
reached about 3,000.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/15/01, p.D6)(AM, 7/05,
p.19,25)
2200BC In the Peruvian Andes a native culture built a
33-foot pyramid about this time with an observatory marking the summer
and winter solstices. In 2006 archeologists working at the Buena Vista
site believed that fisherman from the coast had moved to the site to
grow cotton for making fishing nets.
(SFC, 5/15/06, p.A2)
2000BC In 2007 a temple dating to about this time was
unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest
finds in the Americas. The mural filled temple, called Ventarron, sits
in the Lambayeque valley, near the ancient Sipan complex unearthed in
the 1980s.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2000BC In 2008 researchers reported that the earliest
known gold jewelry made in the Americas had been discovered in southern
Peru. The gold necklace, made nearly 4,000 years ago, was found in a
burial site near Lake Titicaca.
(AP, 3/31/08)
c1300BC The Paracas culture originated about this
time along the southern coast of Peru. They mummified their dead and
created fine textiles.
(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.30)
c1200-300BC A pre-Columbian culture flourished over
this time in the Andes site of Chavin de Huantar.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.A20)
c1000BC In 1999 the tomb of a Huayakuntur Indian of
this time was found in Ayabaca province.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A12)
950BC Peanuts have been traced
back to this time in Brazil and Peru.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)
c700BC-900AD Natives of the Nasca culture drew lines
and geometrical figures into the coastal desert during this period that
were over a mile long.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A16)
c500BC Monumental ceremonial centers on the Peruvian
coast were abandoned about this time. The period was later found to
correspond with an increase in el Nino frequency,
(AM, 9/01, p.18)
400BC-540CE The Inca Early
Intermediate Period.
(NG, Feb, 04, p.28)
350BC The Chavin civilization had
a settlement at this time on the north-western coast of Peru. The elite
of this civilization tracked the movement of the sun throughout the
year.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.84)
c100-700 A group of agricultural Indians (today
called the Moche) inhabit the desert margin between the Andes and the
Pacific in what is today called Peru. They raised huge monuments of sun
baked mud where they laid their dead with fine gold and pottery. They
irrigated crops such as corn, beans, squash, and peanuts. The ate
llamas and guinea pigs and caught fish in the Pacific. [2nd source
dated the Moche from 0-800] The Nasca [Nazca] Indians also inhabited
this area about this time.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 510)(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.16)
c100-700 The Nazca Lines are a complex series of huge
birds, animals and other figures etched over a 35-mile stretch of high
desert by the Nazca culture some 225 miles southeast of Lima.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A24)
c100-700 Moche people built elaborate settlements
along 300 miles of Peru’s coast that included Huaco Cao Viejo.
(NG, 7/04, p.108)
450 In Peru a tattooed Moche woman
was entombed about this time, at a site later called El Brujo, with a
sacrificed teenage slave and a collection of weapons and jewelry. In
2006 her mummy was discovered in a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A2)
c500 A Moche pyramid from this
time at Dos Cabezas contained tombs that archeologists found in 1997.
The tombs revealed people of unusual height along with miniatures of
the deceased and the tomb’s contents.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A7)
563-594 In northern Peru a 30-year mega el
Niño weather period began that caused major flooding in areas
populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
594 In Peru a 30-year drought
began about this time that followed years of flooding in areas
populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
650-700 In northern Peru archeological evidence later
indicated that civil strife during this period, which followed some 30
years of drought, led to the demise of the Moche civilization.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
750-1375 The Sican culture flourished on Peru's
northern desert coast. In 2006 archaeologists unearthed 22 graves
containing a trove of Sican artifacts, including the first "tumi"
ceremonial knives ever discovered by archaeologists rather than looted
by thieves.
(AP, 11/22/06)
c900 In Peru the Lambayeque people
established themselves over areas previously developed by the Moche.
(NG, 7/04, p.116)
900-1200 The Killke people occupied the region around
Cuzco, Peru, from 900 to 1200 A.D., prior to the arrival of the Incas.
In 2008 Archaeologists discovered the ruins of an ancient temple,
roadway and irrigation systems at Sacsayhuaman, a famed fortress
overlooking Cuzco, that shed light on the pre-Inca cultures of Peru.
(AP, 3/15/08)
c1000 An early Andean culture
known as the Huari cultivated crops with complex irrigation systems
back to this time.
(NH, 10/02, p.62)
1438 The Incas established an
imperial state in the Andes (Peru) and Cusco was rebuilt. They went on
to build over 25,000 miles of roads.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A2)(NG, Feb, 04, p.72)
1450-1532 The period of the Inca Empire. Inca mummies
were later found on Mt. Ampato in 1995 and 1997. In 1998 archeologist
found 6 frozen mummies sacrificed to Inca gods near the crater of the
19,100 foot El Misti volcano, 465 miles southeast of Lima, Peru.
(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.16)(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)(SFC,
10/3/98, p.C1)
1460-1470 Machu Pichu was built under the Inca King
Pachacuti in the Peruvian Andes. It was occupied for about 50 years
before 180 Spanish conquistadors wiped out a 40,000-man Inca army. In
2003 a nearby complex of structures called Llactapata (high city) was
discovered.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A2)
1480-1533 A huge Inca cemetery was active in Lima at
this time. It was uncovered in 2002 with some 2,200 mummies.
(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A4)
1502-1533 Atahualpa, emperor of the Incas. He had a
fortune in gold and silver and tried to purchase his freedom from
Pizarro for a chamber filled with gold. Pizarro took 124 tons of gold
in ransom and then re-arrested Atahualpa for treason to the Spanish
crown and had him decapitated.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1522 Pascual de Andagoya, Spanish
explorer, became the first European to set foot in Peru.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1525 The Spanish made initial
contact with the Incas.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A2)
c1525 First found in Peru by
invading Spaniards, the tomato was also known as a "love apple" or
"wolf peach" and regarded with suspicion and shunned as food. It was
believed to be unhealthy or downright poisonous and given the Latin
name Lycopersicon, or "wolf peach." In Europe it was thought to be a
potent-and thus forbidden-aphrodisiac, hence the name "love apple."
Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes in the late 1700s, but they weren't
widely consumed in Europe and America until the early 1800s.
(HNQ, 1/3/99)
1529 Jul 26, Francisco Pizarro was
made governor for life and captain-general in New Spain. He returned to
Peru in a fleet of three ships. Pizarro received a royal warrant in
Toledo, Spain, to "discover and conquer" Peru.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(HN, 7/26/98)
1530’s The Spanish invasion forced
the Incas to retreat.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-5)
1532 Nov 16, Pizarro first
encountered Incan emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca, who declined
conversion to Christianity. Pizzaro and 167 fellow Spaniards, armored
and on horseback, killed or wounded some 6,000 to 7,000 natives and
captured emperor Atahualpa. In 2007 Kim MacQuarrie authored “The Last
Days of the Incas.
(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.M2)
1532 Spanish conquistadores
reached the high valley of the Andes. Pizzaro entered Cuzco, Inca
capital of Peru.
(V.D.-H.K.p.11)
1532 Francisco Pizzaro (54) with
183 soldiers entered the lowlands of northern Peru near Cajamarca, the
capital of the Incan empire.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.A10)
1533 Aug 28, Atahualpa, last of
the Inca rulers was strangled at the orders of Spanish conquistador
Francisco Pizarro. The Inca empire died with him.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1533 Aug 29, Francisco Pizarro
captured Cuzco and completed his conquest of Peru. He ordered the
imprisonment and murder of Atahualpa, the last ruler of the Incan
Empire. Atahualpa was executed by orders of Francisco Pizarro, although
the chief had already paid his ransom. Ruminahui (Rumanahui), a general
of Atahualpa, led 15,000 soldiers into the mountains north of Quito,
after Pizarro killed the Inca emperor Atahualpa. His forces carried an
estimated 70,000 man-loads of gold.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.14)(AP, 8/29/97) (SFEC, 7/5/98,
p.A10)(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.A15)(HN, 8/29/98)
1533 Nov 15, Francisco Pizarro
entered Cuzco, Peru. [see Aug 29]
(HN, 11/15/98)
1535 Jan 6, Lima, Peru, was
founded by Francisco Pizarro. [see Jan 18]
(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.B8)(MC, 1/6/02)
1535 Jan 18, Francisco Pizarro
founded Lima Peru. [see Jan 6]
(MC, 1/18/02)
1535 Francisco de Orellana
accompanied Francisco Pizarro on the latter's conquest of Peru.
(HNQ, 2/11/01)
1536 Spanish soldiers crushed an
Indian revolt and Incas fled to Peru’s Vilcabamba region. In 2002
archeologists uncovered a settlement on Cerro Victorio.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A2)
1540 Arequipa was founded by
Spanish conquerors.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1541 Jun 26, Francisco Pizarro,
the Spanish Conqueror of Peru, was murdered by his former followers in
Lima.
(HN, 6/26/98)(MC, 6/26/02)
1551 May 12, San Marcos University
opened in Lima, Peru. The Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos was
founded under Spanish royal charter.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 5/12/02)(AM, 7/01, p.18)
1553 Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote the
first European description of the potato in his “Chronicles of Peru.”
(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.A15)
1569 Dec 9, Martinus de Porres,
saint (patron of social justice), was born in Peru.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1578 Dec 5, Sir Francis Drake
sailed into the port of Valparaiso. He had renamed his flagship, the
Pelican, to the Golden Hind, and ravaged the coasts of Chile and Peru
on his way around the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(ON, 7/03, p.7)
c1580 Tupac Amuru, an Inca leader,
held out against the Spanish conquest after most of the empire had been
subdued.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)
1600 Feb 18, Arequipa, Peru, was
destroyed by an earthquake. Huaynaputina was the site of a monogenetic
silicic eruption that ranks greater than 1883 Krakatau and 1991 Mt.
Pinatubo in magnitude. A 26 hour-long plinian eruption devastated the
socioeconomic fabric of southern Peru and neighboring Chile and Bolivia.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/ydmwzba)
1604 Agustino Salumbrino, a Jesuit
monk, left Rome for Peru, where he studied native plants for their
healing powers, especially the bark of the cinchona tree used by the
Incas to treat shivering. By 1630 quinine entered the literature as a
treatment. In 2003 Fiammetta Rocco authored "The Miraculous Fever Tree:
Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World."
(WUD, 1994, p.1245)(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.8)(WSJ,
8/26/03, p.D5)
1617 Aug 30, Rosa de Lima of Peru
became the first American saint to be canonized.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1623 Apr 29, 11 Dutch ships
departed for the conquest of Peru.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1639 Jan 23, Francisco Maldonado
da Silva Solis, Peruvian poet, was burned at stake.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1639 Nov 3, Martinus de Porres
(69), Peru saint (patron of social justice), died.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1667 Arequipa was hit by an
earthquake.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1668 Arequipa was hit by another
earthquake.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1700s In 1927 Thornton Wilder
wrote “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.” It was set in Peru in the early
1700s when a rope bridge broke that sent 5 people to their death.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR p.8)
1746 Oct 28, The Peruvian cities
of Lima and Callao were demolished by an earthquake. 18,000 died.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1749 Mar, Jean Godin, French
geographer, left Quito, part of the Viceroyalty of Peru (later
Ecuador), in an attempt to reach France to settle his family estate. He
traveled by an eastern route across South America and became stranded
in French Guiana for over 20 years. In 2004 Robert Whitaker authored
“The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the
Amazon.” It was an account of Jean Godin (d.1792), French mapmaker, and
his wife, Isabel Godin. They managed to reunite in 1770.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)(ON, 5/05, p.4)
1778 Feb 25, Jose Francisco de San
Martin (d.1850) was born in Argentina. He liberated Argentina, Chile
and Peru. Protector of Peru (1821-1822).
(WUD, 1994 p.1267)(MC, 2/25/02)
1780 Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui led
a failed Indian revolt against the Spanish. He appropriated the name of
an earlier Inca leader and became Tupac Amuru II.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)
1781 Tupac Amuru II was executed.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)
1800-1900 The 19th century Andean explorer, Antonuio
Raimondi, had drawn a map with the words Machu Picchu in the correct
location.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-5)
c1800-1900 A native named Fitzcarraldo attempted to
build a Peruvian rain forest opera house to attract the singer Caruso.
The 1982 film "Fitzcarraldo" by Werner Herzog was Herzog's version of
the story.
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2E)
1804 Oct 5, The Nuestra Senora de
las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon, was sunk by the British navy southwest
of Portugal with more than 200 people on board. In May 2007, Odyssey
Marine Exploration announced that it had discovered a wreck in the
Atlantic and its cargo of 500,000 silver coins and other artifacts
worth an estimated $500 million. Spain claimed this was the Nuestra
Senora de las Mercedes. In 2009 Peru pushed claims to the silver coins
arguing that they were minted in Lima.
(AP,
5/8/08)(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/24/usa.spain)(AP, 1/29/09)
1814 Jose Francisco de San Martin
(1778-1850) became general in chief of Argentina’s Army of the North.
His primary mission was to protect Argentina against Spanish royalists
in Peru.
(ON, 10/09, p.8)
1820 Oct, Argentina’s Jose de San
Martin blockaded Lima, Peru, and urged the people of Peru to join in
the uprising against Spain.
(www.gdws.co.uk/chacabuco.htm)(Econ, 4/25/09,
p.87)(ON, 10/09, p.10)
1821 Jul 28, Peru declared its
independence from Spain. Lima had been the seat of the Spanish viceroys
until this time. Jose Francisco de San Martin of Argentina had
blockaded Lima and forced the Spanish viceroy to abandon the city.
Martin returned to Argentina in 1822
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(AP, 7/28/97)(ON, 10/09, p.10)
1821-1822 Jose Francisco de San Martin (d.1850)
served as Protector of Peru.
(WUD, 1994 p.1267)(MC, 2/25/02)
1823 Sep 10, Simon Bolivar was
named president of Peru and assumed the presidency with dictatorial
powers. He had led the wars for independence from Spain in Venezuela,
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1824 Feb 10, Simon Bolivar was
named President by the Congress of Peru.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1824 Aug 24, Simon Bolivar's army
beat the Spanish in Peru in the Battle at Junin.
(PC, 1992, p.394)
1824 Dec 9, In the Battle of
Ayacucho (Candorcangui) Peru defeated Spain.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1825 Aug 6, Simon Bolivar drew up
a constitution for Bolivia in which a life president appointed his
successor. Sucre served as the sole capital until losing a brief civil
war to La Paz in 1899. Upper Peru became the autonomous republic of
Bolivia.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.77)(AP, 7/21/07)(AP, 8/6/08)
1829 Sep 25, There was a failed
assassination attempt on Simon Bolivar.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1830 The government of Peru
exempted guano from taxes. The commercial mining and export of the rich
fertilizer soon followed.
