Búfalos ('The Buffaloes') is the name attributed to paramilitary squads connected to the APRA Party in Peru, originating in the 1930s.Rosas Lauro, Claudia. El miedo en el Perú: siglos XVI al XX. Lima: Pontificia Univ. Católica del Perú, Fondo Ed.[u.a.], 2005. p. 259Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol. 18. Inter-American Affairs Press, 1964. p. 41Hilliker, Grant. The Politics of Reform in Peru; The Aprista and Other Mass Parties of Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. p. 108ISLA, Vol. 19. I.S.L.A., 1979. p. 317 The name of the group was taken from Manuel 'Bufálo' Barreto, who had led an attack on the O'Donovan military base in 1932. Búfalos have traditionally acted as bodyguards of APRA leaders.Alcántara Sáez, Manuel. Partidos políticos de América Latina - Países Andinos. Salamanca: Ed. Univ. de Salamanca, 2001. p. 444 In the discourse of APRA chief Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, búfalos would be responsible for crowd control during mass rallies.Haya de la Torre, Víctor Raúl. El plan del aprismo, programa de gobierno de Partido aprista peruano. Lima: Editorial Libertad, 1933. p. 50
Búfalos were first organized by the then APRA general secretary Armando Villanueva.González Casanova, Pablo. El Estado en América Latina: teoría y práctica. México, D.F.: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1990. p. 362Griffin Sanders, Thomas, and Howard Handelman. Military Government and the Movement Toward Democracy in South America. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Pr, 1981. pp. 130, 133 Búfalos carried arm-bands with the five-point star party symbol.Szulc, Tad. Twilight of the Tyrants. [New York]: Holt, 1959. p. 175
The height of búfalo activism was during the formative years of the party, 1930-1948, as búfalo cells engaged in assassinations and acts of terror.Castro, Daniel de. Revolution and Revolutionaries: Guerrilla Movements in Latin America. London: SR Books, 1999. p. 176 As the APRA party came under attack from the military, búfalos conducted counter-attacks (including the high-profile assassination of Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro in 1933).Cockcroft, James D. América Latina y Estados Unidos: historia y política país por país. México: Siglo XXi, 2001. p. 531 Bufálos also used to intimidate leftist trade unionists and intellectuals.Griffin Sanders, Thomas, and Howard Handelman. Military Government and the Movement Toward Democracy in South America. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Pr, 1981. p. 120 The groups also organized local protection rackets.Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America 8 Latin America Since 1930 : Spanish South America. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991. p. 448 In the coastal plantation areas, búfalos engaged in violent strike-breaking.Weaver, Kathleen, and Magda Portal. Peruvian Rebel: The World of Magda Portal, with a Selection of Her Poems. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. p. 143
Búfalo activity did however continue, allegedly during election campaigns in the 1960s. When Alan García took over as APRA general secretary in 1982, he began curbing búfalo activities in a move to clean up the image of the party.Gunson, Phil, Andrew Thompson, and Greg Chamberlain. The Dictionary of Contemporary Politics of South America. New York: Macmillan Pub. Co, 1989. p. 49
The fact that APRA maintained paramilitary violent shock troops during the interwar era has been cited as an indication amongst scholars that APRA could be classified as a fascist party during that period.Laqueur, Walter. Fascism: A Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. pp. 282-283Griffin, Roger. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. p. 149 It has also been argued that the búfalo experience of 1930-1948 provided the 1980s Sendero Luminoso guerrilla movement with an endogenous model for 'People's War' in Peru.
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