Catholic Responses to the Crisis of Everyday Life in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Since the end of the 1980s, Peru has undergone a dramatic political and economic transformation. The failure of traditional political par ties to solve the country's deepening economic crisis and political vio lence led Peruvians, especially poor Peruvians, to turn to a former university rector and political unknown, Alberto Fujimori, in what some saw as a last desperate attempt to stave off total breakdown. In 1990, Fujimori took over the reins of government in the context of hyper-inflation and a growing threat from the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla movement. In his first year of office, Fujimori implemented a draconian shock therapy program, despite having cam paigned against such policies during the elections. Like his counter parts elsewhere in the region, Fujimori jumped on the global bandwagon of neo-liberal economic reforms.1 Feeling increasingly frustrated by political opposition parties in the legislature, Fujimori shut down the Congress in April 1992 and suspended the constitution in a coup d'etat that undermined the country's fragile democratic tran