(www.newscotland1398.net/remem/cannonsndx.html)
1839 Jan 20, Chile defeated a
confederation of Peru and Bolivia in the Battle of Yungay.
(AP, 1/20/98)
1849-1875 Some 100,000 Chinese coolies arrived as
laborers in Peru during this period.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.21)
1862 Peruvian slavers arrived on
Easter Island. Slaves that eventually returned brought smallpox.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.E14)
1867 German businessman named
Augusto R. Berns purchased land across from Machu Picchu, Peru, and an
1887 document showed he set up a company to plunder the site.
(AP, 6/5/08)
1868 Aug 13, A magnitude 9.0 quake
in Arica, Peru (later Chile), generated catastrophic tsunamis; more
than 25,000 people were killed in South America.
(AP, 2/27/10)
1879-1883 In the War of the Pacific, Chile’s army won
the nitrate-rich desert lands from Peru and Bolivia. The war was fought
over the treatment of Chilean investors in the desert territories. The
area remained in contention until a 1929 agreement proposed by Pres.
Herbert Hoover.
(SFC, Z-1, 4/28/96, p.5)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)
1881 Chilean soldiers pillaged
Peru’s national library during the War of the Pacific. In 2007 Chile
returned 3,778 books taken by its soldiers.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A3)
1901-1966 Rafael Larco Hoyle, founder of the Museo
Arqueologico Rafael Larco Herrera in Lima.
(SFC, 5/16/97, p.C5)
1911 Jul 24, Hiram Bingham,
American explorer, was led by local guides to a Lost City of the Incas.
He explored several Inca ruins and the mountaintop citadel of Machu
Pichu. He was in search of the lost city of Vilcabamba, the Inca’s
legendary last refuge from the invading Spaniards. Bingham was an
archeologist from Yale and later served as a Connecticut governor and
US senator. In 1948 Bingham authored “Lost City of the Incas.”
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 543)(SFC, 5/13/98,
p.C4)(www.tambotours.com/binghamtrek.html)(WSJ, 11/1/08, p.W18)
1916 Nov 28, Hiram Bingham,
American explorer, wrote a letter to Gilbert H. Graham, the president
of National Geographic, in which he stated that artifacts from his 3rd
expedition to Peru belonged to the Peruvian government, which expected
their return in 18 months. A dispute over the return of artifacts from
Yale back to Peru continued in 2006.
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A12)
1918 Nov 25, Chile and Peru
severed relations.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1927 Sep 10, Yma Sumac,
[Chavarri], 5 octave soprano (Omar Khayyam), was born in Ichocan, Peru.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1926 The Museo Arqueologico Rafael
Larco Herrera was founded in Lima by archeologist Rafael Larco Hoyle
and named after his father.
(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.16)
1929 Jun 3, Chile, Peru &
Bolivia signed an accord about the Tacna-Arica area. Chile and Peru
accepted a proposal by Pres. Herbert Hoover over the outcome of the
1879-1893 War of the Pacific. Chile would retain Arica and return Tacna
to Peru and grant access to the Arica port as a compromise. The accord
was not implemented until 1999.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)(MC, 6/3/02)
1932 Chile and Peru signed an
extradition treaty.
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.40)
1936 Mar 28, Mario Vargas Llosa,
Peruvian novelist (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the
Andes), was born.
(HN, 3/28/01)
1938 Cesar Vallejo (b.1892),
Peruvian poet, died. His 1918 book "The Black Heralds" was translated
into English in 2003 by Rebecca Seiferle.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M4)
1941 Peru and Ecuador went to war
over a border conflict.
(WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)
1942 Nov 20, Meredith Monk,
choreographer, composer and performing artist, was born in Lima, Peru.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1942 A treaty set the 1,050-mile
border between Peru and Ecuador, but a 49-mile stretch in the
Cordillera del Condor region was not demarcated.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1945 Feb 14, Peru, Paraguay, Chile
and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
(AP, 2/14/98)
1945 Mar 13, Peru declared war on
Germany.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1952 Feb 22, The U.S. signed a
military aid pact with Peru.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1958 May 8, Vice President Nixon
was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in
Lima, Peru. Vice President Richard Nixon’s eight-nation South America
goodwill tour in May 1958 encountered violent demonstrations,
particularly in Peru and Venezuela, spurring President Dwight
Eisenhower to order the movement of U.S. forces into Caribbean bases.
(AP, 5/8/97)(HNQ, 6/14/99)
1958 Arequipa was hit by an
earthquake.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1959 Pres. Manuel Prado confined
Fernando Belaunde (d.2002) to an island prison.
(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A23)
1960 Arequipa, Peru, was hit by
another earthquake. [see Chile, May 22, 1960]
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1962 Jan 10, Eruptions on Mount
Huascaran in Peru destroyed 7 villages and killed 3,500.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1963 Fernando Belaunde (d.2002)
was elected president.
(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A23)
1965 Peru cut a trail through the
jungle to Inapari, its border town across from Assis, Brazil.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.40)
1966 May 25, Peru and Argentina
soccer fans fought in Lima and 248 died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1967 Peru and 3 other countries in
South America banned trade in vicuna, a relative of the llama, after
numbers had severely dwindled. A CITES ban followed in 1975.
(Econ, 3/8/08,
p.86)(www.rumbosonline.com/articles/4-46-vicuna.htm)
1968 Oct 3, In Peru the military
seized power in a coup. Pres. Belaunde was overthrown by Gen. Juan
Velasco.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC,
6/5/02, p.A23)
1968 Oct 9, The new military
government of Peru seized the country's oil fields.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1968-1975 The pro-Soviet Velasco Alvarado regime
ruled Peru. The military government expropriated the sugar estates on
the country’s north coast turning them into government-owned
cooperatives.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.38)
1969 Feb 17, Russia and Peru
signed their first trade accord.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0217.htm)
1969 Jul 24, Petroleos del Peru
(PETROPERU S.A.) was created (law No.17753) as a state-owned entity.
(http://tinyurl.com/554vke)
1969 Peru’s government banned the
trade of vicuna fleece as hunters drove the animals close to extinction.
(WSJ, 2/21/07, p.A14)
1970 May 31, A 7.7 slab earthquake
and debris flow in Peru killed 67,000, injured 50,000 and destroyed
186,000 buildings.
(AP,
5/31/97)(http://landslides.usgs.gov/html_files/landslides/slides/slide5.htm)
1970s Vladimiro Montesinos, an
army captain, was arrested and convicted of selling Peruvian military
secrets to the US. He served a year in prison and then became a drug
lawyer.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.D3)
1971 Dec 24, LANSA Flight 508, a
LANSA Lockheed Electra OB-R-941 commercial airliner, crashed in the
Peruvian rainforest. Juliane Diller Kopcke (17) of Lima, Peru, was the
sole survivor of 92 passengers. She and her mother, famed ornithologist
Maria Kopcke, were traveling to meet with her father, biologist
Hans-Wilhelm Kopcke. Juliane traveled for 9 days in the jungle before
she found help. Her experience became the subject of two films: the
1974 Giuseppe Maria Scotese film Miracoli accadono ancora, I (Miracles
Still Happen), and the 2000 film “Wings of Hope” by Werner Herzog film.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_K%C3%B6pcke)
1972-1981 Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru served as
the Secretary-General of the UN.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
1972-1973 El Nino currents led to the collapse of the
Peruvian anchovy industry.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A7)
1973 Peru outlawed the export of
rain forest birds.
(NG, Jan. 94, p.124)
1974 Pres. Juan Velasco Alvarado
took over the Peruvian press.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 14)
1975 Aug 29, In Peru Gen.
Francisco Belaunde (b.1921) began serving as president. He continued to
July 28, 1980.
(WSJ, 12/27/96,
p.A7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Morales_Berm%C3%BAdez)
1975 Peru’s sugar output peaked at
1 million tons.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.38)
1977 Eva Ayllon made her recording
debut with the Creole group Trio Los Kipus: “Los Kipus y Eva.”
(SFEC, 7/23/00, DB p.39)
1977 The Manu National Park, 4.6
million acres between Cuzco and Madre de Dios provinces, was declared a
biosphere reserve by UNESCO.
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A5)
1978 Jul 3, The Amazon Pact was
established. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru,
Suriname, and Venezuela signed the Amazon Pact, a Brazilian initiative
designed to coordinate the joint development of the Amazon Basin.
(http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Amazon+Pact)
1978 Dec, Nestor Cerpa, union
leader, led 50 workers in the occupation of the Cromotex textile
factory in Lima over low wages and layoffs. They held the plant for
more than 6 weeks before the police stormed it. Six workers and a
police officer were killed.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A10,12)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A8)
1979 Feb 4, Police stormed the
union held Cromotex factory in Lima. Nestor Cerpa was jailed for a year.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A10,12)
1980 May 18, Former president
Fernando Belaunde Terry was elected president of Peru. Democracy was
restored and the media was free again.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A11)(SFC,
6/5/02, p.A23)(SC, 5/18/02)
1980 Jul 28, Fernando Belaunde
Terry (1912-2002) became president of Peru for a 2nd term and held
office to 1985. His first term ran from 1963-1968.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Bela%C3%BAnde_Terry)
1980 The Shining Path rebellion
began at a university in a provincial capital.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.A24)
1980-1990s In 2003 Peruvian investigators
dramatically increased their estimate of the death toll from a
two-decade fight against Shining Path rebels, saying they now believe
between 40,000 and 60,000 people perished or disappeared.
(AP, 6/18/03)
1980-1993 The Peru war unleashed by Sendero, a Maoist
group, left some 30,000 dead.
(Econ, 7/19/03, p.28)
1981 Dec 11, The UN Security
Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth
secretary-general of the world body. He served to 1992.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/11/97)
1981 Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru
wrote a fictional account of the 1893-1897 events at Canudos, Brazil,
in the epic work: “The War of the End of the World.”
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)
1982 Mar 2, In Peru over 50
Shining Path terrorists attack the prison of Ayacucho, releasing drug
traffickers and 54 terrorists held there. The leader of the attack,
Edith Lagos, was killed in the battle.
(www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2246_sendero.html)
1982 The film "Fitzcarraldo"
starred Klaus Kinski and was an Amazonian epic by Werner Herzog. It was
inspired by a would-be rubber baron who hauled a boat over a Peruvian
mountain to harvest a forest of rubber trees because he wanted to build
an opera house in the jungle. In 2009 Herzog authored “conquest of the
Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo.
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2E)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.C3)(Econ,
6/27/09, p.92)
1982-1983 El Nino weather caused about $1 billion in
damage.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A10)
1983 May 28, In Peru 15 peasants
were murdered by soldiers near the village of Totos. A witness pointed
out their graves in 2004.
(AP, 5/29/04)
1983 The Cuban-inspired Tupac
Amuru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) was formed.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A11)
1983 Tupac Amuru rebels stole the
sword from the statue of the a Peruvian national hero.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)
1983 Seven journalists and their
guide were slain in an Andean village.
(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A8)
1984 Dec 13, In Peru 123 people,
including men, women and children from area farming communities, were
slaughtered at Putis, in Ayacucho province. Army soldiers suspected the
farmers supported guerrillas with the Shining Path. According to a
later government-appointed truth commission, the military offered Putis
as a safe haven for people fleeing Shining Path rebels in the region.
Soldiers then tricked villagers into digging their own grave and killed
them on suspicion of ties to the guerrillas. In 2008 a Peruvian
forensics team began excavating a mass grave containing the remains of
123 men, women and children killed by the military at Putis. In 2009
DNA tests identified 28 of 92 bodies, including 15 women and five
children.
(AP, 5/25/08)(AFP, 5/30/08)(AP, 2/26/09)(AP, 8/30/09)
1984 Hernando de Soto presented
the results of his study on Peru’s informal economy. He had mapped the
migration of mountain people to urban Lima, where they squatted on
undeveloped public land and created vibrant informal economies. In 1986
he published his results in the book: ”The Other Path.”
(WSJ, 10/9/00, p.A38)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.11)
1984 The Cuban-inspired Tupac
Amuru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) took up arms.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A1)
1985 Jul 28, In Peru Alan Garcia,
leader of the American People’s Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), assumed
the presidency and led until 1990. Under his rule much of the nation's
external debt was not serviced and the period was marked by 4-digit
inflation, food shortages, int’l. isolation and terrorist attacks.
(WSJ, 10/31/95, p.C-17)(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)(SFC,
1/18/01, p.A14)
1985 Nov, In Peru rebels took over
a Lima newspaper. Nestor Cerpa revealed himself as the leader. As
Comrade Evaristo he had begun a series of attacks, takeovers and
kidnappings.
(SFC, 12/25/96,
p.A12)(www.emergency.com/peruhos3.htm)
1985 In Peru the military was
involved in the massacre of 72 peasants in Accomarca, a village in the
Ayacucho region, where the Shining Path was founded. In 2005 a judge
issued arrest warrants for 29 current and former military officials for
the massacre. In 2008 a US federal judge in Miami ordered former
Peruvian Major Telmo Hurtado to pay $37 million for his role in the
massacre in which 69 civilians were slain.
(AP, 7/6/05)(SFC, 3/6/08, p.A2)
1985 The Ministry of Fisheries
estimated that 9,700 dolphins were killed and sold as “chancho marino”
i.e. sea pig.
(PacDis, Winter/’96, p.36)
1985-1990 The government of Peru was led by Alan
Garcia. Much of the nation's external debt was not serviced. The period
was marked by 4-digit inflation, food shortages, int’l. isolation and
terrorist attacks.
(WSJ, 10/31/95, p.C-17)(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A14)
1986 Hernando de Soto, Peruvian
economist, authored “The Other Path,” in which he called the rise of a
popular capitalism as opposed to the corporate state.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.11)
1986 In Lima, Peru, 150 imprisoned
Shining Path rebels were killed following riots in 3 jails.
(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A8)
1987 Nov 2, During the All Souls
holiday a 20 person raiding party of the Maoist Shining path attacked
the mountain community of Lucanas. They burned down the municipal hall
and several stores and then dragged a local political leader and 7
merchants from their homes and stoned them to death.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.A12)
1988 May 14, Peru’s military was
involved in the massacre of at least 26 peasants in the Andean village
of Cayara. A week later the military executed 3 more peasants, before
systematically killing 8 witnesses. In 2005 a Peruvian judge ordered
the arrest of 118 current and retired military officials for the
slayings.
(AP, 7/6/05)
1988 In Peru Tupac Amaru kidnapped
industrialist Hector Jeri, a 70-year-old former air force general. He
spent 5 months in a cell until released by a payment of more than $1
million.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)
1988 In southern Peru Eduardo and
Mirtha Ananos began making a cola drink. By 2003 their Kola Real was
being marketed in Mexico and Ecuador.
