Over the Hill?

The car stopped outside the Colombian Embassy on Lima's wide, tree-lined Avenida Arequipa. A bulky, broad-shouldered figure hurried up to the embassy door. It was past midnight, but the big man shouted: "Go tell the ambassador that the chief of the People's Party wants to see him." The ambassador appeared and admitted Peru's most famous political refugee to the asylum of his embassy. After three months in hiding, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, 53-year-old boss of the outlawed People's Party (APRA), wanted diplomatic protection and a chance to flee his country in safety.

If Haya had lingered much longer in Peru he might have faced a common murder charge. Two years ago Rightist Publisher Francisco Grana had been shot down as he left his Lima office. Rightists laid the murder to the Apristas, then riding high in cabinet and Congress. Aprista denials were none too convincing; soon the party was on the run before the rightist barrage. Last October APRA was outlawed. Three weeks later, General Manuel Odria seized the government, ordered the immediate trial of seven Apristas who had been indicted for Grana's murder. When the trial opened last fortnight, it was clear at once that the whole Aprista party--including Haya--was really on trial for Grana's death. "Flushed by a dead man!" cried a Peruvian last week on hearing that Haya had turned up at the Embassy.

Haya had made his difficult decision just before New Year's. Summoning the few remaining members of his high command, he told them that he had dissolved the party's ruling committees, appointed a triumvirate to rule in his absence.

The departure of Haya did not necessarily mean the end of Aprismo. It was still a large and tightly knit movement. Peru, a politically backward country, had no mass party to take its place. But Haya's future was something else. His own disciples had begun to criticize him. Nobody could forget that in the party's first long stretch underground (1936-45), the redoubtable chieftain had led his anti-Communist leftists from inside Peru without once being caught. But now, many Peruvians felt that it would be miraculous if he ever came back. Said an Aprista: "I don't think Haya killed Grana--but I believe Grana killed Haya."

Late in 1948 a deputation of independent Congressmen called upon General Odria to convoke a special session of Peru's Congress, which has not functioned effectively since July 1947. Last week they got their answer--in Odria's budget for 1949. Its appropriation for the armed forces: 242 million soles ($16 million). For Congressmen's salaries: not a solitary sol. At week's end, Odria's junta announced that it was assuming all executive and legislative powers.

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