REFORMS IN PERU

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32053, 30 July 1969, Page 17

REFORMS IN PERU

President’s Appeal <IV-Z. Preu Aun—Copyright; LIMA, July 28. President Juan Velasco Alvarado said today that Peru could not maintain the status quo and called for extensive reforms, including a new Constitution, to prepare for a nationalist revolution, United Press International reported. In a two-hour address over radio and television, he said: “It would be dangerous for the unity of the continent for those who have the important interests not to understand the new path and the new feeling in Latin America.” “This is not a Marxist revolution,” President Alvarado said. “The new society will not be Communist But we are not going to maintain the status quo. It is a nationalist revolution.”

He said that a new constitution was indispensable to the revolution, which would include business reforms to make businessmen’s “interests compatible with that of the workers.” “The terms of commercial trade with the developed countries must be changed” and the United States must accept the import of manufactured goods from Latin America, he said. President Alvarado, who led a military coup last October and has since watched the economic strength of Peru steadily deteriorate, also demanded that foreign private investment in Latin America be made “more rational.”