-
Cleaning up Col. Leoncio Prado
photos c. Barbara Drake 2009 As I passed through Leoncio Prado park this morning, I caught sight of this municipal worker cleaning the general himself with a hose. A hero/martyr in Peru’s disasterous four-year war with Chile (1879-1883), Col. Leoncio Prado opted to be gunned down by an enemy firing squad rather than surrender his arms. A big statue of him sits in the middle of Leoncio Prado park, across from my house in Miraflores. The Peruvian military owns the park as I found out last July 15 when it was occupied by battalions of soldiers and Masonic dignitaries celebrating Leoncio Prado’s birthday. If you weren’t wearing a uniform or a Masonic apron, you weren’t…
-
Happy (Dead) Leoncio Prado Day
This morning, I woke up to find the park outside our house occupied by about 150 armed troops. It was not a coup. The guys in camo and cadet uniforms and 19th-century calvalry getups were members of the Peruvian military taking part in a tribute to Colonel Leoncio Prado, a hero/martyr in the War of the Pacific (1879–1883). Today marks the 125th anniversary of Prado’s death in 1883. The colonel led Peruvian troops in the ill-fated war with Bolivia against Chile, which resulted in both Peru and Bolivia losing valuable land to the victor. Peru has never recovered from the trauma, which lingers like an open wound in the national conciousness. The country still feels oppressed…
