Civil Guard Guardia Civil |
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Motto | El Honor es su divisa como la madre patria Honor is its emblem with the mother country |
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Agency overview | |||||||
Formed | 1873 | ||||||
Dissolved | 1988 | ||||||
Superseding agency | National Police of Peru | ||||||
Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency | ||||||
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National agency | Peru | ||||||
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Anniversary | August 30 |
The Civil Guard (Spanish: Guardia Civil) in Peru was formed as main preventive police force of Peru in 1922. It was organized and trained by a Spanish police mission sent to Peru at that time. It was not a detective force, investigations being carried out by the Investigative Police of Peru founded in the same year, while the old Republican Guard still had certain police missions. The Civil Guard was later renamed the General Police, which merged into the new National Police of Peru in 1988.
The Guardia Civil Benemérita Peru (now the National Police of Peru) was the corps of police that had as its mission: maintaining public order, while not requiring the use of armed force and the prevention of crimes and misdemeanors, the protection of people and their property, maintaining the free movement on public roads, vehicular traffic control, among others. Depended from the Ministry of Interior.
The origins of the PCG dates back to 1873, when President Don Manuel Pardo approved and signed two Supreme Decrees on December 31 of 1873 (published in the Diario Oficial "El Peruano" on January 28 of 1874) and March 23 of 1874,respectively, providing for its creation. By virtue of Supreme Decree signed on December 31 of 1873, with legislative approval made on April 3 of 1874 he formnally reorganized the police in the following manner:
It also refers to "urban and rural stations and of the Regular Police Force divided into Gendarmerie and the Civil Guards, respectively", thus the decrees formally marked the birth of the service. That same year, Congress reported that Civil Guards units would commence their duties in every part of the nation.
On November 9 of 1874, President Don Manuel Pardo Lavalle opened the Civil Guard Instruction School which was formed by a company of 50 men in the basis of the Battalion of Infantry Gendarms of Lima, its first cadets.
During the War of the Pacific, the Civil Guard had a notable performance fighting alongside the Peruvian Army and it was in the victorious Battle of Tarapacá where one of its officers took part whose work was critical to the Army which obtained the victory in such actions. Guards Subinpsector Mariano Santos Mateos, the brave Guardsman of Tarapacá, was then assigned to the 25th (Civil Guard) Infantry Battalion "Guards of Arequipa", composed of 6 Civil Guard companies, and managed to capture, in the battle, the regimental Colonela (flag) of the "2nd Line" Infantry Regiment of the Chilean Army in the name of the nation, was after the victory in that batlle being congratulated for his heroic action and was promoted to the next higher rank of Guards Inspector. All through the course of the war, the Civil Guard, then a part of the Ministry of War, fought in all the battles of the conflict.