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PERU: Rights Groups Applaud Fujimori
Conviction
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Human rights groups
welcomed the conviction of former Peruvian
president Alberto Fujimori, who was
sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday on
charges of murder and kidnapping.
"After years of evading justice, Fujimori is
finally being held to account for some of
his crimes," said Maria McFarland, senior
Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch, (HRW)
who was in the courtroom for the verdict’s
announcement. "With this ruling, and its
exemplary performance during the trial, the
Peruvian court has shown the world that even
former heads of state cannot expect to get
away with serious crimes."
At the end of the 15-month trial, a panel of
judges found the 70-year-old Fujimori, who
was president from 1990-2000, guilty of
ordering two major massacres: the execution
of fourteen adults and an eight-year old boy
in the Barrios Altos neighbourhood of Lima
on Nov. 3, 1991; and the kidnapping,
disappearance and murder of nine students
and a professor from La Cantuta University
on Jul. 18, 1992.
He was also found responsible for the
kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and
businessman Samuel Dyer in 1992.
The murders were committed by an Army
Intelligence Service (SIE) death squad known
as the Colina group, believed to be
supervised by Fujimori’s closest advisor,
Vladimiro Montesinos.
"Justice has been done in Peru," said
Amnesty International (AI) special adviser
Javier Zuniga, who had been monitoring the
trial in Lima. "This is an historic day.
It’s not every day that we see a former head
of state being convicted for human rights
violations such as torture, kidnapping and
enforced disappearances. We hope that it’s
just the first of many trials in both Latin
America and throughout the world."
Fujimori resigned by fax and fled to his
parents’ native Japan in 2000 amidst
allegations of bribery and corruption. In
2005 he secretly flew to Chile in hopes of
running again for president. But he was
immediately arrested, and was extradited to
Peru in 2007.
The ruling confirmed independent findings
from both the New York-based HRW and the
London-based AI that Fujimori was
responsible for the atrocities committed by
the Colina group.
A 2005 HRW report, "Probable Cause: Evidence
Implicating Fujimori", detailed the
substantial evidence then available linking
Fujimori to the Colina group and its
activities.
The evidence included extensive official
documentation and testimony showing that the
Colina group was not a rogue operation, but
existed as a formal structure within the
army. Its members received resources and
logistical support from the highest levels
of the army and the National Intelligence
Service (SIN), which were completely under
Fujimori’s control.
AI, which has been closely following
Fujimori’s trial through local and
international observers, established that
serious human rights violations and crimes
against international law – such as torture,
killings and enforced disappearance – which,
given their widespread and systematic
nature, constituted crimes against humanity,
were committed under Fujimori.
In September 2008, Kate Doyle, a senior
analyst at the Washington-based National
Security Archive (NSA), gave expert
testimony in the trial on the nature of the
21 U.S. documents that were submitted to the
court as evidence by the prosecution team.
During her testimony she noted that the
documents reflected the conclusions of the
U.S. Embassy that Fujimori had engaged in a
"covert strategy to aggressively fight
against subversion through terror
operations, disregarding human rights and
legal norms."
The NSA, a public policy research centre,
posted key declassified U.S. documents
Tuesday that were submitted as evidence in
the court proceedings.
The declassified records contain
intelligence gathered by U.S. officials from
Peruvian sources on the secret creation of
"assassination teams" as part of Fujimori's
counterterrorism operations, the role of the
Peruvian security forces in human rights
atrocities and Fujimori's participation in
protecting the military from investigation.
One document from August 1990 details how
"only weeks after Fujimori’s election," an
intelligence officer working with the SIN
reported to U.S. embassy officials on a
covert plan, purportedly "the brainchild of
presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos,"
to conduct extra-judicial assassinations of
suspected terrorists.
"The training of these new ‘assassination
teams’ is already underway," the source
reported. He also stated that the plan had
"the tacit approval of President Fujimori."
Fujimori is the first democratically elected
Latin American leader to be tried in his own
country for human rights abuses.
"This court’s ruling is important not only
because of its content, but also because it
demonstrates the crucial role an independent
tribunal can play in addressing past abuses
and shoring up the rule of law," said HRW’s
McFarland.
AI found that prior to 1990, human rights
violations were widespread in Peru, and used
this occasion to call for further
investigation and justice.
"Now it is vital that all those responsible
for human rights violations committed in
Peru, including those perpetrated prior to
the government of Alberto Fujimori, be
brought before the courts," said Zuniga.
"Enforced disappearances, torture and rape
are crimes that are not subject to statute
of limitations if they are committed on a
widespread basis, as happened in Peru."
Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in
prison, is already serving a six-year term
after being found guilty in 2007 of ordering
an illegal raid on the home of the estranged
wife of his former spy chief, Montesinos.
The former president also faces future
corruption charges for wiretapping
opposition figures and giving 15 million
dollars of government money to Montesinos,
among other allegations.
Fujimori is not without supporters. He is
credited with curbing inflation and crushing
the Maoist Shining Path insurgency during
Peru’s 1980-2000 "dirty war".
His followers account for 13 seats in the
120-member Peruvian Congress, and his
daughter, Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, is
considered a leading candidate to succeed
current President Alan García in 2011
elections. She said she would pardon her
father if elected.
Defending himself, Fujimori told the court,
"I governed from hell, not the palace." He
blamed Montesinos for any counter-insurgency
excesses and questioned why his predecessors
were not also tried for human rights
violations.
Fujimori is expected to appeal the
conviction before the Supreme Court, but
human rights groups are confident the
verdict will stand.
"We would like to believe that the court
will continue to show the same transparency
and impartiality it has demonstrated during
the trial phase," said HRW’s McFarland.
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