Francisco Morales Bermúdez
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Francisco Remigio Morales-Bermúdez Cerruti (October 4, 1921 - July 14, 2022) was a Peruvian politician and general who was the de facto President of Peru (2nd President of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces) between 1975 and 1980, after deposing his predecessor, General Juan Velasco Alvarado. His grandfather and all his original family were from the old Peruvian department of Tarapacá, which is now part of Chile. Unable to control the political and economic troubles that the nation faced, he was forced to return power to civilian rule, marking the end of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces installed by a coup d'etat on 3 October 1968.
Biography edit
Francisco Morales-Bermúdez was born on October 4, 1921 in Lima, and is the grandson of Remigio Morales-Bermúdez, who was president of Peru from 1890 to 1894. In 1939 Morales entered the Chorrillos Military School and graduated with the degree of second lieutenant in engineering. It was the Ministry of Finance and Commerce during the government of Fernando Belaúnde and later during the dictatorship of Juan Velasco Alvarado, where it introduced important reforms in the tax regime.
On August 29, 1975, he led a coup against Velasco called "Tacnazo" under the excuse of "eliminating personalism and deviations." He subsequently proclaimed himself president of the republic and announced the beginning of the second phase of the Revolutionary Process of the Armed Forces, an idea which he would later abandon due to economic wear. Among his first actions were to purge several generals and politicians linked to Velasco from the government, while on the other hand he allowed the return of opponents exiled by the Velasco government, including former president Belaúnde.
Contrary to the nationalist and statist economic policies of Velasco, Morales encouraged private investment in the economy and reduced subsidies. Despite these measures, the Peruvian economy continued to devalue, forcing the government to suspend constitutional guarantees and impose a curfew. Already by 1977, the poor economic conditions that the country was experiencing generated that a large part of the population began protests throughout the country demanding the end of the military dictatorship, which forced Morales to convene a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution and later convene presidential elections to elect a democratic president, where former president Belaúnde would be elected president again, thus ending the military regime in Peru.
In 1985 Morales founded the Democratic Front of National Unity and ran for the presidential elections that year, where he obtained 0.83% of the vote.
In 2007, the Italian justice system requested the extradition and capture of Morales and other members of the Peruvian military junta for the disappearance of 20 Italians in the context of Operation Condor. Morales received the support of President Alan García, who claimed that Morales had no relationship with Operation Condor. In 2012, the Argentine federal judge Norberto Oyarbide ordered the capture of Morales due to his involvement in the kidnapping of 13 political opponents who would later be transferred to Argentina, where the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla would send them to concentration camps. In 2015 the Italian justice would resume the trial against Morales along with 32 others involved in Latin American dictatorships. That same year, a judicial investigation was opened against Morales in Peru for crimes against humanity. In 2017 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Rome, however because Morales has not been extradited he is still not serving his sentence and currently lives with complete impunity in Peru.
In 2021 Morales and 63 other ex-military officers called on the armed forces to carry out a coup to prevent President-elect Pedro Castillo from coming to power. These calls were repudiated by the armed forces.
In 2022 he was sentenced to life imprison in Italy. He died on July 14, 2022 at the age of 100 in a Lima hospital, without ever serving his life sentence in prison.