Day of the Generals

The 5-soles airmail stamp issued by Peru’s military government is not not only an artistic success; it symbolizes very concisely what the generals, who overthrew the democratic-liberal President Fernando Belaúnde Terry on October 3, 1968, have in mind for their volatile country. The head and shoulders of an heroic young man are split down the middle by darkness and light; on the dark side (left) the young man is wearing a uniform and helmet, and in the background are the oil wells of Talara that General Juan Velasco Alvarado took from Standard Oil’s International Petroleum Company (IPC) a few days after the coup; on his right side the young man is wearing an Indian’s knitted cap while behind him a golden ear of wheat sprouts in the sunlight.

Peru, as I drove into Lima from the airport, had changed significantly. The expensive and offensive smell of fishmeal, from the nearby port of Callao, no longer hung over the runways: The herring that had given Belaúnde a boomlet of sorts had moved elsewhere or been fished out. The first sign that greeted me was YANQUIS don’t GO HOME BUT, IF YOU must please call us! At almost every intersection were posters depicting Tupac Amaru II, the descendant of the Incas who had led a populist revolt against the Spaniards in the eighteenth century, and from whom Uruguay’s leftist kidnapers take their name. When I was living in Lima four years ago, only scholars had heard of Tupac Amaru who had once said, “Peasants! The boss will no longer eat of your poverty!” I noticed that the broad avenue on which the American embassy faces had had its name changed from Wilson to Garcilaso de la Vega—another descendant of the Incas who made good.

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Selden Rodman

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The 5-soles airmail stamp issued by Peru’s military government is not not only an artistic success; it symbolizes very concisely what the generals, who overthrew the democratic-liberal President Fernando Belaúnde Terry on October 3, 1968, have in mind for their volatile country. The head and shoulders of an heroic young man are split down the middle by darkness and light; on the dark side (left) the young man is wearing a uniform and helmet, and in the background are the oil wells of Talara that General Juan Velasco Alvarado took from Standard Oil’s International Petroleum Company (IPC) a few days after the coup; on his right side the young man is wearing an Indian’s knitted cap while behind him a golden ear of wheat sprouts in the sunlight.

Peru, as I drove into Lima from the airport, had changed significantly. The expensive and offensive smell of fishmeal, from the nearby port of Callao, no longer hung over the runways: The herring that had given Belaúnde a boomlet of sorts had moved elsewhere or been fished out. The first sign that greeted me was YANQUIS don’t GO HOME BUT, IF YOU must please call us! At almost every intersection were posters depicting Tupac Amaru II, the descendant of the Incas who had led a populist revolt against the Spaniards in the eighteenth century, and from whom Uruguay’s leftist kidnapers take their name. When I was living in Lima four years ago, only scholars had heard of Tupac Amaru who had once said, “Peasants! The boss will no longer eat of your poverty!” I noticed that the broad avenue on which the American embassy faces had had its name changed from Wilson to Garcilaso de la Vega—another descendant of the Incas who made good.