(WSJ, 10/27/03, p.A1)(Econ, 10/11/03, p.69)
1988 In northern Peru a tomb was
looted and its contents put on the black market. A golden head-dress,
the image of a sea god, believed to have been taken from the La Mina
archaeological site in the Jequetepeque valley, was recovered in 2006
by London police from a lawyer’s office.
(AP, 8/17/06)
1989 In Peru squatters occupied a
Lima site known as Puruchuco-Huaquerones. As they built homes they kept
bumping into Inca mummy bundles.
(Arch, 7/02, p.16)
1989 Eduardo Nycander and Kurt
Holle co-founded Rainforests Expeditions in Peru to use tourism to
foster conservation.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.42)
1989 Gene Savoy, explorer,
discovered pottery and monolithic tablets in the cloud forest of
northern Peru that he said showed native contact with ancient cultures
in other parts of the world. The area was the homeland of the
Chachapoya Indian kingdom.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A13)
1990 May 29, Northern Peru was
struck by an earthquake that claimed as many as 200 lives.
(www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/OCHA-64C3R8?OpenDocument)
1990 Jun 10, Alberto Fujimori was
elected president of Peru by a narrow margin over novelist Mario Vargos
Llosa. Peru began to deal with its debt load for the first time since
1983. The principal was 4.4 bil and the back interest was estimated to
be 4-4.3 bil.
(WSJ, 10/31/95, p.C-17)(AP, 6/10/00)
1990 Jul 28, Political newcomer
and upset winner Alberto Fujimori was sworn in as president of Peru.
(AP, 7/28/00)
1990 Vladimiro Montesinos became
the head of the intelligence services.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1990 49 members of the MRTA,
including their leader Victor Polay, escaped from the Canto Grande
prison near Lima.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)
1990 The killing and selling of
dolphins became illegal, and the market went underground.
(PacDis, Winter/’96, p.36)
1990 The MRTA assassinated a
former defense minister.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)
1991 Nov 3, Hooded men with
automatic weapons with silencers burst into the inner patio of a
downtown Lima tenement and killed 15 people at a barbecue, including an
8-year-old boy. The Colina death squad run by Vladimiro Montesinos was
suspected. In 2001 the attorney general asked Congress to pursue
homicide charges against former Pres. Fujimori for the murders. In 2008
two survivors of the attack testified at the murder trial of former
President Alberto Fujimori.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A16)(AP, 1/4/08)
1991 Peruvians desperate for work
rushed into the taxi and bus businesses with little training after Peru
lowered used-vehicle import tariffs to ease a transport shortage.
(AP, 7/16/06)
1991 In Peru there was a cholera
epidemic.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A4)
1992 Apr 5, Pres. Fujimori seized
dictatorial power by sending tanks to shut down Peru's Congress and
judiciary. Former president Alan Garcia fled Peru to avoid arrest by
the Fujimori regime. In 2008 Peru's Cabinet chief testified at the
trial of former President Alberto Fujimori that security forces
attempted to assassinate Garcia following the shut down of Congress.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.D4)(AP, 1/18/08)
1992 Apr 6, In Peru journalist
Gustavo Gorriti was kidnapped hours after Fujimori seized dictatorial
powers, announcing over television that he was closing Congress because
it was sabotaging his war against the rebels. Gorriti was released the
next day after an intense campaign by international journalist
associations and human rights groups for his freedom. Pres. Fujimori
closed Congress and the judiciary and ruled by decree for the rest of
the year.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)(AP, 1/5/08)
1992 Jul 18, In Peru 9 students
and a univ. teacher were killed at La Cantuta Univ. Later retired
Gen’l. Rodolfo Robles charged that an army death squad, the Colina
Group, was responsible. Death squad members were convicted and then
released in a 1995 general amnesty. In 2008 a former general and three
members of a military death squad were found guilty of participating in
the kidnapping and murder.
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A13)(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A14)(SFC,
8/23/01, p.A8)(AP, 4/9/08)
1992 Sep 12, In Peru the Shining
Path guerilla leader Abimael Guzman was captured by police chief Ketin
Vidal with help from a CIA operative nick-named “Superman.” Oscar
Ramirez, aka Feliciano, took over the leadership. Guzman, a former
philosophy professor, was tried by a military court and sentenced to
life in jail. The verdict was overturned in Jan 2003.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.C10)(SFC,
12/8/00, p.A20)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.44)
1992 Victor Polay, chief of the
Tupac Amaru guerrillas was captured with his chief lieutenant Peter
Cardenas.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A17)(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)
1992 In Peru Lt. Col. Ollanta
Humala commanded a jungle counterinsurgency base. In 2006 criminal
complaints accused Humala, a contender in presidential elections, of
forced disappearance, torture and attempted murder during his 1992
command.
(AP, 2/17/06)
1992 Peru’s government sold rights
to the country’s annual vicuna production to Loro Piana, an Italian
textile manufacturer. Piana formed a consortium which agreed to pay
around $400 a kilogram (about 2 pounds) for the vicuna fleece.
(WSJ, 2/21/07, p.A14)
1992 China’s Shougang company
bought an iron ore mine in Peru. This was China’s first investment in
the region.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.20)
1993 Apr, In Peru a younger sister
of Luz Dina Villoslada was raped by the son of a local coffee grower.
Authorities were bribed to drop the investigation. Luz Dina joined the
Tupac Amaru guerrillas in rebellion. She was 20 years old and one of
the 14 rebels slain in the 1997 Lima hostage siege.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A14)
1993 Jul, Top commanders of the
Tupac Amaru guerrilla conceded defeat and surrendered.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A17)
1993 Nov 13, In Peru military
officers attempted another coup against Pres. Fujimori.
(SFC, 9/17/96,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori)
1993 Mario Vargas Llosa published
his book “Death in the Andes” in Peru. The English version was
published in 1996. It is a fictionalized account of some of the worst
atrocities committed by and in reaction to Peru’s Sendero Luminoso
(Shining path) guerrillas.
(WSJ, 2/16/96, p.A-8)
1993 In Peru Magno Sosa wrote “The
Sin of Being a Journalist” after spending 6 months wrongly imprisoned
on terrorism charges after reporting on human rights violations.
(SFEC, 3/3/97, p.A14)
1993 A new constitution was
narrowly approved that allowed Fujimori to seek a 2nd 5-year term. It
prohibited a 3rd term but 3 years later legislation was passed that
excluded Fujimori from the restriction because his term began before
the document was written.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(SFC, 12/28/99, p.B2)
1993 General Rodolfo Robles
accused Vladimiro Montesinos of heading a government backed depth
squad. The investigation was stone-walled by the government-loyal
Congress.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1994 Aug 28, A Drug Enforcement
Administration plane crashed in a remote area of Peru's
cocaine-producing jungle, killing five U.S. agents.
(AP, 8/28/99)
1994 Mario Vargas Llosa published
“A Fish in the Water,” a memoir of his political campaign for the 1999
presidency.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, BR p.4)
1994 Lori Helene Berenson, an
American, arrived in Peru from El Salvador where she had worked as the
personal secretary to Leonel Gonzalez, top commander of the FMLN
guerrillas.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)
1994 Alpacas from Peru began
arriving in the US after barriers with Peru were removed.
(WSJ, 4/5/07, p.A10)
1995 Jan, In Peru Manuel Lopez
Paredes was arrested. Police discovered 3.5 tons of cocaine, valued at
more than $600 million, ready for shipment by the family cartel.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A12)
1995 Apr 9, Alberto Fujimori was
re-elected president of Peru in a landslide victory.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 14)(AP, 4/9/00)
1995 Sep, The 500-year-old body of
a young Inca girl was found frozen near the summit of Mt. Ampato, Peru,
by American archeologist Johan Reinhard. In 2005 Reinhard authored “The
Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and the Sacred Sites in the
Andes.”
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(Arch, 5/05, p.51)
1995 Nov, Lori Helene Berenson, an
American, was arrested on charges of aiding MRTA. She was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison. Also arrested was Nancy Gilvonio, wife of
Nestor Cerpa, a Tupac Amaru rebel.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A8)
1995 A new government austerity
program slowed the growth rate to 3.7%.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-3)
1995 The government began a family
planning program. It promoted birth control as a way to reduce family
size and poverty. It was later cited as taking advantage of poor rural
women to meet quotas in sloppy operations under unsanitary conditions.
At least 2 women were reported to have died and hundreds injured from
the operations.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.A26)
1995 Ecuador engaged in a border
war with Peru. Argentine arms were transported to Ecuador by the US
Fine Air airline owned by Barry and Lary Fine. The Fine brothers were
tried in absentia in Lima in 1997.
(SFC,10/22/97, p.A10)
1995-1998 The central government opened schools in 95
Ayacucho villages and potable water systems in 66 villages. The Shining
Path rebellion had killed some 30,000 people, mostly from Ayacucho
province.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.A24)
1996 Jan 11, Lori Berenson was
sentenced to life in prison. In 2000 a military tribunal overturned the
life sentence and opened the way for a civilian trial.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10) (WSJ, 8/28/00, p.A1)
1996 Jan, Alberto Andrade, a
wealthy leather-goods maker, was elected mayor of Lima (pop. 7.5 mil.).
He moved his family downtown and began efforts to revitalize the city.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.B8)
1996 Feb 29, Mar 2, A Boeing 737
of the Peruvian domestic Fawcett Airlines crashed in the southern Andes
and killed 123 people.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)
1996 May 18, A 40 year agreement
was signed between Royal Dutch/Shell and Perupetro, Peru’s state oil
company. Royal Dutch will spend $2.7 bil to develop a natural gas field.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.D-6)
1996 May, Telefonica del Peru is
the fastest publicly traded telephone company in the world.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-6)
1996 Aug, Demetrio Chavez
Penaherrera, an imprisoned drug lord, told a court that the chief of
intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos, accepted bribes of $50,000 per
month in 1991-1992.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 2, The Aeroperu flight
603, a Boeing 757, crashed shortly after takeoff into the Pacific and
all 61 passengers and nine crew members were killed. The pilot claimed
loss of navigational equipment just before the crash. It was later
reported that a maintenance worker failed to remove tape from sensors
after polishing the aircraft. A judge ordered Aeroperu and the worker
to pay $29 million to families of the 70 dead.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/97)(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1996 Nov 12, A 6.4 earthquake hit
the country centered in the Pacific Ocean about 83 miles west of Nazca,
235 miles southeast of Lima. About 17 people were killed and some 1500
injured in the 7.7 earthquake.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.A10)(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1996 Nov 26, Gen’l Rodolfo Robles
was arrested at the request of the Supreme Military Justice Council for
insubordination. [see 1992]
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 17, In Peru guerrillas
took over a party at the house of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. They
identified themselves as members of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla movement
and demanded the release of imprisoned guerrillas. Nestor Cerpa
Cartolini was later identified as the leader of the 20 or so
guerrillas. Cerpa’s common-law wife, Nancy Gilvonio, was one of the
imprisoned guerrillas whom he demanded be released. Pres. Fujimori’s
brother was one of the hostages. All but 72 hostages were later
released; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that
resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.
(SFC,12/25/96,p.A12)(SFC,1/7/97,p.A10)(SFC,1/17/96,
p.A12)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 20, A handful of rebels
released 38 hostages and some 340 remained captive. The rebels demanded
concessions before any more would be released.
(SFC, 12/21/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 22, Peruvian guerrillas
holding more than 360 hostages at the Japanese ambassador's residence
in Lima released 225 hostages but still held 140 of their captives.
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A7)(AP, 12/22/97)
1996 Dec 24, In Peru the Uruguay
ambassador was released after his country freed 2 rebels jailed there.
Six ambassadors were left among the remaining 105 hostages.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 25, Peruvians held
candles high and prayed outside the Japanese ambassador's residence,
where leftist rebels freed one hostage for health reasons, but
continued to hold more than 100 others.
(AP, 12/25/97)
1996 Dec 27, Pres. Fujimori
declared a 60-day state of emergency.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 28, Leftist rebels in
Peru released 20 more hostages, including two ambassadors, from Japan's
embassy residence, following the first face-to-face talks between
guerrillas and the government's negotiator.
(SFC, 12/29/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/28/97)
1996 Dec 31, Leftist rebels in
Peru released two diplomats, leaving 81 hostages in the besieged
Japanese embassy residence in Lima.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1996 The office of People's
Defender, Defensorio del Pueblo, was created to protect Peruvians from
abuse by public officials. The office was directed by Jorge Santistevan.
(WSJ, 3/9/00, p.A1)
1997 Jan 2, Pres. Fujimori
replaced the president of the Supreme Court and six police generals,
who were among the hostages held by Tupac Amaru rebels. The hostage
count was down to 74.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A16)
1997 Jan 15, In Peru intelligence
officers took Leonor LaRosa, a fellow intelligence agent, into custody
and began torturing her on accusations that she informed newspapers of
military plans to intimidate and assassinate opposition activists and
journalists. La Rosa named 4 intelligence agents as directly
responsible. Ricardo Anderson was named as one of the 4 agents.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A9)(WSJ,
5/30/00, p.A1)
1997 Feb 17, Leonor La Rosa was
taken to a military hospital following her torture and beatings.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Feb 18, At least 33 people
were killed and a hundred were missing after an Andean mountain
collapsed and buried the villages of Choch and Pumaranra near Abancay.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A11)
1997 Mar, Foreign officials and
local journalists confirmed that the police were digging tunnels to the
residence of the Japanese ambassador where hostages were being held by
the Tupac Amaru rebels.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A1)
1997 Mar, In Peru the body of
Mariela Barreto, an intelligence officer, was found with her head and
hands hacked off and her spine snapped in half.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A1)
1997 Apr 6, Leonor LaRosa revealed
her torture and beatings to a television station.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 22, In Peru on day 126 of
the hostage crises government commandos stormed the home of the
Japanese envoy in Lima and freed 71 hostages. Two soldiers, all 14
Tupac Amaru rebels and one hostage, Justice Carlos Giusti, died
in the assault. Later reports indicated that some rebels were killed
while trying to surrender and that their bodies may have been
mutilated. The government planned to bury them in scattered unmarked
graves. In 2002 forensic evidence indicated that 8 of 14 rebels were
shot from behind after they surrendered at the end of the siege. A
prosecutor then filed charges against 18 army officers for executing 3
rebels after they surrendered. On Oct 15, 2003, a secret military court
dismissed charges against 140 commandos accused of summarily executing
three leftist rebels during a 1997 hostage rescue at the Japanese
ambassador's residence.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/97, p.A1,8)(SFC,
4/25/97, p.A12)(AP, 4/22/98)(WSJ, 5/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/7/02,
p.A12)(AP, 11/14/03)
1997 May 5, The 24 miners who dug
tunnels for the Peruvian commandoes had still not returned home and
their families feared for their lives. Two men were killed or injured
in the digging operation.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.A12)
1997 May 22, Security forces
captured the leaders of 2 Maoist Shining Path units after a weeklong
operation.
