Talk:Fernando Belaúnde Terry

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Perhaps a few words about human-rights violations during his second term are in order? Hasdrubal 19:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

el fue mi tio y me siento orgullosa de decirlo

No offense against your uncle meant. Please use "tilde tilde tilde tilde" to sign edits. Hasdrubal 19:08, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC), who is not a nephew of Belaunde's, and whose grandmother is still an ardent partisan of his

I agree, this article needs some work. -- Viajero 19:49, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] comments and questions

  • The sequence of his first coming to office in 1963 is unclear to me.
    1. Loses 1962 election.
    2. Who wins? Is Manuel Prado re-elected? Ricardo Pío Pérez Godoy?
    3. military Junta takes power.
    4. In 1963, Belaúnde is installed. But where does Pérez Gudoy come into the story?

What is the correct sequence of events?

  • In the elections of 1985, Belaúnde was defeated by American Popular Revolutionary Alliance candidate Alan García.

Was Belaúnde eligible for a second term?

  • "Marginal Highway of the Jungle"

It is better not to translated names like this unless an established English translation is known. I prefer a formulation such as: "...the Carretera Marginal de la Selva, a much-needed highway..."

-- Viajero 15:39, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken (check!), Haya de la Torre won a narrow plurality of the votes; it was up to Congress to decide who the winner would be - since APRA was then in cahoots with the Odriistas, Haya de la Torre would have been likely to become the next president (though this is not certain). The army leaders were not too glad about this - hence the coup.

Perez Godoy was just a provisional president, and not even a very prominent political figure, no?

Belaunde was not eligible for a second term. His party's candidate was defeated - getting only 6% or 7% of the vote, if I remember correctly.

Agreed on the Carretera Marginal. Hasdrubal 18:33, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modest (but Important) Opinion

Someting that I clearly don't understand is how most of the previous article is gonne and a POV is stated. Clearly, The Belaunde Government was in some part responsable for the terrorist violence that was present on Peru in the 80's, but stating that at the begining of the page, is a POV.
As I said before in another talk page. An article that can deal with the violence in Peru on each Administration will be more NPOV rather than stating them in each of the presidents page.
I will start the project, so I would like Viajero, that apparently known more about that, colaborate there. Let's achieve a compromise, and in this page, numerated the Human Rights Violations of each of the Government involved (Belaúnde/García/Fujimori/Paniagua) in more detail. On the President's page, a link that lead to this page. --> Civil War on Peru
Here are some important points about Belaunde:
  • Also, Belaunde was not instaled by the Military Junta of 1963. He won a fair and legaly national elections. Manuel Prado was deposed due to massive fraud commited by his government in favor of Victor Raul Haya de la Torre in the 1962 elections. Ricardo Godoy was then President of the Republic for nearly 1 year before being deposed by Nicolas Lindley, accused of "Personalista" and attempting to stay in power, so he has nothing to do in 1963. Once Again, Belaunde was not appointed President: He was legaly elected.
  • The Peruvian Constitution before 1979 was the one dreafted on 1933, after the Leguia's Government. The Morales Bermúdez Administration at any moment drafted a new one or modify the one in existence (and also becouse his government was de facto rather than constitutional). Becouse of political unrest, President Moralez Bermúdes was force to return the power to civil authorities. The constitution of 1979 was drafted, and remained as a legal document until, by popular referendum, the Constitution of 1993 was stablished.
It is clear that this page needs a clean up. I was doing the work. However, I find extrange that this article is becoming more and more a page listing his mistakes rather than giving a fair treatment to the ex-president. He is remember for his outstanding democratic values, rather than by his mistakes. Messhermit 20:15, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On Belaunde's coming to power: if my memory serves me right, neither the current version nor Messhermit's version is quite accurate. If any fraud at all occured in the 1962 elections, it is highly unlikely to have been committed in the APRA's favour; the APRA was allied by then to the Odriistas, but not to Prado, even though it had found some sort of modus vivendi. The coup was an illegal action perpretated by the military. Then there was a time of uncertainty for a year or two, with Ricardo Godoy acting as the figurehead for most of it; it may be that, as Messhermit says, he was not content with being such a figurehead. Eventually, elections were called again, and Belaunde won them (with a narrow plurality, just as Haya de la Torre did before; perhaps it is worth looking into which one of the two, if either, won more than 33%, and whether this mattered according to the constitution then in operation).

