General, now perhaps you have time to make reflections that you could not do before, have you about the true objective of his government? Yes, I have.
How would you rate that goal now? Make Peru an independent country and change the structures so that Peru could develop independently, with sovereignty. Not a country sold, on its knees. How was it here? The American ambassador ruled here! When I was president, the ambassador had to ask for an audience and I handled it six steps. I scrubbed them. I threw out the American military mission. Here there were 50 or 60 American chiefs and the Peruvian government had to pay their salaries, the passage even for the kitten that the family brought. And they were part of the information for the CIA. We didn't need him, we had already grown enough to not have to consult him about everything. Here our war schools are very good. We can give them vacancies, rather.
Many people consider you to be full of grudges, what do you think of that? Resentment? Against whom? Against no one! I didn't take any hits. I led a revolution. It was a well planned revolution. Because we enter head-on to act, to operate with speed. We have done so many things at a frightening speed. I knew that at any moment they would throw me out. Because here in Peru, fatally, the oligarchy never dies.
What do you think? Well, at least during my government we have shaped the oligarchy in such a way that we have undone it. Many have said that one of the things the revolution did was end the oligarchy. Well, I believe that we have not finished with the oligarchy. Remnants have remained. And these remains, they are growing again. I have a clear conscience, except for one thing. Because I did not finish the work of the revolution. We did not do the health and housing. And we didn't do it because they kicked me out.
And why do you think they kicked him out? Political ambition, ambition for power... Some sectors always reproached you for being a friend of the communists, for being soft on them. Not only that, they have told me that I made communism official. And that is brutal. That's what my friend Frías says. I have read that in "X". Where am I going to come out communist? I have been in the military all my life. There were some half-reds in the government, who were passable. You would have accused me of being a McCarthyist if I had persecuted the communists. I rather said that the communists infiltrated. There was infiltration. And yet, the guerrilla, this guerrilla boy, what is his name? Bejar? Bejar. Well, Béjar says in his book "The Revolution in the Trap" that there was no communist infiltration. How come there was no communist infiltration! There was Communist infiltration everywhere, man. And in SINAMOS, where Béjar worked, there was more infiltration than anywhere else.
And you fought that infiltration? In a way. I didn't wage war against them, I didn't go out hunting guerrillas like they did once here. I have not persecuted them. I have not persecuted APRA either. I haven't persecuted any party, old man. A man owns his ideas and is free to express them as he pleases. Unless they make him change by force. Or that they brainwash him. One of the points of our revolution was:political plurality. So the Peruvian revolution was for all Peruvians, it was not for a few. I used to say that those who didn't want to be with the revolution, the revolution was going to enter them through their pores at some point.
Did you feel any approximation with any party? Books like "The Invisible Power" have described you as a resentful man, full of bitterness for your poor, harsh childhood. What triggers that for you? It would have been like the scorpion. I would have gotten the poison myself. When I made the revolution, I was already a division general. I had reached the height of my Major General career.
What position did you hold? He commanded the Army and he commanded the Armed Forces. He was Commander General of the Army and President of the Joint Command. Money? I didn't need money, man. I had been as a military attache in France, where I earned quite a few dollars as a diplomat. Later I was a member of the Inter-American Defense Board and there I also earned good money. We saved, I've never been a botarate. This house was made for me by my son, the architect. So this house is before... So I had money, enough to live a comfortable life. I did not make the revolution to fill my pockets. Where is the money that I have stolen? I do not have money. I live with the just. I live on my pension nothing else. Since I'm still sick, I can't do anything else.
If it's not an indiscretion, how much is a division general's pension? Forty thousand? He never made it to forty... So I didn't make the revolution for myself. He had traveled, seen the world, what more did he want?
General, you say that the revolution has stopped, because there has been no measure of transformation. But in the face of the economic crisis, what would you have done? Fix the economic crisis.
Yes, but how? In principle, old man, there is a batch of brats in the key entities. This is not the way to fix the country's economy. I've seen that they just kicked out Guiulfo, a very intelligent young man, they kicked out Barreto, who is a guy with a lot of experience, from the Reserve Bank. Is this how the country is made? The good people have been kicked out and a bunch of brats are left.
Brats, general? To me, brats, old man.