(WSJ, 5/23/97, pA1)
1997 May 29, The congressional
majority of Pres. Fujimori fired 3 constitutional court judges who had
ruled against his bid for a 3rd consecutive term.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D1)
1997 May, A military court
sentenced 4 army officers to 8 years in prison for the torture of
Leonor LaRosa.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 6, The English
translation of “Making Waves” by Mario Vargas Llosa was reviewed. The
work is a collection of essays that go back to 1962.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, BR p.5)
1997 Jul 17, Thousands of
demonstrators protested against Pres. Fujimore chanting “Down with the
dictatorship.” Three cabinet ministers had also resigned in the last 24
hours.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 17, Pres. Fujimori named
5 new ministers including 2 generals and sparked concern that he was
moving even closer to the armed forces.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 8, In Peru at least 20
bus passengers were killed in a crash in the province of Cuzco. Some 80
people have died in 4 bus crashes in the last week.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 10, A snowstorm trapped
some 40 vehicles on the Andes highway between Abancay and Puquio and
left 6 people dead in their vehicles.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug, Two small planes
collided at the Nazca archeological site and 12 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 29, The government
announced that the practice of trying guerrillas by hooded anonymous
judges would end Oct 15.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Nov 25, President Clinton and
Pacific Rim leaders meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, approved a
rescue strategy for Asian economies shaken by plunging currencies, bank
failures and bankruptcies. The 2-day APEC summit in Vancouver closed
and leaders agreed to an IMF bailout plan. Forum leaders also agreed to
admit Russia, Vietnam and Peru into the organization as of 1998.
(SFC,11/26/97, p.C2)(HN, 11/25/98)
1997 Dec 2, Pres. Fujimori ended
the yearlong ban on visits by the Red Cross to jailed leftist suspects.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.C5)
1997 Dec 12, Archeologists
announced the finding of a 2nd mummy of a young Inca sacrificed over
500 years ago near the summit of Mt. Ampato, not far from Peru’s 2nd
city Arequipa.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)
1997 Dec 26, Police reported that
a Peruvian family hacked 2 Japanese students to death. The students had
rowed on the Amazon for hundreds of miles with plans to reach Manaus.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A13)
1997 Jolanda and Titus from the
Netherlands began adopting street children in Cuzco, Peru. They soon
opened a hotel to provide financial support and soon expanded
operations into a collective known as the Ninos Projects. By 2003 some
250 children were involved. www.ninoshotel.com.
(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.C8)
1997 A study by the Peruvian
government found that the country’s glaciers had shrunk by 22% over the
last 30 years. In the Carabaya range they had receded by 32%.
(WSJ, 6/17/05, p.A1)(Econ, 7/14/07, p.42)
1998 Jan 19, Peru and Ecuador
signed an accord pledging to settle their longtime 49-mile border
conflict by May.
(WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 29, A mudslide in Choco
killed at least 31 people. Floods and mudslides have killed over 100
and left 25,000 homeless in the last few months.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 6, Peru’s Pres. Fujimori
took personal control in Piura to shore up the waters of the Ica River
which burst its banks. Recent weather related deaths had reached 150.
Mudslide damaged parts of the famous Nazca Lines.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A10)(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 10, The Supreme Court
ruled that Pres. Fujimori would be allowed to run for re-election to a
3rd tem in 2000 if he wants to.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)
1998 Feb 25, It was reported that
the country was abandoning its campaign of sterilizing women.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 29, In Peru an air force
plane evacuating people stranded by flooding crashed in Piura.
Twenty-two people were killed when a Russian-made Antonov military
plane crashed into a Peruvian shantytown outside the northern city of
Piura.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)(AP, 3/29/99)
1998 Apr 24, Pres. Fujimori
announced that police captured 3 top guerrilla leaders of the Shining
Path.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A9)
1998 May 6, A Boeing 737,
chartered by Occidental Petroleum from the Peruvian air force, crashed
in the Amazon jungle. At least 13 of 87 people survived the crash.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A1)
1998 May, The novel “The Notebooks
of Don Rigoberto” by Mario Vargas Llosa was translated into English by
Edith Grossman. His earlier novels included “Aunt Julia and the
Scriptwriter,” “The War of the End of the World,” and “the Storyteller.”
(SFEC, 5/24/98, BR p.4)
1998 Jun 8, Maria Reiche, a German
mathematician, died in Lima at age 95. She had spent over 50 years
protecting the ancient Nazca Lines using money from the sale of a book
about the drawings.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A24)
1998 Aug 21, It was reported that
a comprehensive treaty between Ecuador and Peru had been drafted and
only required political will to end the 57-year-old conflict. The
military in Ecuador held 23 large companies in areas such as auto
assembly, shrimping, mining, oil and hotels.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A15)
1998 cSep 15, Archeologist found 6
frozen mummies sacrificed to Inca gods over 500 years ago near the
crater of the 19,100 foot El Misti volcano, 465 miles southeast of Lima.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.C1)
1998 Sep 30, Some 5,000 workers
marched in Lima to protest a congressional vote that quashed calls for
a referendum over whether Pres. Fujimori could run for re-election. 300
workers stormed the parade ground of the presidential palace.
(SFC, 10/1/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 16, Lawmakers in Ecuador
and Peru agreed to let their border dispute be resolved by the US,
Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 23, Peru and Ecuador
settled their border dispute with a line along the Cordellera de Condor
mountain range. Contiguous national parks were to be created in the
disputed area. Tiwintza Hill, allocated to Peru, was to be granted as
private property to Ecuador.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 26, Ecuador and Peru
signed a peace treaty in Brazil and settled their land dispute. The
agreement defined a 49-mile border left undrawn in a 1942 treaty.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.B5)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)
1998 Dec 25, In Lima, Peru, a tear
gas bomb caused a stampede in a disco and 9 young people, 13-21, were
crushed to death. The bomb was said to have been thrown by members of a
youth gang.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A14)
1998 Jordan received ok from the
American CIA to sell 50,000 surplus AK-47 assault rifles to Peru. Many
of the rifles went to leftist guerrillas in Colombia and Vladimiro
Montesinos, Peru’s spy chief, was implicated.
(SFC, 11/6/00, p.A12)
1999 Jan 3, Pres. Fujimori named
Joy Way, head of Congress, as prime minister.
(WSJ, 1/4/98, p.A1)
1999 Apr 28, In Peru labor unions
staged a nation-wide strike to protest stagnant living standards.
(WSJ, 4/29/99, p.A1)
1999 May 13, Ecuador and Peru
signed a treaty settling their 50-year border dispute over a 50 mile
stretch in the Amazon jungle.
(WSJ, 5/14/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 3, In Peru rebels of the
Maoist Shining Path killed 9 people in 2 incidents in the highlands.
(SFC, 6/5/99, p.A12)
1999 Jun 15, In Peru Maoist
Shining Path rebels killed 8 people in a remote village in the center
of the country.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.B2)
1999 Jul 13, Oscar Ramirez (46),
aka Feliciano and head of the Shinning Path, was surrounded by the
military.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.C10)
1999 Jul 14, In Peru army soldiers
captured Oscar Ramirez Durand (46), aka Comrad Feliciano, head of the
Shining Path rebels. He was later sentenced by a military tribunal to
life in prison.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/18/99, p.C2)(SFC,
8/31/99, p.A13)
1999 Aug 17, Officials reported
that Carlos Audel Nunez, a Shining Path rebel leader aka "Comrade
Manuel," was killed along with his wife in a clash with military forces.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.C2)
1999 Oct 2, Two rebels died from
gunfire with soldiers near Satipo.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 3, In Peru 9 soldiers
were killed in a weekend clash with some 60 Maoist guerrillas in the
central jungle.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)
1999 Oct 22, In Peru 28 school
children died near Cuzco after a breakfast of cereal that doctors
suspect was prepared in a vat once used to mix pesticides.
(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 4, It was reported that a
coca plant fungus was sweeping the area of the Huallaga Valley, and
some observers blamed US anti-drug programs.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A14)
1999 cNov 12, At least 46 people
were buried alive in a mudslide in Tacabamba.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.D8)
1999 Nov 13, Peru and Chile signed
an agreement to end a 120-year territorial dispute. Peru was granted
the exclusive use of a pier in the Chilean port of Arica.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)
1999 Dec 27, Pres. Fujimori
announced his candidacy for a 3rd term as president.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.B2)
1999 The TV talk show "Laura en
America" ran an episode, Anything for Money, that featured humiliating
acts by low paid poor people before a live audience. The popular show
was hosted by lawyer Laura Bozzo, aka Dr. Laura.
(SFC, 3/15/00, p.D5)
1999 American explorer Gene Savoy
discovered a pre-Incan metropolis in Peru, naming it Gran Saposoa, and
concluded it was one of the cities of the Chachapoyas kingdom.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2000 Jan 10, In Peru a passenger
bus plunged into the Mantaro River 90 miles northeast of Lima and at
least 27 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/11/00, p.A11)
2000 Feb 1, In Peru Shining Path
rebels killed 3 park rangers in a reserve for vicuna.
(SFC, 2/3/00, p.A13)
2000 Feb 6, In Peru riots began in
the Yanamayo prison by Shining Path rebels loyal to Oscar Ramirez
Durand. One guard and one rebel were killed and rebels held a number of
guards as hostages.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 5, In Peru Alejandro
Toledo (54), the “Cholo,” rose dramatically in the polls as opposition
candidate to Pres. Alberto Fujimori, the “Chino.” Toledo represented
the Peru Possible Party.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 9, Pres. Fujimori led
Alejandro Toledo with 48% of the vote and a runoff was planned.
(SFC, 4/10/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 11, In Peru the vote
count reached 49.79% for Pres. Fujimori and tensions mounted under
suspected irregularities.
(WSJ, 4/12/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 12, In Peru officials
announced that a runoff election would be held between Pres. Fujimori
and Alejandro Toledo.
(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A14)
2000 May 22, In Peru election
observers suspended monitoring preparations for elections. Alejandro
Toledo formally pulled out of the race after his demand for an election
postponement was rebuffed.
(WSJ, 5/23/00, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/00, p.A12)
2000 May 28, In Peru Pres.
Fujimori claimed victory with 50.8% of the vote in elections tainted by
alleged fraud and irregularities.
(SFC, 5/29/00, p.A1)
2000 May 29, The US State Dept.
called the vote in Peru invalid.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 2, In Peru a truck
leaving the Yanacocha gold mine leaked 330 pounds of liquid mercury.
Local residents soon suffered mercury poisoning. A legal suit against
Denver-based Newmont Mining moved forward in 2005.
(SFC, 3/14/05, p.A1)
2000 Jun 29, The OAS said it would
set up a permanent office in Lima to oversee democratic reforms.
(SFC, 6/30/00, p.A18)
2000 Jul 28, Violent
protests took place as Pres. Fujimori was sworn in for his 3rd
term and 5 people were killed in fires set by vandals.
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 14, In Peru a video was
broadcast that showed Vladimiro Montesinos, the country’s chief spy,
bribing congressman Alberto Kouri to support Pres. Fujimori. The heads
of Peru’s 14 military divisions were all from the military-school class
of Montesinos. The annual military budget was $1.5 billion. There were
allegations that Montesinos was involved in the sale of AK47 assault
rifles to rebels in Colombia. In 2009 Fujimori acknowledged that soon
after the video emerged he paid Montesinos $15 million in state money
to quit.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/20/00, p.A23)(SFC,
9/22/00, p.D3)(AP, 7/13/09)
2000 Sep 16, Pres. Fujimori,
engulfed in a bribery scandal, announced that he would call an
immediate general election and not seek office. He also decided to
deactivate the National Intelligence Service.
(SFEC, 9/17/00, p.A11)
2000 Sep 24, Vladimiro Montesinos,
Peru’s ousted spy chief, fled to Panama.
(SFC, 9/25/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 28, Pres. Fujimori flew
to Washington to meet with OAS officials as rumors of a coup swirled.
(WSJ, 9/29/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 6, In Peru a 5,000 barrel
oil spill by an Argentine company threatened the water resources of
some 10,000 inhabitants in the northern jungle.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.A24)
2000 Oct 11, A law was published
that called for the disbanding of the 5,000 person National
Intelligence Service within 15 days.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 23, In Peru Vladimiro
Montesinos, the former intelligence chief, landed in Pisco as police
and protesters clashed in Lima.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A14)
2000 Oct 25, Pres. Fujimori
ordered the arrest of Vladimiro Montesinos.
(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 29, Lt. Col. Ollanta
Humala led some 51 soldiers in a revolt against pres. Fujimori in
Toquepala. They kidnapped Gen. Oscar Bardales. In 2006 former spy chief
Vladimiro Montesinos called Humala's uprising a "farce, an operation of
deception and manipulation" designed to "facilitate my exit from the
country on the sailboat Karisma."
(SFC, 10/30/00, p.A10)(AP, 5/20/06)
2000 Oct 30, A revolt of renegade
troops drew to a close as most of those involved were rounded up. Lt.
Col Humala and 7 soldiers remained at large.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A13)
2000 Nov 3, Swiss authorities
froze about $50 million in bank accounts tied to Vladimiro Montesinos,
the ex-spy chief of Peru.
(SFC, 11/4/00, p.A13)
2000 Nov 13, Lawmakers ousted
Martha Hildebrandt, a supporter of Pres. Fujimori, from her post as
president of Congress.
(SFC, 11/14/00, p.A17)
2000 Nov 16, Valentin Paniagua was
elected Congress president over Ricardo Marcenaro, a Fujimori loyalist,
64-51.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.D2)
2000 Nov 17, A government report
acknowledged that over 4,000 people disappeared between 1980 and 1996
on suspicion of being leftist guerrillas.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.A16)
2000 Nov 19, In Tokyo Pres.
Fujimori said he would resign within 48 hours.
(SFC, 11/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 20, Pres. Fujimori
announced his resignation from Tokyo. Acting president Ricardo Marquez
also stepped down.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Nov 21, The legislature
refused to accept the resignation of Pres. Fujimori and ousted him for
moral incapacity.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.A18)
2000 Nov 22, Valentin Paniagua was
sworn in as the interim president. He selected Javier Perez de Cuellar,
the former UN Sec. General, as prime minister.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.A22)
2000 Nov 25, Walter Ledesma, the
new defense minister, announced the immediate dismissal of 12 generals.
