Terruqueo

The terruqueo is a negative campaigning and often racist method of fearmongering used in Peru that involves describing anti-Fujimorists, left-wing political opponents and those who are against the neoliberal status quo as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, with the tactic primarily being used by right-wing parties and Fujimorists to create a culture of fear. United Nations experts have condemned the use of the terruqueo, describing it as an intimidation tactic used by the government. The term terruqueo is derived from the word terruco, or "terrorist" in English, a neologism which originated from individuals in Ayacucho describing Shining Path guerrillas during the internal conflict in Peru. Historian Carlos Aguire said that the -uco replaced the ending of the word terrorista by Quechua speakers since they typically terminate words with -uco. Since the 1980s, the word terruco has been carelessly used by right-wing politicians in Peru to target left-wing, progressive and indigenous groups, with this baseless and often racist attack being called a terruqueo. Since the 1930s, the political elite of Peru used fear mongering tactics to influence the public by targeting foreign communist movements according to historian Antonio Zapata of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, beginning with Joseph Stalin and later with Fidel Castro. Terruqueos began to appear during the 1980s and would occur throughout Peru's internal conflict. The basis of the terruqueo began during the presidency of Fernando Belaúnde when Legislative Decree 46 broadly defined terrorism as "any form of glorification or defense of the political discourse of subversive organizations". Into the 1990s, authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori utilized terruqueos with the help of the National Intelligence Service to discredit those who opposed him, including dissenters from his own government, with political scientist Daniel Encinas saying that this would evolve into conservative politicians using the attack to target those opposed to Fujimori's neoliberal economic policies and that the right-wing used the terruqueo as a "strategy of manipulating the legacy of political violence".