The summary at the top of the page seems fair to me: a president's failures are as important as his successes. The section on the 1962-1963 needs fixing (as by the above; I am writing from memory - the editing should preferrably be done by somebody who has good sources at hand). Hasdrubal 21:23, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Saying that the APRA party allied itself with the UNO of Manuel Odria was a motivated political move made by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre in order to oppose most of Belaunde's political its a appropiate on 1962, But I must remind also that Manuel Prado Ugarteche reach the presidency by APRA votes on 1956: Manuel Odría didn't allow the APRA to participate in those elections. Prado was the President that allow the APRA to become once again a legal party. It was widely known that Prado was gonna help the APRA to reach power in 1962 as a way to return the favor of 1956, but the Military Prevent this.
Also, as any normal person, he made mistakes. Other thing is to only pointing at them, without giving him the appropiate treatment that a former president deserves. Messhermit 20:26, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Please give sources for "widely known". I'm sure the military had some such excuse, but that doesn't make it fact. Prado did give the APRA some goodies in return for their support (e.g. a university), and it is perfectly possible that his followers (or some of them) would have confirmed Haya de la Torre's election in Congress; still, from there to fraud there is a long way. Prado had his own agenda; it seems unlikely to me that an aristocrat would have handed the country in a silver platter to the APRA - and committed massive fraud in order to do it. Hasdrubal 19:09, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The military acted in that way most likely by order of the right-wing political class of the country. So let's leave the military out of this. Manuel Odria was most likely to become the next president, after a deal with the APRA on congress was made to secure his election. However, Belaunde did not recognise this and called for the anulation of the results. The coup came at the same time.
We do realise that he was elected on 1963 and not appointed, that is a fact.
And also that Ricardo Perez Godoy has noting to do with the 1963 Elections.

Those were the main topic of disscussion I believe. I will research more in order to provide accurate information for the Former President Article. Messhermit 00:21, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] One more question: "undo agrarian reform"?

I forgot to ask this in my comment above.

Gradually he undid the agrarian reform initiated by Velasco

What does this mean? As I understand it, Velasco starting breaking up the big latifundios, like the sugar plantations around Trujillo. Did Belaúnde reverse these nationalizations or merely put a stop to the program? -- Viajero 22:33, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think he just put a stop to the program (though there weren't many latifundios left to nationalize...), and may have to some extent cut the subsidized loans, organizational assistance, etc., that the state provided before. Hasdrubal 22:52, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Belaunde.jpg too large and distorted

The image that appears above his terms of office is too large and distorted. There was another image, Image:Belaunde_Terry.jpg, which seems good, too, but if enlarged will look blurry also. Maybe someone else can find a better image to show right when the article appears? I initially wanted to use the Time Magazine cover I found, but was barely learning about copyright issues and hesitated to include the whole cover image on this article as it is showing now. --Dynamax 23:57, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Belaúnde Terry born in Lima or Arequipa?

Searching around the web, I noticed two sites (one of them the bbc which I hadn't notice) that says Fernando Belaúnde Terry was born in Arequipa http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2025896.stm and http://www.cidob.org/bios/castellano/lideres/b-058.htm (in Spanish). I'm in doubt now, where was Belaúnde Terry born? --Dynamax 22:44, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Well, according to his political Party, Acción Popular, he was born on October 7, 1912 in Lima. Messhermit 22:28, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

It's actually Belaunde without the accent mark. Could someone please move the page accordingly? --Victor12 16:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)