(SSFC, 11/26/00, p.D9)
2000 Dec 16, It was reported that
the source of the Amazon had been located at the Carhuasanta Creek on
the 18,363-foot peak of Nevado Mismi in southern Peru.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A22)
2000 Dec 28, Congress voted to
overhaul the election system.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.B5)
2000 Hernando de Soto, Peruvian
economist, authored “The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in
the West and Fails Everywhere Else,” in which he argued that because
the poor lacked title to their assets, they could not take advantage of
them and were stuck with “dead capital.”
(http://tinyurl.com/3xxehl)(www.cato.org/special/friedman/desoto/index.html)(Econ,
8/26/06, p.62)
2000 Arequipa, “the white city,”
was inscribed as a World Heritage site by UNESCO.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
2001 Jan 18, The Supreme Court
lifted arrest warrants against former president Alan Garcia. Garcia
planned to return Jan 27 in a fresh bid for the presidency with the
APRA party.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.D4)
2001 Mar 13, A Peruvian MiG-29
crashed on a test flight made as part of an inquiry into the 1990s
purchase of Russian jets. Montesinos was suspected to have skimmed $48
million in the deal.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A1)
2001 Apr 8, Alejandro Toledo (55)
led the presidential elections with 36% of the vote. A May 20 runoff
was planned with Alan Garcia who received 25.7%.
(SFC, 4/9/01, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 20, A Peruvian air force
jet shot down a Cessna 185 carrying US missionaries. Veronica Bowers
(35) and her infant daughter were killed when the plane crash landed in
the Amazon River. The plane was identified by a US surveillance plane
and was believed to be trafficking in narcotics.
(SFC, 4/21/01, p.A12)(SFC, 4/22/01, p.D1)
2001 Jun 3, In Peru Alejandro
Toledo won the presidency over ex-president Alan Garcia.
(SFC, 6/4/01, p.A1)(AP, 6/3/02)
2001 Jun 20, American Lori
Berenson (31) was convicted by a civilian court of collaborating with
rebels and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She already had served 5
years. The conviction was upheld Feb 18, 2002.
(WSJ, 6/21/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/21/01, p.A10)(SFC,
2/19/02, p.A7)
2001 Jun 23, In southern Peru a
7.9 earthquake killed at 55 people. 12,500 people lost their homes.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)
2001 Jun 23, Vladimiro Montesinos,
Peru’s former spy chief, was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela. Pres.
Chavez pledged to return him to Peru.
(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/25/01, p.A16)
2001 Jun 25, The June 23 Peru
earthquake was revised to 8.1 magnitude with the death toll at 102.
(WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/27/01, p.D3)
2001 Jun 25, Vladimiro Montesinos,
the former Peruvian spy chief, was flown from Venezuela to Lima.
(SFC, 6/26/01, p.A8)
2001 Jul 5, A 5.1 earthquake
struck near Caraveli.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.D6)
2001 Jul 28, Pres. Toledo was
inaugurated as the nation’s 1st president of Indian descent. He
promised a government at the service of its people.
(SSFC, 7/29/01, p.A14)
2001 Aug 7, A gunfight between
police and leftist rebels in the province of Satipo left 12 rebels and
4 police officers dead.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 14, Pres. Toledo
dismissed military commanders and put in his own men.
(WSJ, 8/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 27, Peru's Congress voted
to lift the constitutional immunity of former President Alberto
Fujimori, so that prosecutors could charge him with crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 8/27/02)
2001 Sep 5, The attorney general
filed homicide charges against former Pres. Fujimori linking him to 2
massacres by the Colina group in the early 1990s.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 13, Peru issued an int’l.
arrest warrant for former Pres. Alberto Fujimori on charges that he
shared responsibility for 25 death-squad slayings in the early years of
his rule.
(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A32)
2001 Oct 31, Congress unanimously
approved embezzlement charges against former Pres. Fujimori.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Dec 29, A fireworks shop
exploded and caused a fire in downtown Lima that spread over 4 downtown
blocks. At least 290 people were killed.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A12)(SFC, 12/31/01, p.A3)(WSJ,
1/2/02, p.A1)
2001 Peru moved to create
autonomous regional governments and to give them more revenues. Mayor
Wenceslao Alderete of Huayre, hoping to attract tourists, spent
$158,000 to create an erotic sculpture park in the central plaza. In
2006 the town still lacked paved streets and a sewage system.
(SFC, 11/23/06, p.A33)
2002 Jan 17, In Peru some 200
Aguaruna Indians attacked settlers near the Ecuador border and killed
14 people. Landless peasants had begun settling the area in 1989.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A4)
2002 Feb 12, John Hamilton, US
ambassador to Peru, said the US would triple anti-drug funding to over
$150 million.
(SFC, 2/13/02, p.A16)
2002 Feb 19, Peru's justice
minister ruled out a presidential pardon for Lori Berenson after the
Supreme Court confirmed the American woman's 20-year sentence for
aiding leftist rebels.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2002 Mar 20, In Lima a car bomb
explosion outside the US Embassy killed 9 people. Pres. Bush was
scheduled to arrive 3 days later.
(SFC, 3/21/02, p.A8)(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A13)
2002 Mar 23, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Toledo in Lima and called for a “war without quarter” against
terrorism and drug trafficking in the region. 18 demonstrators were
arrested.
(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.A17)
2002 Apr 17, A huge Inca cemetery,
active from 1480-1533, with some 2,200 mummies was reported to have
been found under Puruchuco-Huaquerones, a Lima shantytown.
(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A4)
2002 Apr 19, In Peru a prep school
collapsed in Puno and at least 13 people were killed.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A17)
2002 Jun 4, Fernando Belaunde
(89), former 2 time president (1963-1968, 1980-1985), died.
(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A23)
2002 Jun 17, In Peru police
deployed armored vehicles and squads armed with automatic rifles in the
capital to prevent the spread of unrest tied to the Friday sale of
state-run companies.
(AP, 6/17/02)
2002 Jun 19, In Peru government
officials said they would suspend the sale of two state-owned
electricity companies following 6 days of violent protests.
(AP, 6/19/02)
2002 Jun 25, Three American
mountain climbers were swept away by an avalanche on Peru's highest
peak and are feared dead.
(AP, 6/25/02)
2002 Jul 3, Peru temporarily
suspended programs to eradicate coca fields and encourage farmers to
grow alternative crops, moves that jeopardize U.S.-backed efforts to
fight the cocaine trade.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 11, Peru's prime minister
and finance minister said they resigned Thursday as part of a Cabinet
shake-up designed to stem the plummeting popularity of President
Alejandro Toledo's year-old government.
(AP, 7/11/02)
2002 Jul 13, President
Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency Saturday in southeast
Peru, where snow and freezing weather has killed at least 18 people in
less than two weeks.
(AP, 7/13/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Lima, Peru, 29
people, a lion and a tiger that were part of the show, died in a blaze
started by bartenders who were doing tricks with fire at Utopia, an
unlicensed night club.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2002 Jul 26, In Peru 2 buses
collided on a slick highway on the coast and another bus slammed into
them, killing at least 12 people and injuring 37.
(AP, 7/26/02)
2002 Aug 12, In Peru Pres.
Alejandro Toledo defended his wife, Eliane Karp, in a nationally
televised address, trying to head off a political storm sparked by the
revelation that Peru's first lady earns $10,000 a month as a banking
consultant.
(AP, 8/13/02)
2002 Aug 15, Peru's first lady,
Eliane Karp, resigned from a $10,000-a-month consulting job with a
Peruvian bank after the revelation of the contract raised suspicions of
influence peddling.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2002 Aug 20, The Swiss government
returned to Peru about $77.5 million linked to former Peruvian spy
chief Vladimiro Montesinos, saying the money came from corrupt arms
deals. The money includes assets of Gen. Nicolas de Bari Hermoza Rios,
Peru's former armed forces chief, who also faces corruption charges.
$33 million linked to Montesinos remained blocked in Swiss banks.
(AP, 8/21/02)
2002 Aug 22, In Peru officials
reported that police had destroyed 57 crude drug laboratories in the
Peruvian jungle and burned 38 tons of coca leaf.
(AP, 8/22/02)
2002 Sep 13, Peru’s Pres.
Alejandro Toledo signed a $50 million loan agreement with World Bank to
provide fresh water and sanitation facilities to more than a million
people in rural areas of Peru.
(AP, 9/13/02)
2002 Nov 17, Voters in Peru backed
opposition candidates in first-ever regional elections intended to
shift power from the capital to the provinces.
(AP, 11/18/02)
2002 In Peru Huberth and Gerson
Jara founded their nonfiction magazine Etiqueta Negra.
(SFC, 3/21/06, p.E1)(www.etiquetanegra.com.pe)
2003 Jan 3, A Peruvian court
struck down anti-terror laws that had been used to quash rebel
movements in the 1990s.
(AP, 1/3/03)
2003 Jan 9, A Peruvian airliner
carrying 46 people, including eight children, disappeared amid
cloud-covered mountains in the Amazon jungle. On Jan 11 rescue workers
found the wreckage of TANS Airlines Flight 222, a Fokker 28 near the
jungle town of Chachapoyas. There were no survivors.
(AP, 1/9/03)(AP, 1/11/03)
2003 Jan 14, In northern Peru a
clash between sugar plantation workers and squatters trying to move
onto unplanted land left at least 9 people dead and 14 injured.
(AP, 1/15/03)
2003 Jan 23, In northern Peru an
explosion leveled an ammunition depot at a military base, killing seven
people and injured 95.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2003 Feb 3, The Peace Corps
resumed work in Peru, nearly three decades after a leftist military
government ended the American volunteer program there.
(AP, 2/3/03)
2003 Feb 20, Peru replaced
harsh anti-terrorism laws put in place by former Pres. Alberto
Fujimori, and will review the sentences of at least 1,800 people.
(AP, 2/21/03)
2003 Feb 21, In Peru police
arrested a prominent coca farming leader as protests in rural Peru
against the eradication of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, moved
into their 4th day.
(AP, 2/21/03)
2003 Mar 8, The presidents
of Peru and Ecuador inaugurated a bridge connecting the two nations.
The $1.8-million bridge spans the Canchis River near the Peruvian town
of Namballe, 500 miles northeast of Lima.
(AP, 3/9/03)
2003 Mar 8, Interpol
reissued an international arrest warrant charging former Peru President
Alberto Fujimori with murder after receiving additional information
from the government.
(AP, 3/8/03)
2003 Apr 3, Peru’s Congress voted
to create a Senate and return to a bicameral legislature, a decade
after former Pres. Fujimori shut down the two houses in his so-called
self coup.
(AP, 4/3/03)
2003 May 24, In Peru 19 Latin
American leaders ended the 17th summit of the Group of Rio nations by
promising to curb corruption and poverty, which they said undermine
democratic rule in the region as does terrorism.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2003 May 27, In Peru Pres.
Alejandro Toledo declared a 30-day state of emergency and authorized
the military to clear strikers from Peru's major highways.
(AP, 5/28/03)
2003 Jun 3, In Peru thousands of
trade unionists and striking teachers marched through downtown Lima in
defiance of a state of emergency that put the armed forces in charge of
maintaining order.
(AP, 6/3/03)
2003 Jun 4, The Peruvian
government failed to meet wage demands by striking teachers, who vowed
to extend a 24-day walkout that triggered nationwide protests and
prompted President Alejandro Toledo to declare a state of emergency.
(AP, 6/5/03)
2003 Jun 12, In Peru teachers went
back to work after a monthlong strike that grew to include protests by
farmers and government workers and led President Alejandro Toledo to
impose emergency measures.
(AP, 6/12/03)
2003 Jun 17, Peruvian
investigators dramatically increased their estimate of the death toll
from a two-decade fight against Shining Path rebels, saying they now
believe between 40,000 and 60,000 people perished or disappeared from
1980-1990s.
(AP, 6/18/03)
2003 Jun 30, Beatriz Merino (55),
Peru's first female PM debuted, pledging to bring discipline and
austerity to the beleaguered government amid hopes her appointment will
help salvage Alejandro Toledo's presidency.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Peru 8 mountain
climbers were missing after an avalanche on Alpamayo mountain. Four
Germans, two Israelis, one Venezuelan and one Peruvian were believed to
have been buried,
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 23, In Peru 5 masked
gunmen attacked a Canadian mining camp in the Andes, killing a Peruvian
geologist, wounding another and stealing equipment.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Aug 25, Brazil's Pres. Lula
da Silva and Peru's Pres. Toledo signed a free-trade agreement between
Peru and Mercosur. Peru planned to join as an associate member.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.25)
2003 Aug 28, Peru’s Truth and
Reconciliation Commission published a report on the violence unleashed
by the Shining Path guerrillas, which included 69,280 deaths from
1980-2000. It identified 150 people it said should be prosecuted.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.33)
2003 Sep 17, The imprisoned leader
of a Peruvian rebel group said his group has given up armed conflict
and now wants to become a political movement. Victor Polay, in a
published interview, acknowledged that the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement has been defeated.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Oct 10, In Peru a passenger
bus plunged off a 1,000-foot cliff in the Andes mountains, killing at
least 30 people and wounding 17.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Nov 21, Peru's Pres. Toledo
apologized for the 70,000 deaths from the country's 20-year battle with
the Shining Path insurgency, and promised to punish officers that a
scathing report blamed for many of the worst abuses.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 27, In Peru police
clashed with highland peasants blocking an Andean highway to protest
against mining pollution, leaving 2 demonstrators dead and over 20
people injured.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov, In Peru Lee Heifetz,
daughter of Israeli Ambassador Zvi Heifetz, was arrested after she
tried to board a flight to Holland with 10 pounds of cocaine. She was
sentenced to six years and eight months.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2003 Dec 13, Pres. Alejandro
Toledo demanded the resignation of Peru's first-ever female PM and her
15-minister Cabinet in the wake of rumors about her personal life. A
political rival was spreading rumors that she is a lesbian.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 15, In Peru Pres.
Alejandro Toledo, with his popularity dropping, swore in a new Cabinet
chief and several ministers. Toledo named congressman Carlos Ferrero to
replace Prime Minister Beatriz Merino.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Sally Bowen, a 15-year Lima
resident, and Jane Holligan co-authored "The Imperfect Spy: The Many
Lives of Vladimiro Montesinos," about Peru's now-imprisoned former
intelligence chief. The book cited an imprisoned drug runner, a former
informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, as saying that
Fernando Zevallos, founder of Aero Continente airlines, was a leading
Peruvian drug trafficker. In 2004 Zevallos filed a civil suit against
Bowen, Holligan and the publisher.
(AP, 5/22/04)
2004 Jan 12, The United States
announced plans to return to Peru $20 million stolen by a corrupt
government official and stashed in U.S. bank accounts. In December,
Peru accused Victor Venero Garrido of hiding the money in U.S. accounts
under the guidance of Vladimiro Montesinos.
