Juan Velasco Alvarado of the land, the day of winter solstice. The education reform of 1972 provided for bilingual education for the indigenous people of the Andes and the Amazon, which consisted nearly half of the population. In 1975, the Velasco government enacted a law making Quechua an official language of Peru equal to Spanish. Thus, Peru was the first Latin American country to officialize an indigenous language. However, this law was never enforced and ceased to be valid when the 1979 constitution became effective, according to which Quechua and Aymara are official only where they predominate, as mandated by law – a
Juan Víctores de Velasco Juan Víctores de Velasco Juan Víctores de Velasco, O.S.B. (1644–1713) was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Trujillo (1707–1713) and Bishop of Santa Marta (1694–1707). Juan Víctores de Velasco was born in Burgos, Spain in 1644 and ordained a priest in the Order of Saint Benedict. On 19 Jul 1694, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Innocent XII as Bishop of Santa Marta. On 21 Oct 1694, he was consecrated bishop at the convent San Martín in Madrid, Spain. On 28 Nov 1707, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Clement XI as Bishop