Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro
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| Image:President Sanchez Cerro.jpg | |
| Full Title: | 1st President of the Military Junta
Constitutional President of the Republic |
| Term in Office: | August 27, 1930 – March 1, 1931
December 8, 1931 – April 30, 1933 |
| Predecessor: | Manuel Ponce Brousset – (1930) |
| Successor: | Ricardo Elías Arias – (1931) |
| Date of Birth: | 1989 |
| Date of Death: | April 30, 1933 |
| Political party: | None - Peruvian Army |
| Profession: | Liutenant Colonel |
Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro was a peruvian politician, military officer and President of Peru. In August 22, 1930, then a Lieutenant-Colonel, he overturned the eleven-year dictatorship of Augusto B. Leguía after a coup d'état took place in Arequipa. After Leguía renounced, Manuel Ponce Brousset was interim president until Sánchez Cerro was chosen on August 27. The new president flew to Lima and himself served as provisional president until the Military with whom he had effected the coup forced him into exile after six months in office.
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Early Career
Sánchez Cerro was wounded in five places and lost three fingers of his left hand when he seized the spitting muzzle of a machine gun (with his bare hands) and turned it against Government Forces during the overthrowing of President Guillermo Billinghurst, in 1914.
In 1921 they again shot him various times when he was captured Lima in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow President Leguía. In semi-exile abroad he served with the Spanish Foreign Legion in Morocco, where he was wounded. He also served with the Italian army in 1925, and took advanced military studies in France in 1926.
President of the Junta (1930)
In 1931, as President of the Military Junta, Sanchez Cerro awarded Prince Edward VIII of Wales with Peru's Order of the Sun, and proceed to escort the prince and his entourage in the voyage back to the United Kingdom. Sanchez Cerro was awarded in return with the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire.
After six months in office, prominent Peruvian Navy officers held talks with Col. Sanchez Cerro, and told him that only a single regiment in Lima remained loyal to his regime. As a result of this, Sanchez Cerro resigned, stating that he "only wanted to save his country," and that he "had no political ambition." The Navy then selected Chief Justice Ricardo Leoncio Elías Arias of Peru's Supreme Court as the new President of the Republic on March 1, 1931.
President of Peru ( 1931 - 1933 )
In October 1932, the military Junta permitted a national election. Luis Sanchez Cerro was allowed to participate and won the elections by a majority of 19,745 votes. President Luis M. Sanchez Cerro was inaugurated at Peru's Government Palace as the 45th President of Peru.
The results, however, were contested by the main opposition party, APRA.
In March 1932, as he was leaving Lima's socialite Church in Miraflores, an assassination attempt by an unknown individual later identified as Jose Melgar, took place. Melgar attempted to shoot the president in the chest, but missed. The president himself was armed and almost shot his agressor, but was stopped short of doing so by his bodyguards after they arrested the man.
Days after, the president commuted the death sentence of Jose Melgar to imprisonment for 25 years. He claimed that his "action were entirely personal". The assasin claimed that his actions were not "politicaly motivated".
On June 1932, another revolt against President Sánchez Cerro took place in Huaraz. The President closed both the National College and the National University as "hotbeds of revolutions," and appealed for voluntary contributions to purchase three squadrons of bombing planes in order to put down further revolts.
War of Leticia and Assassination
In September 1932, a group of peruvian civilians staged a private raid and seized the Colombian town of Leticia. They then expelled the town's Colombian officials and demanded the support of the Peruvian Government. The surge of patriotism was too strong to be resisted by Sanchez Cerro.
By the Saloman-Lozano Treaty of 1922, Peru ceded to Colombia a "Corridor to the Amazon" at the tip of which is Leticia. However, the Treaty was kept in secret until the end of Augusto B. Leguía Dictatorship, and it was considered null and unequal by the new Authorities under Sanchez Cerro.
By the end of September 1932, both Colombia and Peru were mobilizing men, money and munitions. On February 1933, at least 3,000 Colombian troops with artillery and machine guns were deployed behind the Putumayo River, facing roughly equal Peruvian military forces. At Peru's Military Aviation School near Lima, President Sanchez Cerro approvingly inspected a brand new fleet of Douglas combat planes, just arrived from the United States.
The Council of the League of Nations sent Lima an important telegram, in which Peru was commanded by the Council "to refrain from any intervention by force on Colombian territory and . . . not hinder the Colombian authorities from the exercise of full sovereignty and jurisdiction in territory recognized by a treaty to belong to Colombia."
On April 30, 1933, while at Santa Beatriz racetrack, President Sánchez Cerro had just finished reviewing 20,000 young recruits for Peru's undeclared war with Colombia, when an invididual by the name of Abelardo de Mendoza (member of the suppressed APRA Party) shot him through the heart.
Parliament proceeded to choose a Provisional President to succeed Sanchez Cerro: General Oscar R. Benavides, who had already served a term as Provisional President of Peru in 1914.
| Preceded by: Manuel Ponce Brousset | 1st President of The Military Junta August 1930 – March 1931 | Succeeded by: Ricardo Elías Arias |
| Preceded by: David Samanez Ocampo | President of Peru December 1931 – April 1933 | Succeeded by: Oscar R. Benavides |
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