(AP, 1/12/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Peru VP Raul Diez
Canseco resigned amid allegations that he gave a tax break to his
girlfriend's father, a scandal that had forced him to step down as
trade minister two months earlier.
(AP, 1/31/04)
2004 Feb 15, In Peru the
government of embattled President Alejandro Toledo appointed a new
lineup of Cabinet ministers as he tries to survive a deepening
political crisis. It was Toledo's fifth shake-up in 30 months.
(AP, 2/16/04)
2004 Feb 25, In Peru meat and
produce markets in Lima received smaller shipments during the second
day of a strike by cargo truck and passenger bus companies.
(AP, 2/25/04)
2004 Feb 25, The head of Doe Run
Peru, a US-owned smelter in Oroyo, Peru, admitted that lead poisoning
of children by the facility's emissions was a serious problem, but said
his company would not be able to significantly reduce the contamination
until 2011.
(AP, 2/25/04)(www.doerun.com/)
2004 Feb 28, It was reported that
75% of the traffic cops in Lima, Peru, are female. They were seen as
less corrupt than their male colleagues.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.37)
2004 Feb, Amadeus Corp. of Peru
launched a new soft drink called Vortex, made with coca extract. The
cocaine alkaloid was removed but export was still banned.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.36)
2004 Mar, In Peru Miguel Toledo, a
nephew of Pres. Toledo, and three other men luring a 22-year-old woman
to a restaurant to discuss a job offer. Instead, they allegedly drugged
her and took her to a hotel where she was raped. Miguel Toledo fled his
Nov, 2005, rape trial, but was arrested in 2006 and given a 4-year
suspended sentence and a fine of $2,500.
(AP, 2/20/06)(AP, 2/22/06)
2004 Apr 10, In southern Peru
heavy rains triggered mudslides near the famed Inca citadel of Machu
Picchu, killing at least six people. Five others were missing and
feared dead.
(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Apr 14, Peru's Congress
approved murder charges against ex-President Alberto Fujimori for
allegedly authorizing the death squad killing of a union leader over a
decade ago.
(AP, 4/15/04)
2004 Apr 22, U.S. authorities
prohibited Peru's largest airline, Aero Continente, from flying to the
United States because of safety concerns.
(AP, 4/23/04)
2004 Apr 26, In Peru angry
highland Indians beat their town's mayor to death after he refused to
resign in the face of protests, then the mob attacked the Llave police
station, trapping dozens of officers.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, Peruvian police
retook control of an Andean town, a day after highland Indians beat to
death the mayor, accusing him of corruption.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 29, In Peru 800 people in
a village near Lake Titicaca took five aldermen hostage Thursday after
their mayor fled in fear of his life.
(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 May 14, It was reported that
drought in Peru had forced water restrictions in Lima.
(ST, 5/14/04, p.A3)
2004 May 18, Colombia, Ecuador and
Peru opened negotiations in Cartagena for a free trade accord with the
United States as anti-riot police clashed with protesters who say the
pact would lead to job losses in the South American nations.
(AP, 5/18/04)
2004 Jun 17, In Peru the
400-year-old Lima Roman Catholic cathedral celebrated its restoration,
a project that began in 1997. A new museum in a converted sacristy
displays a nine-painting series depicting Santa Rosa de Lima's road to
canonization in the 1600s as the first saint of the New World.
(AP, 6/18/04)
2004 Jul 1, In Ayacucho, Peru,
hundreds of striking teachers burned buildings and looted bank teller
machines during clashes with riot police that injured 34 people and led
to 15 arrests.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 9, In Peru 2 passenger
buses collided head-on on a coastal highway, killing at least 36 people
and injuring two dozen.
(AP, 7/9/04)
2004 Jul 12, Winter storms have
violently struck several South American countries in recent days,
leading to eight weather-related deaths in Argentina and Chile. Some
75,000 farm animals died in Peru and record below freezing temperatures
in southern Brazil.
(AP, 7/12/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.C8)
2004 Jul 16, Peru’s National
Agrarian Research Institute launched a new super-cuy (guinea pig),
weighing up to 10 pounds, to help improve the Peruvian diet.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.37)
2004 Jul 28, Peru’s President
Alejandro Toledo, facing allegations of corruption, invited government
auditors to review all of his bank accounts.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Aug 1, In Peru a bus plunged
off a cliff in the Andes Mountains, killing at least 34 passengers and
injuring 21.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 6, U.S. officials
returned $20 million in embezzled Peruvian government funds that had
been deposited in American banks under the direction of fallen spy
chief Vladimiro Montesinos.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2004 Aug 12, In Peru a
double-decker tourist bus missed a bridge and plunged into a dry
riverbed along a highway, killing at least six people and injuring 37.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug, Brazil and Peru
inaugurated the construction of a $7 million bridge between Assis,
Brazil, and Inapari, Peru. It was part of a 2,500 mile Transoceanic
Highway program.
(SFC, 11/5/04, p.W1)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.40)
2004 Oct 6, In Peru villagers in
the country's remote Lake Titicaca region doused Alejandro Noalca
Mamani (54), an accused thief, with gasoline and setting him ablaze.
State-run television station broadcast images the next day.
(AP, 10/8/04)
2004 Oct 19, In Peru police fired
on coca growers protesting government eradication of their cocaine
producing crop, killing two of the farmers after they attacked a police
station near the southern border.
(AP, 10/19/04)
2004 Oct 29, In Peru a passenger
bus plunged more than 650 feet off an isolated mountain highway in the
Andes, killing at least 28 people and injuring 28 others.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Nov 15, In Peru the first
public trial of Shining Path rebel leader Abimael Guzman fell apart as
the 2nd of the 3 presiding judges stepped down citing a conflict of
interest.
(AP, 11/16/04)
2004 Dec 4, Miss Peru, Maria Julia
Mantilla Garcia, an aspiring high school teacher, was crowned Miss
World 2004 In Southern China.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 8, Presidents and
high-ranking officials from 12 South American countries gathered at the
ancient Inca capital of Cuzco, Peru, to create a political and economic
bloc. They hoped to establish a 12-nation South American Community of
Nations.
(AP, 12/8/04)(Econ, 12/11/04, p.36)
2004 Dec 19, A driver lost control
of a bus in a heavy rainstorm in Peru's mountains and the vehicle
plunged 165 feet into a river, killing 49 people on board and injuring
15.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2004 In 2005 the UN office on
drugs and Crime said Peru’s coca production in 2004 surged 23% to 190
metric tons.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A16)
2004 Peru’s northern Yanacocha
gold mine extracted 3 million ounces. The mine was run by Newmont in
partnership with Peru’s Buenaventura. The mining sparked political
unrest due to ecological and social issues.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.33)
2005 Jan 1, In southern Peru
Antauro Humala, retired army major, led a nationalist group that seized
a police station ambushed a police vehicle responding to the scene,
killing four officers and wounding several more.
(AP, 1/2/05)(Econ, 1/8/05, p.38)
2005 Jan 4, In Peru the leader of
an armed nationalist group that seized a remote police station, took 10
officers hostage and allegedly killed four others was detained while
most of his 125 followers were rounded up.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Feb 8, A confrontation
between rival gangs in an overcrowded Peruvian prison left five inmates
dead and at least 18 others wounded.
(AP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 10, In Peru President
Alejandro Toledo said the government is considering subsidizing some of
this Andean nation's poorest people with direct monthly cash payments.
(AP, 2/10/05)
2005 Feb 20, In Peru Maoist
Shining Path insurgents ambushed and killed three policemen in Huallaga
Valley, a remote jungle area known for guerrilla activity.
(AP, 2/22/05)
2005 Apr 15, Police in Peru seized
more than a ton of cocaine destined for the US as it was being packed
into a shipment of canned fish at the Colra Fish Factory in Tacna.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 15, Peruvian authorities
said 3 poachers have been charged with killing 7 people during a
five-year crime spree in which they allegedly slaughtered 2,500 vicuna,
a protected Andean animal prized for its wool.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 28, A twin-engine army
plane slammed nose-first into Peru's southern desert coast, killing all
13 people aboard.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 May 12, Roads in Peru's Colca
Canyon were blocked by townspeople demanding a larger share of revenue
from tourists who come to see condors soar over the desert-dry
moonscape and white-water raft in one of the world's deepest valleys.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 21, In central Peru a
passenger bus plunged off a bridge into a river on, killing at least 35
people and injuring 30 others.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 Jun 1, Peruvian doctors
separated the fused legs of Milagros Cerron, a 13-month-old baby girl
known as Peru's "mermaid."
(AP, 6/1/06)
2005 Jun 3, A Peruvian judge
ordered the arrest of 29 military officials for their alleged
involvement in the decades-old massacre of dozens of campesinos in an
Andean village.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 14, A 7.9 earthquake
rattled cities in Bolivia and Peru and heavily damaged mountain
villages in northern Chile, killing at least 11 people including a
family of 6.
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 14, A UN report showed
South America's cocaine output rose by 2 percent last year, bucking a
five year downward trend as increases in Peru and Bolivia outpaced
Colombia's clampdown on coca cultivation.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jul 5, A Peruvian judge
ordered the arrest of 118 current and retired military officials for
their alleged involvement in the May 14, 1988, massacre of peasants in
an Andean village and subsequent violations in the area.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 13, Thousands of
Peruvians protested against a proposed US-trade pact that a UN
investigator warned would put medicines out of reach of millions of
poor people.
(Reuters, 7/13/05)
2005 Aug 11, Peru's PM Carlos
Ferrero quit unexpectedly in an apparent protest against President
Alejandro Toledo's appointment of an unpopular political ally as
foreign minister.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 13, Fernando Olivera,
Peru's new foreign minister, said he was resigning his post, just two
days after the uproar from his appointment sparked a major shake-up of
President Alejandro Toledo's Cabinet.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 16, Peru’s President
Alejandro Toledo swore in a new Cabinet with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the
former finance minister, as prime minister and cabinet chief.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 18, In Peru US Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, seeking to promote stability in Latin
America, met with Pres. Alejandro Toledo.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 23, TANS Peru Flight 204,
a Boeing 737-200 with 100 people on board, split in two after an
emergency landing during a fierce storm, killing at least 41 people.
The pilot tried to land in a marsh to soften the impact but the landing
split the aircraft in two. The plane was enroute from Lima to Pucallpa
and landed 20 miles from Pucallpa.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Sep 1, In Peru Wilbert Elqui
Meza was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for a 2002 car
bombing that killed 10 people outside the U.S. Embassy. Meza was the
only one of eight defendants convicted of carrying out the attack. 2
women received 20-year sentences and a third women was handed a 25-year
sentence for belonging to the Shining Path, Maoist-oriented rebel
group. Four others were acquitted of all charges.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 9, The presidents of
Bolivia, Brazil and Peru inaugurated a $810 million highway project to
connect Brazil's Atlantic coast to Peru's Pacific ports before the end
of the decade.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 21, Pilots of a chartered
jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans faked the need for an emergency
landing in Peru so passengers could watch their nation's team play a
key match.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 22, Peru's Congress
passed legislation that would require public institutions to consider
open-source software as an alternative to proprietary systems such as
Windows.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep 25, A 7.0 earthquake hit
northern Peru, near Moyobamba, causing power outages and cutting phone
service throughout much of the region. 4 people were reported killed in
Lamas.
(AP, 9/26/05)(SFC, 9/26/05, A3)
2005 Sep 26, In Peru Shining Path
founder Abimael Guzman, whose messianic communist vision inspired a
rebellion that left almost 70,000 people dead, went on trial again with
his attorney predicting he'll receive the same life sentence that was
thrown out two years ago.
(AP, 9/26/05)
2005 Sep 27, At least 18 people
were killed and 40 others injured when two passenger buses crashed head
on along Peru's coastal Panamerican highway.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2005 Sep 30, South American
presidents committed themselves to establishing a continental free
trade zone. The South American summit was attended by the presidents of
Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and
Argentina.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Peru Maritza
Garrido Lecca, a former ballet teacher who used her dance studio to
hide Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison after a three-month civilian retrial. Nicholas Shakespeare used
the story as inspiration for his novel "The Dancer Upstairs" (1995),
which John Malkovich turned into a 2002 movie of the same name,
starring Javier Bardem.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Nov 6 Former Peruvian
President Alberto Fujimori was arrested, hours after he defied an
international arrest warrant and flew from Japan to Chile. Shortly
after Fujimori's presence in Chile was confirmed, the Peruvian
government asked Santiago to arrest him while a request for his
extradition was filed.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 18, Peru’s government
renewed a state of emergency in several isolated jungle and highland
provinces amid reports of leftist rebel activity.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 19, In Peru Fernando
Zevallos, the founder of an airline that was Peru's largest until he
landed on Washington's list of "drug kingpins," was arrested on cocaine
trafficking and homicide charges.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Peru officials
said police will begin patrolling Peru's famed Inca Trail following the
recent armed robbery of 13 tourists.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Peruvian lawmakers
voted to trim a hefty year-end bonus, bowing to public outrage in one
of Latin America's poorest countries.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In Peru 16 people
were killed when a passenger bus plunged into a river.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Dec 7, Peru and the US
completed negotiations on a free-trade agreement.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A14)
2005 Dec 19, Fernando Zevallos, an
airline founder who was labeled Peru's drug kingpin by the Bush
administration, was convicted of money laundering and cocaine
trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The court also ordered
him to pay a fine of $29 million for conspiring with Peru's Nortenos
drug gang to ship 3.3 tons of cocaine to Mexico.
(AP, 12/19/05)
2005 Dec 20, In Peru some 20
suspected Shining Path rebels killed 8 police officers in an ambush
near the town of Aucayacu in Leoncio Prado province.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 21, Peru's president
declared a state of emergency in six jungle provinces and promised to
stamp out the nation's remaining Shining Path guerrillas after
suspected rebels killed eight police officers in an ambush.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 29, Peru's Congress
ratified a law to create a Supreme Court judicial panel dominated by
retired armed forces generals to oversee the military's justice system,
a move human rights advocates say will hurt efforts to prosecute
military human rights abuses.
(AP, 12/30/05)
2005 Dec 29, Peruvian human rights
groups detailed at least 46 cases this year of threats and intimidation
targeting investigators and witnesses pursuing human rights abuses
allegedly committed by the military during the height of the Shining
Path insurgency.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Johan Reinhard authored “The
Ice Maiden,” an account of his discoveries of ritual Inca sites in the
mountains of Peru.
