Armando Villanueva Del Campo (25 November 1915 – 14 April 2013)
Armando Villanueva Del Campo
(25
November 1915 – 14 April 2013)
He was the leader of the
Peruvian American Popular Revolutionary
Alliance. Born in Lima, his
parents were Pedro Villanueva Urquijo, a gynecologist in the city, and Carmen
Rosa Portal del Campo. His only legitimate sibling was his older brother Ing.
Pedro Villanueva del Campo Portal.
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| Armando y Lucia Ortega |
At the age of 15
Villanueva became a member of APRA's Juventud Aprista in
opposition to the military dictatorship of Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro. At the age of
18 he was imprisoned in El Frontón prison (located on the small island of San Lorenzo off the coast of Callao, Lima's main
port) for his subversive activities in Peru. He was a political ally and
personal friend of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, the founder
and most prominent leader of the APRA party.
Villanueva spent most of
his early life in different prisons for his political activities. In 1940,
along with other APRA political activists, Villanueva was exiled to Chile. Between the 1940s
and 1960s Villanueva would spend his time in between Peruvian prisons and
deportations to Chile and Argentina. While living in Santiago he met and
married Lucia Ortega. They had a daughter: Lucia del Pilar Villanueva Ortega.
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| Armando y Victor Raul Haya de La Torre |
In late 1961, before a
general amnesty was granted to members of APRA, Villanueva entered Peru
clandestinely. He needed to start organizing the multiple party cells in
preparation for their return to full political activities. Afraid that he would
caught, he sought refuge at his cousin's house in San Isidro. Ana Maria
Villanueva de Riva-Vercellotti was married to an Italian, and Armando was
convinced that Peru's secret police would never find him there. He was able to
stay there, unperturbed, till full amnesty was granted.
From 1963 to 1968
Villanueva served as a deputy in the lower house of the Peruvian legislature
representing Lima,
serving as President of the House of Deputies from 1966 to 1967. Villanueva led
the Aprista opposition to the military government of Juan Velasco.
The death of Haya de la
Torre in 1979 propelled Villanueva as leader of the APRA party. As leader of
the party Villanueva ran for the Presidency in 1980 resulting in a second place
loss to the Popular Action party candidate Fernando Belaúnde. It is said that he lost the
elections because the opposition mounted a negative campaign against him,
claiming that he was married to a Chilean-born citizen. Chile's victory in the Guerra del Pacifico in 1883, which resulted
in Peru losing a large chunk of its southern border to Chile, is still a
subject of bad feeling in Peru.
In 1985 Villanueva was
elected to the Peruvian Senate and given the position of President of the
Senate. During the Presidency of Alan García
he was given the position of President of the Council of Ministers (Prime
Minister). In 1990 Villanueva was elected to his last term in the Senate, from
1990 to 1992.
Villanueva retired in
2005 at the age of 90, to dedicate the rest of his life to his family and
writing. In May 2005, with the death of his cousin Ana Maria, he also assumed
the title of family patriarch. He died on 14 April 2013 at the age of 97.