You received a debt of 800 million dollars. And when it came out it was at 4 billion. How could a government like yours produce such a high debt? It depends on what is done. If you go to government and do nothing, you don't spend a dime. The revolution was to make a new Peru. The lands had to be expropriated and those lands had to be paid for. Each transformation cost the country, the accounts are clear. I put the oil pipeline Poechos, Cuajote, Bayóvar, Olmos, the paper factory, fertilizers. Currently he is not going to press the button to make openings.
Inaugurations of what? Of important works that the revolution did.
A while ago I asked you and you did not answer this:What was the worst defect of your government? Let's say, what was your greatest virtue and what was your worst flaw? The best virtue was that it was the first government that fought for the great majorities that were oppressed.
And its worst flaw? The worst flaw of the revolution, well, it had many flaws. Because I acted with people who were enemies of the revolution. There were Belaundistas, Apristas, Communists. We had opponents everywhere, you can even see, old man, that my ministers betrayed me. Or not? They betrayed me because they took me out, betraying me. That was a betrayal.
What were your relations with Expreso? "Express" defended us. "Expreso" defended the Peruvian revolution. All those on the "Expreso" defended the revolution.
Why? I don't know, but they defended her. When "La Prensa" attacked us, the only one who came out and defended us was "Expreso." When "El Comercio" attacked us, the only newspaper that came out in defense of the revolution was "Expreso." He took to them like a dog and cursed at them. He defended us bravely, he defended us bravely. Now, I know there were communists, of course. There was Moncloa, Roncagliolo, there were several, there was a group. But he defended us, old man, he was the only one...
But let's say that that lonely defense ends when the newspapers were expropriated... Well, no, because in good account it was not an expropriation. The newspapers were not removed for the State to manage them, for the government to manage them as it pleased...
But that's how it was and that's how it is... Now I don't answer for anything. Now everything is shit, old man... [with Morales Bermúdez]
His words sometimes seem to express bitterness, general... Bitterness of what? Bitterness against what? Absolutely, old man...
["He's with the best genius in the world", intervenes his wife, who listened to the conversation five minutes ago]
The only bitterness I have is not having completed the transformations. We lacked not only health and experience, but also credit and banking. We didn't want to take over the banks to seize their profits. What we wanted is for the State to own the banks in order to be able to manage credit with revolutionary criteria. Lend to the shoemaker, the plumber, the peasant. What do I want forty thousand soles? Here it is sir. I wanted the agrarian bank to buy forty trucks and for those trucks to travel through the valleys every day to lend money. Lord, do you sow? Such a thing, such a thing. How much do you need? I do not want. What don't I want? Yes, sir, here you are:put the money in his mouth, here you are. Because silver was going to improve. Hey old man, there was no money, these poor people used to buy their crops for five years. These people were scammed, they stole their money... We lacked time, because they fired me. I did what I could. I can't anymore. And look how I came out...
Now, don't let your blood pressure go up. Intervene, Doña Consuelo .
Look what I've won; one leg less, sick...
But everything has its compensations. You have won... [People's love? Doña Consuelo, a question full of irony. I wouldn't say that, I reply] Don't you think you have won, beyond passions and when essences settle; say, a place in history? [The most ungrateful people cannot be, says Consuelo. After so much bitterness, a place in history!] The revolution has had the pleasure of making the transformations that the civilians did not make. The civilians had 150 years in government and they didn't make them. That is why the Armed Forces had to make the revolution. The consolation I have is that the revolution made me vibrate. Because even our enemies vibrated with joy when... (Velasco cries discreetly, he barely has a voice to finish) we recovered Talara. When we recovered Talara we made even Ulloa vibrate... That I have bitterness against anyone...? Against anyone!
Don't you think that in any case you were excessively authoritarian, rigid, despotic? In what case?
For example:deport Armacanqui, deport Duharte, deport Zileri. I was not Minister of the Interior... Zileri continually attacked us, stopped us, slowed us down... The government also has to punish those who attack it. The revolution had to defend itself. He wasn't going to sit back and be told untruths. So they themselves were looking for it, out of madness...
One last question, general:What is, according to your point of view, the political solution for the country? If there is no longer a revolution, then the military government is no longer justified. So there should be a democratic government, right?
That is to say, virtually, a call for elections? Well, that's the only thing invented to date, right?
https://agencias.lamula.pe/2014/10/03/no-termine-la-obra-de-la-revolucion /agencies/