PERU: Ya Ha Firmado

(See front cover)

For many a year a bust of kinetic little Dictator President Augusto Bernardino Leguia has stood in Lima's Governmental Palace bearing the clarion inscription NO FIRMO! ("I Will Not Sign!") This is a reference to the oft-told tale of how, on an occasion since commemorated as Character Day, he refused to sign his own abdication when threatened with death (TIME, Sept 1). The memorial still stood last week, when a hasty paintbrush edited the inscription to YA HA FIRMADO! ("Now he has signed!").

President Leguia had signed not only his abdication. U. S. correspondents who had variously reported him fortnight ago as: 1) staging a counterrevolution, 2) fleeing the country on a warship, 3) sailing from Panama on a U. S. liner, knew last week that he was back in Peru, a very sick man and a prisoner.

Continuously since 1919, off and on since 1908, Augusto Bernardino Leguia has ruled Peru. In that time he has raised Peru to a position in South American affairs only second to the potent ABC powers, Argentina, Brazil, Chile. A network of railways, fine roads have been built. The oil and copper industries have been developed. Peru (not all his compatriots regard this as a blessing) has been opened up for foreign capital. With the aid of U. S. diplomats the 46-year-old Tacna-Arica boundary dispute with Chile has been settled. The disadvantages of the Leguia regime are the disadvantages of any dictatorship. Peruvians have a very great fondness for personal liberty. But in the past 20 years they have had little of it. Hundreds have been exiled, thousands imprisoned, not a few shot for small cause.

One of the great rallying cries of the Leguia regime has been the advancement of Peru's Indian population. Possibly with the best of intentions small President Leguia has not only made enemies of hundreds of old Peruvian families, by confiscation of their ancient estates, distributing their land to Indians, but he has made enemies of the Indians by forcing them into virtual slavery through his road-building campaign. By the law of Conscription Vial (road conscription) all Peruvians must work two weeks a year on Peruvian highways. Moneyed Peruvians evade the road gangs by paying a highway tax, so do other Peruvians who have friends in office. Indians who have neither money nor influence must work on the roads not only for the legal two weeks but so long as greedy contractors can hold them.

Leguia's agents have for years sent him weekly reports—political litmus papers of the public's reaction to his rule. Two months ago, with the successful overthrowing of Bolivia's Dictator President Hernando Siles and his strong-armed Prussian henchman, General Hans Kundt, the litmus turned red. Trouble was brewing in the southern provinces. President Leguia promptly demoted overambitious army officers, closed universities, arrested student agitators. But the trouble spread, the litmus stayed red. One Luis Sanchez Cerro, Colonel of Sappers at Arequipa near the Chilean border, declared open rebellion fortnight ago. In four days, progressing almost without bloodshed, the revolution forced President Leguia to invalidate his statue, sign his own abdication.