(WSJ, 6/15/05, p.D10)
2006 Jan 3, Peru formally asked
Chile to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori so he can
be tried on human rights and corruption charges.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 5, Peru recalled its
ambassador from Venezuela, accusing President Hugo Chavez of meddling
in Peru's upcoming presidential race.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 10, Peru's National
Election Board formally rejected a bid by jailed former President
Alberto Fujimori to run in April's presidential race, citing a
congressional ban on his holding public office.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 27, A Panamanian ship
collided with two other vessels near the Peruvian port of Callao,
splitting in two and leaving one sailor missing.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Feb 15, In Peru Arndt Hubert
Kupper (36) and Eva Noruzka la Torre (22), a German man and his
Peruvian wife, were arrested for trafficking Peruvian babies to
adoptive parents in Europe through an Internet site.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 19, In Peru Hector
Aponte, a Shining Path guerrilla commander believed responsible for an
ambush that killed eight policemen in December, was killed in a
shootout with authorities in the Huallaga Valley. Aponte was a top
commander under Comrade Artemio, one of the last original Shining Path
leaders still at large.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 21, Miguel Toledo (36), a
nephew of President Alejandro Toledo, was given a four-year suspended
sentence on charges he drugged and raped a 22-year-old woman in 2004.
(AP, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 28, In Peru 2 buses
crashed head-on in the southern Andes, killing 12 people, including one
American tourist. Nearly 50 people were injured.
(AP, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 21, In Peru Victor Polay
(54), the leader of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla group, was sentenced to
32 years in prison in a civilian retrial. The group grabbed the world's
attention nearly 10 years ago with a takeover of the Japanese
ambassador's residence.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Apr 9, Peruvians faced a
close, three-way presidential contest that put their Andean nation on a
leftist track akin to Venezuela and Bolivia. Ollanta Humala (43), a
former army officer, won with only 31% of the vote.
(AP, 4/9/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.42)
2006 Apr 11, In Peru with 80% of
the votes counted Ollanta Humala led with 30.3%. Former president Alan
Garcia (56) held a narrow lead over pro-business former Congresswoman
Lourdes Flores (46) in the race to face Ollanta Humala (43) in a
presidential runoff vote.
(AP, 4/11/06)(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 17, In central Peru a
passenger bus tumbled off a mountain road and came to rest in a gorge,
killing at least 25 people on board in Jaucan district.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 29, Peru recalled its
ambassador from Venezuela over what it called President Hugo Chavez's
"persistent and flagrant interference" in its upcoming presidential
elections.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr, Peru’s Legislature
approved a trade pact with the US. The US Congress and Senate approved
the free trade agreement in late 2007.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.A6)
2006 May 3, Peru confirmed that
ex-President Garcia placed 2nd in the April 9 voting and will face
nationalist Ollanta Humala in a June 4 runoff.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.A1)
2006 May 4, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez said he was withdrawing his ambassador from Peru as a
matter of principle after Peru called home its ambassador.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 12, Vladimiro Montesinos,
Peru's jailed ex-intelligence chief, was sentenced to 10 more years in
prison and fined $15.2 million after pleading guilty to charges of
illicit enrichment.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 Jun 4, Peruvians faced a
choice in runoff presidential elections between former president Alan
Garcia (57), and Ollanta Humala (43), a fiery political newcomer
pledging to punish a corrupt political establishment. Garcia beat
Humala, a nationalist backed by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, to regain
control of the country 16 years after his first presidential term ended
in economic ruin and rebel violence. Garcia’s American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party held only 36 of 120 seats in
Congress.
(AP, 6/4/06)(AP, 6/5/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.36)
2006 Jun 14, Four Andean nations
(Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru) agreed to chart new trade plans
with the United States without Venezuela.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 16, Peru's
President-elect Alan Garcia said that one of his first acts when he
takes office will be cutting public salaries, including his own, and
canceling plans to open an embassy in Turkey.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 28, Peru’s Congress
overwhelmingly voted to ratify a free trade pact with the US, rejecting
claims the treaty will hurt Peru's farmers by flooding the Andean
nation with subsidized cotton, rice, corn and potatoes.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jul 2, A Peruvian rescue team
found the bodies of 3 American mountaineers killed during an icy climb
high in the Andes. They located Kristen Yoder (21), her brother Dustin
Yoder (23) and Brennan Larson (24) in a 100-foot-deep crevasse on the
Artesonraju peak.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 27, President-elect Alan
Garcia made good on a pledge to draw talent from across the political
spectrum in his 16-member Cabinet by appointing six women, including
Peru's first female justice and interior ministers.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 28, Alan Garcia returned
to the presidency of Peru, pledging to battle poverty 16 years after
ending his first term.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 31, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia cut government salaries, including his own, three days after
announcing a long list of austerity measures in his inaugural address.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 25, Peru's jailed
ex-intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos was sentenced to six years
in prison for using government money to fund former President Alberto
Fujimori's 2000 re-election campaign. The sentence will be served
concurrently with Montesinos' 15-year prison sentence for various
corruption convictions.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Sep 21, Vladimiro Montesinos
(61), Peru's former spymaster, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for
engineering a deal that sent 10,000 assault rifles to Colombian
guerrillas.
(AP, 9/22/06)
2006 Oct 13, In Peru Shining Path
founder Abimael Guzman, whose messianic communist vision inspired a
12-year rebellion that cost nearly 70,000 lives, was found guilty of
aggravated terrorism and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Peru former
President Valentin Paniagua (69) died. The unassuming former law
professor shepherded Peru back to democracy as interim president
following the 2000 collapse of Alberto Fujimori's autocratic regime.
Paniagua governed Peru from November 2000 to July 2001.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 26, In Peru's southern
Andes at least 20 people were killed and 12 others were injured when a
passenger bus crashed down an embankment.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Nov 19, Lima's mayor Luis
Castaneda was returned to office in nationwide regional elections
expected to give major gains to independents as Peruvians shunned
traditional political parties.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Peru a bus speeding
through the fog on a twisting mountain road in the Andes fell 1,320
feet into a ravine, killing 45 people.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 13, In Peru a passenger
bus slammed into an oncoming truck on mountain curve and plunged into a
river in Amazonas state, killing at least 21 people and injuring 30.
(AP, 12/13/06)
2006 Dec 16, In Peru 5 police
officers and two employees of the state-run coca company were shot to
death in a southern jungle state.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 23, A bus plunged into a
river in Peru's central mountains, killing at least nine people and
leaving four missing.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Peru’s population numbered
about 27 million. It was about 80 percent Indian or mestizo.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2007 Feb 16, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia said that he is selling the presidential airplane in an effort
to curb "frivolous" expenses in his administration.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 27, Peru's Congress
passed a new law stiffening penalties for attacks on tourists, making
the maximum sentence for murdering or severely injuring a tourist life
in prison.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Feb 28, An air force
helicopter crashed in Peru's highlands, killing 3 military personnel
and injuring an army general who commanded a military base in the area.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Peru church bells
rang and a sea of confetti fluttered through Lima's historical central
plaza at the stroke of noon, alerting Peruvians to synchronize their
watches at the start of a nationwide campaign to promote punctuality.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 20, In Peru 3 suspected
leftist rebels were shot to death in a clash with troops in the
highland jungle.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Apr 13, Former President
Alejandro Toledo returned to Peru to visit his ailing sister and face
accusations that he forged signatures nearly a decade ago to get his
party on the 2000 presidential ballot.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 22, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were announced on Earth Day. The winners included
Julio Cusurichi of Peru for his work to fight illegal logging; Willie
Corduff of Ireland for his work to halt an energy project that
disregarded local and environmental concerns; Sophia Rabliauskas of
Canada for her work to help protect the boreal forest in Manitoba; Orri
Vigfussen of Iceland for his work on the North Atlantic Salmon Fund;
Ts. Munkhbayar for his work against unregulated mining in Mongolia; and
Hammerskjoeld Simwinga for his work in organizing microloan programs in
Zambia.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.E1)
2007 Apr 26, Peru’s Congress
granted President Garcia the power to rule by decree for 60 days on
matters related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime,
strengthening his hand in the battle against cocaine production and
smuggling. A US report claimed that the Shining Path may now have
hundreds of armed combatants and that it is entwined with drug
trafficking.
(AP, 4/27/07)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.50)
2007 May 18, In southern Peru a
backpack containing dynamite and nails exploded during a celebration in
a market in Juliaca, killing six people and wounding 48.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 24, A Peruvian government
flight serving as a link between isolated jungle communities
disappeared in the country's northeastern rain forest with 20 people on
board. 7 survivors were rescued the next day.
(AP, 5/25/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 Jun 8, In Chile former
Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was put back under house arrest, a
day after a Chilean prosecutor recommended his extradition to face
charges of human rights abuses and corruption in his home country.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 21, Peru's Congress voted
overwhelmingly to lower the age to 14 for participating in consensual
sex, a move some activists said could expose children to sexual abuse.
(AP, 6/23/07)
2007 Jul 1, In Peru a passenger
bus crashed into an oncoming truck killing 24 people.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 5, Peruvian public school
teachers walked off the job to protest an education reform proposal
that would require them to pass periodic competency exams. Education
Minister Jose Antonio Chang called the effort a failure, saying only
15% of Peru's approximately 350,000 teachers failed to show up for work
in the country.
(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 6, A Peruvian consumer
protection agency closed a popular restaurant and imposed a stiff fine
for repeatedly turning away dark-skinned people. The upscale suburb of
Miraflores complied with the agency's request to close Cafe del Mar for
60 days. The restaurant also was fined $76,000 for its "discriminatory"
entrance policy.
(AP, 7/7/07)
2007 Jul 7, A global poll picked
the Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Peru’s
Macchu Picchu, Jordan’s Petra, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and
Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid as the new seven wonders of the world.
The campaign to name the new wonders was launched in 1999 by the Swiss
adventurer Bernard Weber.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 19, Peru's public school
teachers ended a 15-day strike against a new law requiring them to take
competency tests after government officials agreed to talks on their
demand for better training.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Aug 15, A magnitude-8.0
trembler rocked Peru's coast, toppling buildings leaving some 610
people dead and 36,000 homes damaged. State doctors called off a
national strike to handle the emergency. Two prisons collapsed and 600
prisoners escaped. About a third gave themselves up over the next week.
Tremors destroyed 80% of Pisco, where 148 people died when the city
cathedral collapsed.
(AP, 8/16/07)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.35)(SSFC, 4/6/08,
p.A14)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.37)
2007 Aug 16, The death toll from
Peru’s earthquake rose to at least 337.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 17, In Peru six strong
aftershocks struck as the death toll from the Aug 15 8.0
earthquake passed 500.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 18, In Peru President
Alan Garcia called for the orderly distribution of emergency supplies
as desperate victims of a magnitude-8 earthquake on the southern coast
looted markets and blocked arriving aid trucks. The death toll climbed
to 540.
(AP, 8/18/07)(AP, 8/20/07)
2007 Sep 11, Douglas Eugene "Gene"
Savoy, explorer, died at age 80 in Reno, Nev. He discovered more than
40 lost cities in Peru and led long-distance sailing adventures to
learn more about ancient cultures. Savoy wrote dozens of books,
including "Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Amazon"
(1970) about his early discoveries in Peru, and "On the Trail of the
Feathered Serpent" (1974) about some of his sea journeys.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 15, A meteorite made a
fiery crash to Earth in southern Peru and villagers were soon struck by
a mysterious illness.
(AFP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 16, In Peru an unofficial
referendum was held in three districts affected by plans for developing
a copper mine at Rio Blanco. Some 95% of the votes were against the 1.4
billion project planned by China’s Zijin Consortium, which had recently
acquired the concession.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.51)
2007 Sep 21, Chile's Supreme Court
ruled that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori must be
extradited to face human rights and corruption charges in Peru.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 22, Former Peruvian
President Alberto Fujimori was flown to his home country in police
custody, one day after the Chilean Supreme Court authorized his
extradition on human rights and corruption charges.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep, In Peru government
ecologists spotted 21 members of a hitherto uncontacted tribe on the
banks of the Rio de las Piedras. It was estimated that there are still
15 such groups.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.40)
2007 Oct 4, Dutch authorities said
their customs officers had found 100 dead beetles stuffed with cocaine
whilst examining a parcel from Peru.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Dec 10, Peru’s former
President Alberto Fujimori faced trial on charges of using a death
squad to kill leftist guerrillas and collaborators, a case stirring
mixed emotions in a country where many admire him for defeating a
bloody insurgency.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 11, In Peru former
President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of abuse of authority and
sentenced to six years in prison at the end of the first in a series of
trials on charges that include murder, kidnapping and corruption.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2008 Feb 29, Peruvian officials
arrested seven members from the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana, a
Venezuela-based leftist movement, including the group's alleged leader,
Roque Gonzalez, who spent eight years in prison for kidnapping a
Bolivian politician. Two more alleged members were arrested on March 17
trying to carry in $65,000 from Ecuador, money Peruvian authorities
suspect is Venezuelan. Coordinadora founder Fernando Rivero told The
Associated Press in Venezuela that the group is entirely autonomous.
(AP, 3/22/08)
2008 Mar 11, In Peru a helicopter
ferrying passengers from the La Granja copper mine owned by the Rio
Tinto Group crashed in the Andes with 10 people aboard. The wreckage
was found the next day.
(AP, 3/13/08)
2008 Apr 8, A Peruvian court
convicted a former general and three members of a military death squad
of kidnapping and murder in a ruling that prosecutors say could set a
precedent in the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori. Judges
found them guilty of participating in the 1992 kidnapping and murder of
nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University who were
suspected of being rebel collaborators.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 9, In Peru 5 French
tourists visiting the Nazca lines were killed when their small plane
crashed after becoming tangled in power lines.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 May 15, European and Latin
American leaders gathered in Peru for their fifth summit in a decade
with plans to tackle climate change, high food prices and poverty.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 16, In Peru European and
Latin American leaders concluded their 5th summit in a decade and
pledged to fight poverty, global warming and high food prices,
presenting a show of unity amid a festering conflict between two South
American nations.
(AP, 5/17/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Peru tens of
thousands of union workers took to the streets across the country to
protest rising food and fuel prices they blame on the free market
policies of President Alan Garcia.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Peru a new law
went into effect allowing couples who agree upon alimony, child custody
and division of assets to seek divorce from a qualified notary or
municipality.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Peruvians flooded the
streets to protest the slow pace of reconstruction a year after a
magnitude-8.0 earthquake left tens of thousands homeless.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 18, Peru's government
declared a state of emergency in remote jungle regions where Indian
groups are blocking highways and oil and gas installations to protest a
law that makes it easier to sell their lands.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 22, Peru’s congress voted
to repeal two laws facilitating the sale of Indian lands that had
generated protests by dozens of tribes in the Amazon rain forest. The
laws had been passed by presidential decree in May to promote private
investment.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.37)
2008 Sep 18, Peru’s Pres. Alan
Garcia led a deputation of half his cabinet and over 200 business
leaders to see Brazil’s Pres. da Silva.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.44)
2008 Oct 9, In Peru a bomb killed
13 soldiers and 2 civilians in Huancavelica, east of Lima, in an
apparent response to an army operation to shut down Shining Path camps.
