Francisco Morales Bermúdez

Francisco Remigio Morales Bermúdez Cerruti was a Peruvian general and politician who served as the country’s de facto president from 1975 to 1980. He took power by ousting his predecessor, General Juan Velasco, but was ultimately unable to manage the political and economic crises gripping Peru, leading him to hand authority back to a civilian government. This transfer ended the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, which had been established by a 1968 coup. Like Velasco, Morales Bermúdez followed a Third Way approach. He was the grandson of former President Remigio Morales Bermúdez.

Born in Lima on 4 October 1921, he was the son of Army Colonel Remigio Morales Bermúdez. His grandfather and all his original family came from the old Peruvian department of Tarapacá, now part of Chile. He was mostly educated at Lima’s Colegio de la Inmaculada and entered the Escuela Militar de Chorrillos in 1939. After graduating, he became a key figure at the Centro de Altos Estudios Militares.

Morales Bermúdez rose to brigadier general and took his first political role in 1968 as Minister of Economy and Finance under President Fernando Belaúnde, resigning after two months due to internal government problems. Later that year, after Belaúnde was overthrown, the military government of General Juan Velasco asked him to return to the same post. He resigned again in 1974, this time to become Commander-in-Chief of the Peruvian Army. In 1975, he was appointed both prime minister and minister of war under Velasco.

As Velasco’s health declined, Morales Bermúdez led a military coup against him on 29 August 1975 and became president, steering the country through a severe economic crisis. Early in his term, he spoke of “socialism” as a government goal, but months later he stopped using the term, saying its meaning was unclear. He explained that many on the right confused socialism with communism, while others gave interpretations that did not match the ideological bases of the revolutionary process. He moved away from the nationalist, revolutionary tendencies of the first phase of the Peruvian Revolution (1968–1975). His regime took part in Operation Condor, with Peruvian forces helping the Intelligence Battalion 601 kidnap Argentines in Lima in 1980. Near the end of his tenure, a housing crisis emerged, marking the start of the Lost Decade. Under pressure from all sides, he failed to implement successful political or economic reforms.

In 1978, amid a spying scandal with Chile, Morales Bermúdez declared the Chilean ambassador Francisco Bulnes Sanfuentes persona non grata and ordered him to leave in January 1979. This followed the execution of Julio Vargas Garayar, who was convicted of selling information to Chile and became the last person executed by Peru to date. His administration convened a Constituent Assembly in 1978, which replaced the 1933 Constitution from Óscar R. Benavides’s presidency. After elections in 1980, he handed power to the first democratically elected government in 12 years, led by President Fernando Belaúnde.

After leaving office, Morales Bermúdez kept a low profile in Peruvian politics, occasionally speaking about the army. In 1985, he ran unsuccessfully for president, winning less than one percent of the vote. He was prosecuted by Italian judge Luisianna Figliolia for the forced disappearance of 25 Italian citizens in Peru during Operation Condor, a U.S.-backed campaign of political repression by right-wing South American dictatorships. On 17 January 2017, a Rome court found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment in absentia. On 16 June 2021, he was among 63 former Peruvian military officials who signed a letter claiming the armed forces could disobey and disavow a president elected in violation of the constitution, in response to the election of President-elect Pedro Castillo. The Ministry of Defense quickly stated the letter did not represent the armed forces. Morales Bermúdez turned 100 on 4 October 2021 and died at a hospital in Lima’s Miraflores District on 14 July 2022. At his death, he was the oldest living state leader.