Armando Villanueva del Campo

Armando Villanueva del Campo (Lima, November 25, 1915 - Ib., April 14, 2013) was a Peruvian politician, historical leader of the Peruvian Aprista Party. (APRA). He served as President of the Council of Ministers of Peru during the First Government of Alan García, and was also President of the Senate and President of the Chamber of Deputies.

Biography

Son of the deputy Pedro Villanueva Urquijo and Carmen Rosa del Campo, he continued his primary studies at the Colegio Sagrados Corazones Recoleta and his secondary studies at the Colegio San Luis de los Hermanos Maristas (Barranco), which he completed in 1932.

He was a close collaborator of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder and leader of APRA. In 1931, he registered in said party, based in the Miraflores district. The following year he accompanied the APRA leader Luis Felipe de Las Casas Grieve in the founding of the Adelante Center for Revolutionary Studies.

In 1934 he was one of the founders of the Aprista Youth Federation (later called Peruvian Aprista Youth), of which he was general secretary. His first arrest occurred in November of that year, when he participated in the failed attempt to capture the Barbones Military Barracks to seize the weapons and start an armed revolution against the dictatorial government of Óscar Benavides. The detainees were taken to the penal island of El Frontón. Released in April 1935, he returned to the clandestine political struggle and organized the first Congress of the Aprista Youth Federation; At the same time, he entered the Faculty of Letters of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

He dedicated himself to multiple partisan activities until he was arrested in 1938; He was freed in 1940, and in May of the same year he was deported to Chile; He tried to return in 1941, but was deported again. In 1943 he returned to Peru with Carlos García Ronceros, together they settled in Arequipa, where they supported the formation of the National Democratic Front (FDN), whose organization had been entrusted by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre to Ramiro Prialé. The FDN included the participation of young politicians of various ideologies, including future president Fernando Belaúnde Terry, and brought President José Luis Bustamante y Rivero to power in the 1945 elections.

After the banning of the Aprista Party, following the failure of the revolutionary attempt of October 3, 1948, directed against the government of President José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, the coup d'état led by General Manuel Odría and Villanueva suffered a new prison, from November 1948 to December 1951. He was then deported to Mexico. At that time he held the position of General Secretary of the Coordinating Committee of the Aprista Exiles.

In 1953, in Argentina, he was director of the magazine Síntesis Económica Americana; Later in Chile he worked at Los Tiempos and Última Hora and was director of Panorama Político until 1955. That same year he returned clandestinely to Peru to promote the party organization.

Political life

Deputy (1963-1968)

In 1963 he was elected deputy for Lima.

President of the Chamber of Deputies (1967-1968)

In 1967 the members of his chamber elected him President of the Chamber of Deputies. During his administration and on his initiative, the Museum of Congress and the Inquisition was established on July 26, 1968. His legislative mandate was interrupted by the dissolution of Congress, when the coup d'état led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado took place on October 3, 1968.

At the beginning of the Dictatorship of Juan Velasco Alvarado, he led the APRA opposition, being its collegiate secretary, until his exile in 1975. After the death of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, he disputed the leadership of APRA with Andrés Townsend, remaining at the head of the party, and running unsuccessfully for the presidency in 1980.

Senator (1985-1990)

In 1985 he was elected Senator for APRA for the period 1985-1990.

President of the Senate (1986-1987)

On July 26, 1986, he was elected President of the Senate. The following year he chaired the Foreign Relations Commission of that chamber. He also chaired the Organizing Commission of the XVII Congress of the Socialist International (1986).

Minister of the Presidency and president of the Council of Ministers (1988-1989)

After the resignation of Guillermo Larco Cox, on May 13, 1988 he was appointed as Minister of the Presidency and on May 17, 1988 he was appointed president of the Council of Ministers by former president Alan García. As such he announced that he would implement a policy of “gradual corrections”. Villanueva had to support the "paquetazo" September 1988 and face the wave of social protests, the violent episodes of repression against miners and peasants, the demands for the president's resignation and the armed strikes by the Shining Path.

Minister of the Interior (1989)

At 73 years of age he assumed the Ministry of the Interior, he faced social protests and the terrorist actions of the MRTA. Finally, after the murder of APRA congressman Pablo Li Ormeño, which appeared to be a Shining Path attack, Villanueva resigned on March 1, 1989. The letter that reported his resignation denoted tiredness and frustration. In May of the same year he resigned from all his positions in the Cabinet.

Senator (1990-1992)

In 1990 he was re-elected as senator for the period 1990-1995, his position was interrupted in 1992 by the dissolution of Congress decreed by former president Alberto Fujimori.

During the government of President Alberto Fujimori, Villanueva presided, as extraordinary ambassador, the delegation of parliamentarians to the guarantor countries of the Protocol of Peace, Friendship and Limits of Rio de Janeiro (1991).

In 2004, during the government of President Alejandro Toledo, he was elected President of the Ayacucho Forum, created on the occasion of the South American Community of Nations being established in Lima. In addition, he is representative of Peru before the Situations Group of the Human Rights Commission (Geneva) and leader of the Permanent Commission of Political Parties of Latin America (COPPPAL).

Death

On Sunday, April 14, 2013, he died at the age of 97 at the San Felipe clinic in the city of Lima. His remains were initially laid to rest at his residence in the district of Santiago de Surco, and were taken on Tuesday the 16th to the People's House. On Wednesday he was taken to the Federico Villarreal National University, where he had a brief tribute, then to the Plaza de Armas, where the mayor and the president of the Republic greeted the coffin, recognizing his fruitful political life. Subsequently, the procession went to the Congress of the Republic of Peru for a special tribute, since Villanueva was president of the Chamber of Deputies and Senators. At around four in the afternoon, the coffin was entered into the El Ángel de Lima Cemetery, for his burial.

Works

• Between defamation and silence (1971)
• The Great Persecution (2004)
• Arrogant Montonero. Conversations (2011)
• The book Red. The Beginnings (2015)

Distinctions

• El Sol del Perú, to the degree of Gran Cruz, Government of Peru
• Medal of Honor of the Congress of the Republic, Congress of the Republic of Peru
• Order to Merit, to the degree of Grand Cross, Peruvian Air Force
• Order to Merit, to the degree of Grand Cross, Peruvian Navy
• Order Bernardo O’Higgins, to the degree of Gran Cruz, Government of Chile
• The Condor de los Andes, in the rank of Grand Officer, Government of Bolivia
• Order of the Liberator, to the degree of Gran Cordón, granted by the Government of Venezuela
• National Order to Merit, to the degree of Grand Cross, granted by the Government of Ecuador
• Condecorating the Lord of Sipan, granted by the president of the Lambayeque Region
• Grand Order Chan Chan, in the rank of Grand Officer, Region La Libertad
• Medalla de Honor, Colegio de Periodistas del Perú
• Medalla de Honor, Federación de Periodistas del Perú
• Distinction to democratic values Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola
• Medalla de Lima, Municipality of Lima (2011).
• Medal of Honor of the Great Constitutional Lodge of Peru, awarded by Grand Master M:.R.H:. Julio Carlos Pacheco Giron
• Condecoration of the Order of the Sun and the degree of Sovereign Grand Diner, of the Great Constitutional Lodge of Peru, granted at the Ceremony of 1.♪. Anniversary of Freemasonry Day in Peru, instituted by D.S. signed by Peru's Constitutional President Alan García Pérez.