Day of National Dignity in Peru

IPC Nationalization Day 9 October 1968On October 3, 1968, a coup d’état brought to power a “revolutionary government of the armed forces” led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado. Deep social and economic transformations have begun in the country.

The first, which received a huge resonance not only in Latin America, but also far beyond its borders, the step of the new authorities was the nationalization of the property of the American oil company IPC, which had been predatoryly exploiting the national wealth of Peru for 40 years. The IPC was a kind of state within a state, representing one of the worst examples of the implementation in practice of the policy of unrestrained robbery of natural resources of developing countries by concerns of developed countries. In the territory belonging to this American monopoly, their own laws were in force.

At the same time, the IPC did not even bother to pay the taxes owed to the Peruvian state, as a result of which its debts reached a truly astronomical amount, certified, incidentally, by independent experts from France. The Nationalization Day of the IPC on October 9, 1968 became a holiday - the Day of National Dignity.