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Peru: ex-president Alan García committed suicide as police came to arrest him over corruption investigation today. One way and another I came across him a lot in the past 35yrs. The most extravagantly talented Latin American politician and orator of his generation /More
Those talents were in the end outweighed by his huge flaws. His first term (1985-90) was a disaster: hyperinflation, infantile leftism, terrorism. His second term (2006-11) much more successful, though not without fault. /More
Little doubt he took rake-offs in his first term. In his second? Certainly some of his closest aides did. Little or no direct proof against him. Many Peruvians considered him a monument of arrogance and corruption. He claimed he was object of political persecution. /More
In taking his life rather than face 10 days of preventive jail, he showed he remained 100% a political animal. An echo of Getulio Vargas, who commited suicide in 1954, writing "I gave you my life. Now I offer you my death. I fear nothing" /More
García will hope this will give pause to Peru's prosecutors who have locked up four ex-presidents, only one of whom has been convicted. Ironic thing is that Alejandro Toledo, who faces overwhelming evidence of corruption, remains free in US. /End