(AP, 10/10/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.50)
2008 Oct 10, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia accepted the resignation of his entire Cabinet without naming
replacements in response to an oil kickbacks scandal.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 11, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia announced that he has appointed Yehude Simon (61), a leftist
governor, to become the chief Cabinet minister, a day after the
minister's predecessor resigned along with 16 colleagues amid a brewing
oil-kickbacks scandal.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 20, US Ambassador Michael
McKinley and Peru's foreign minister signed an accord forgiving US$25
million of Peru's foreign debt and directing the money to a tropical
forest conservation program.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 28, In Peru police and
protesters clashed violently at a blockaded bridge in the province of
Moquegua leaving 71 injured.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 29, In Peru a
1,000-strong mob set fire to the station and took 25 officers captive
in San Martin province. They reportedly were angered when police threw
tear gas near a school and several children were affected.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Nov 1, Yma Sumac (b.1922),
Peruvian-born singer known as the “Nightingale of the Andes,” died in
LA. Her voice was said to range over 4½ octaves. Her first
album, “Voice of the Xtabay” (1950) soared to the top of the LP charts.
(SFC, 11/4/08, p.B4)
2008 Nov 16, In Peru Edwin
Valladolid was arrested in Lima carrying a box of 36 grenades ahead of
the arrival next week of 18 world leaders for a Pacific Rim economic
summit.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 19, China and Peru signed
a free trade agreement.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.42)
2008 Nov 22, In Peru the 21
leaders at the APEC conference endorsed a sweeping action plan that had
been approved a week ago at the G20 emergency meeting in Washington.
(AP, 11/23/08)
2008 Nov 23, President George W.
Bush, wrapping up his final summit with world leaders, offered a
message of hope that despite the worst economic crisis in decades, the
global economy will emerge in better shape. He was expected to tout the
benefits of free trade during a meeting with his host, Peru's President
Alan Garcia, before attending the final sessions of the 21-nation
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) as he wrapped up three
days of discussions. Summit leaders predicted a worldwide recovery in
18 months.
(AP, 11/23/08)(SFC, 11/24/08, p.A11)
2008 Nov 26, In Peru suspected
rebels armed with machine guns and grenades ambushed a police patrol in
the central jungle, killing four officers and wounding five others.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Dec 4, Drug agents in Peru
seized 3 tons of cocaine mixed into a shipment of guano bound for
Spain. Four Peruvians and a Colombian were arrested.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 25, In Peru five
nightclubbers are dead after a tear gas grenade was detonated in the
middle of a crowded disco in Juliaca.
(AP, 12/25/08)
2009 Jan 10, In northern Peru a
bus ran off a slick mountain road into a ravine, killing at least 33
people.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 27, A Peruvian court
freed two men accused of belonging to a military death squad linked to
several massacres in the early 1990s, after the suspects completed six
years in prison without a conviction. Douglas Arteaga Pascual and Angel
Pino Diaz were charged in 2001 and accused of belonging to a death
squad known as the "Colina group." A verdict was expected this year.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Feb 14, The Peruvian film “La
Teta Asustada” (The Milk of Sorrow), directed by Claudia Llosa, won the
top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milk_of_Sorrow)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.42)
2009 Feb 17, In Portugal Conchita
Cintron (b.1922), Peruvian-born matador, died. She faced her first bull
at age 13 and made her premier at the main arena in Lima in 1937. She
reportedly killed over 750 bulls during her career in Europe.
(SFC, 2/20/09, p.B8)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.93)
2009 Feb 27, Researchers in Peru
said an unusually intact fossilized skull of a pelagornithid, a giant,
bony-toothed seabird that lived up to 10 million years ago, had been
found in the in the Pisco Formation, a coastal rock bed south of the
capital, Lima, known for yielding fossils of whales, dolphins, turtles
and other marine life dating as far back as 14 million years.
(AP, 2/28/09)
2009 Mar 2, In Peru's southern
province of Puno 10 people were killed dead and 16 left missing at a
remote mining camp buried by a mudslide.
(AP, 3/3/09)
2009 Mar 31, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia reversed course and accepted a donation from Germany for a
museum honoring those killed in Peru's 20-year armed conflict with
Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 7, Former Peruvian
President Alberto Fujimori (70) was found guilty of murder and
kidnapping for death squad activities during his 10-year rule during
the 1990s. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His daughter,
Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori (33), said people's outrage over the
"vengeful" verdict will propel her to Peru's presidency in 2011. Then
she'll pardon him.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Peru suspected
guerrillas killed 13 Peruvian soldiers in ambushes on two patrols in
the Apurimac-Ene river valley, a jungle region known for coca
production and lingering rebel activity. The body of a 14th soldier was
recovered on April 12.
(AP, 4/11/09)(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 13, In Peru a foot bridge
in the highlands collapsed, sending dozens of children and teachers
from a nearby school plunging more than 230 feet (70 meters) into a
ravine and killing 2 teachers and six schoolchildren.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 27, Peru's government
said that it has granted political asylum to Manuel Rosales, a
Venezuelan opposition leader, who faced corruption allegations in his
homeland but claimed to be persecuted by leftist President Hugo Chavez..
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 28, Peru’s Pres. Alan
Garcia and Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement
for six hydroelectricity schemes in Peru. The Inambari dam would be the
first to be built, and most of its power would be exported to Brazil.
(www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11256.aspx)(Econ,
11/21/09, p.42)
2009 Apr 28, Venezuela recalled
its ambassador to protest Peru's decision to grant political asylum to
a prominent opponent of President Hugo Chavez, calling it a mockery of
international law and escalating a diplomatic dispute.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Peru Ashaninka and
Yines Indians blocked an airport in the central jungle town of Atalaya
as well as two stations on a northern oil pipeline to protest laws that
they say threaten their ancestral land and resources. Some 15,000
Indians have been protesting since April 9 and planned to start taking
over oil and gas rigs. They said laws passed in December opened the
door to privatization of water resources and jungle land which they
used.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 May 9, It was reported that
Peru’s police over the last two months have seized some $40 million in
near perfect replicas of American dollar bills in $20, $50 and $100
denominations. Most of the fake bills were sent to Ecuador and Panama,
which used the greenback as their national currency.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.40)
2009 May 11, Bolivia demanded that
Peru hand over three former government ministers charged with genocide
in the 2003 killing of dozens of protesters. President Evo Morales
called asylum an "open provocation of the Bolivian people."
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 12, Peruvian Foreign
Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said former Bolivian ministers
Mirtha Quevedo and Javier Torres Goitia requested and have received
refugee status, a legal measure that, unlike asylum, does not denote
political persecution. They are among the former ministers of former
Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada, charged with genocide for
sending soldiers who killed 63 people in 2003 while quelling
anti-government protests in the city of El Alto.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In Peru a new law
went into effect that says officers will be fired for taking bribes and
abusing detainees. It also said police officers who "damage the image"
of law enforcement by engaging in homosexual behavior can lose their
jobs.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 15, In Peru a national
Indian representative said Amazon Indians who have been blocking roads,
waterways and a state oil pipeline since April are declaring an
"insurgency" against Peru's government for refusing to repeal laws that
the protesters say make it easier for foreign companies to take their
lands. The next day they said they would withdraw the call for an
insurgency against the government, but vowed to press ahead with their
protests.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 Jun 5, Indians in Peru's
Amazon, protesting government moves to develop oil, gas and other
resources on their lands, battled police near Bagua in an area called
Curva del Diablo, or "Devil's Curve." Authorities reported the death of
11 police and 25 protesters. The official death toll after 2 days of
violence was later reported at 33, including 23 police officers.
Santiago Manuin (53), Awajun Indian leader, was among 48 wounded
protesters.
(AP, 6/5/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.36)(AP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jun 6, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia labored to contain the country’s worst political violence in
years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff
with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil, gas and other
resources on their native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the
number of police killed, seven with spears, since security forces on
June 5 moved to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. A
judge ordered the arrest of the Indian leader, Alberto Pizango, on
sedition and rebellion charges.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Peru indigenous
leader Alberto Pizango sought refuge at Nicaragua's embassy in Lima.
Nicaragua granted Pizango political asylum but he remained at the
embassy, awaiting Peru's agreement to allow him safe passage out of the
country.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Peru's Congress
indefinitely suspended two key legislative decrees that spurred the
Amazon Indian protests that erupted in bloodshed during a government
crackdown last week. Indigenous groups said the decrees make it easier
for foreign companies to exploit their lands for oil, gas and logging.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 11, In Peru riot police
used tear gas to turn student protesters away from the Congress as
thousands marched to back Amazon Indians resisting oil and natural gas
exploration on their land.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 15, Peru's government
promised Amazon Indians to ask Congress to revoke decrees that native
groups say would make it easier to exploit their lands for oil, gas and
other development.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Peru a top Indian
leader called for an end to protests that left dozens dead in the
Amazon region after Congress revoked two decrees that indigenous groups
said would spur oil and gas exploitation and other development on their
ancestral lands.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN said
Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly a fifth last year while
cultivation of the bush that is the basis of cocaine rose for a third
straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other coca-producing
nations.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jul 2, In Peru two buses
crashed head-on on a mountain road near Lake Titicaca, killing at least
23 people and injuring 50 more.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 11, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia shuffled his Cabinet following months of protests, replacing
seven of 16 ministers and naming a new chief, the third person to hold
the post in nine months.
(AP, 7/12/09)
2009 Jul 20, Peru’s former
President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced
to 7 1/2 years in prison after he admitted illegally paying his spy
chief $15 million in government funds.
(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Peru attackers
believed to be Shining Path rebels killed three police officers and two
women in an assault on a remote police post in San Jose de Secce in
Ayacucho province, a coca-growing region.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 7, A Peruvian government
prosecutor presented homicide charges against two police generals and
15 other officers for a June government crackdown at an Amazon highway
blockade manned by Indians protesting development on their ancestral
lands. The criminal charges, which must be ratified by a judge, were
the first to implicate police in violence that left at least 33 dead,
including 23 police.
(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 15, In Peru farmers freed
13 police officers and four civilians seized at a hydroelectric dam in
the Andean region after local officials agreed to provide them with
fertilizer.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Aug 16, It was reported that
Peru has become the world’s largest “factory” of counterfeit US
dollars. Police were said to seize some $10 million in false dollars
each month in Lima alone. The Peruvian dollars were mostly found in
such countries as Italy, France, Germany and Ecuador. Gunmen robbed 12
foreigners on an ecological tourism trip to the Manu nature reserve in
the Tres Cruces area of the Cusco region.
(SSFC, 8/16/09, p.A4)(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 24, It was reported that
Peruvian police expecting to find a shipment of cocaine hidden in a
crate holding two live turkeys were surprised to discover the drug
surgically implanted inside the birds.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Sep 2, In Peru drug-funded
Shining Path rebels shot down an air force helicopter in the
coca-growing highlands of Junin province, killing three troops and
wounding five. The military said three rebels were arrested and another
four killed.
(AP, 9/3/09)
2009 Sep 11, In Peru lawyer
Alfredo Crespo announced the publication of a book of manuscripts
written in prison by Shining Path rebel leader Abimael Guzman. On Sep
13 the justice minister asked a public prosecutor to file "apology for
terrorism" charges against Crespo.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Peru former
President Alberto Fujimori, who already faces the prospect of spending
the rest of his life in prison, pleaded guilty to authorizing illegal
wiretaps and bribes of politicians, journalists and businessmen.
(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Peru a court
imposed a six-year prison sentence on disgraced ex-President Alberto
Fujimori, who already faced the prospect of spending the rest of his
life in a cell after three previous convictions. He also was fined $9
million for authorizing wiretaps and bribes.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Nov 5, Peru’s defense
minister said Shining Path rebels attacked a military outpost in the
country's coca-producing highlands, killing one soldier and wounding
three.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 12, Peruvian media
reported that air force officer Victor Ariza (45) was arrested last
month for allegedly spying for Chile. Peruvian President Alan Garcia
soon accused Chile of assaulting Peru's sovereignty, throwing his
weight behind allegations that Chile paid a Peruvian military officer
to spy. Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez denied the
accusation.
(AP, 11/16/09)
2009 Nov 19, Peruvian police said
a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat
from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics,
although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.
(AP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 28, The government of
Peru apologized to its Afro-Peruvian population for the first time for
centuries of abuse, exclusion and discrimination.
(AP, 11/28/09)
2009 Dec 1, Peru's police chief
dismissed the head of his criminal investigations unit amid suggestions
that officers may have invented a story about a murderous gang of human
fat thieves, perhaps to distract from allegations of police killings.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 16, In Peru a
storm-loosened wave of mud and rocks rolled through the streets of
Ayacucho in the Peruvian Andes, killing at least 9 people while
destroying homes and cars.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 23, In northern Peru a
60-year-old woman was trampled to death by a surging crowd at a
Christmas giveaway in Chimbote.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 24, In Peru a bus
carrying mostly Quechua farmers and merchants home for Christmas
plunged 250 feet (80 meters) into a ravine in the southern Andes,
killing 42 people and injuring at least eight.
(AP, 12/24/09)
2010 Jan 1, In Peru a riot by
about 500 inmates erupted New Year’s Eve at a northern prison and left
two inmates dead. 6 guards were held hostage until negotiations got the
prisoners to end their protest.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Jan 24, In Peru some 3,900
tourists were cut off in villages near Machu Picchu in the Andes
mountains, when mudslides blocked the railway to the city of Cuzco,
which is the only way in or out of the area. Torrential rain, due to El
Nino, in the Cusco area left at least 26 people dead and destroyed the
homes and livelihood of some 20,000.
(AP, 1/27/10)(Econ, 2/13/10, p.42)
2010 Jan 26, In Peru an Argentine
identified as Lucia Ramallo (23) and a Peruvian guide, Washington
Huaraya, were in their tents when a slope near Machu Picchu gave way
and crushed them. The deaths raised to five the number of people killed
by rain-triggered floods and landslides in the area. Government and
private helicopters flew out 475 tourists as US authorities sent four
helicopters to bolster rescue efforts.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2010 Feb 22, In Peru 2 buses
crashed head-on along a remote stretch of highway in the northeast,
killing at least 38 people and injuring 58.
(AP, 2/22/10)
2010 Mar 16, In Peru President
Alan Garcia fired Justice Minister Aurelio Pastor amid questions over
the pardoning of Jose Enrique Crousillat (77), a former media executive
convicted of taking payoffs to provide favorable coverage for a
previous government.
(AP, 3/16/10)
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Subject = Peru
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