Richard V. Salisbury

The Middle American Exile of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre

On August 23, 1931, the galleries of Limas bull ring, the Plaza de Acho, rang with deafening applause. The object of this public tribute was Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, a young provincial politician who had just finished exhorting his fellow countrymen to join him in a movement for the regeneration of Peru. This day truly belonged to Haya, for it symbolized his return to the lists of Peruvian politics and the resumption of an active national political career that would be stilled only by death almost half a century later. This moment of triumph in the Plaza de Acho must have been especially sweet, for a little over eight years before, on May 23, 1923, Haya, as a young student leader, had organized a protest against the government of President Augusto B. Leguia. Military forces, however, dispersed the demonstrators killing several and wounding many in the process. Hayas reward for this manifestation of anti-establishment behavior was arrest, imprisonment, and ultimately, in October of 1923, deportation. Thus Hayas triumph of 1931 served, at least in part, as a vindication for the events of 1923 and the subsequent years of exile.