Raúl Zibechi: Fujmori's Trial ... An Opportunity for Peru
[Raúl Zibechi is a member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha in Montevideo, Uruguay, a teacher and researcher focused on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to social groups. He is a monthly collaborator of the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org). Translated by Tony Phillips.]
... The nervous 69-year-old Fujimori, suffering from hypertension, arrived in Lima on Sept. 22, looking like a caricature of the once-great leader who sneered at adversaries. Fujimori was not elected on merit; rather his election was a protest vote against Mario Vargas Llosa who ostentatiously represented the light-skinned, Lima-based Peruvian elites. The Andean ethnic and mestizo majorities of Peru soundly rejected the openly colonial pretension of Vargas Llosa, leading to Fujimori's triumph.
Shortly after he took power, it became more than evident that a cold-blooded, implacable, and calculating tyrant was ruling the country. He quickly established an ironclad alliance with the business sector and the military. He offered his friends bloody pacts and money in exchange for impunity and a rash of corruption.
In April 1992 he launched an internal coup. Fujimori shut down Congress and manipulated the judiciary by firing members who opposed him. By these means he concentrated power in his own hands and from then on governed with the support of the Peruvian military. He deepened all the problems he inherited coming into office—the dirty war, corruption, militarization of the country (especially in rural areas), and privatization of the economy, opening the doors to multinationals in the mining, oil, and public services sectors. As dictators are wont to do, Fujimori launched expansive public projects that lavished contracts on his friends. These supposedly essential projects left the country wracked by bankruptcy and in its wake followed hyperinflation.
In his favor, one can say that Fujimori did bring an end to the war and cause a spurt of growth in the economy. The end to the war was attained at a great cost in human rights and the disappearance and torture of thousands of people. Many innocents were arrested and sentenced by anonymous judges in a continuous parody of justice. Fujimori took the helm of a nation wracked by war; an unusual war in that one side, the Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path, was responsible for more than half of the 69,280 victims verified by the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CVR). This was a war waged against the poor rural Quechua-speaking population—79% of the victims were from rural regions and 75% spoke indigenous languages (including Quechua). But by the time Fujimori endowed himself with absolute powers, the rural farmers were already opposing the Shining Path, organized in "rounds," and they were winning, as noted by the Editor of La Republica, Mirko Lauer.2
The sentence of the Chilean Supreme Court brings to light the true face of the Fujimori cult. The 212-page judgment based on the declarations of the ex-commander of the Army, Nicholas Hermoza Rios, and of members of the "Colina" death squad denies Fujimori's alleged "ignorance" of the massacres and the infringements of human rights. "There are clear indications that Fujimori, after the coup, had firm control of all of the concentrated state powers and the supreme command of the military and intelligence forces, and furthermore that he created a special group within the armed forces tasked with operations against individuals suspected of subversion and political enemies of his regime."3...
Read entire article at http://americas.irc-online.org
... The nervous 69-year-old Fujimori, suffering from hypertension, arrived in Lima on Sept. 22, looking like a caricature of the once-great leader who sneered at adversaries. Fujimori was not elected on merit; rather his election was a protest vote against Mario Vargas Llosa who ostentatiously represented the light-skinned, Lima-based Peruvian elites. The Andean ethnic and mestizo majorities of Peru soundly rejected the openly colonial pretension of Vargas Llosa, leading to Fujimori's triumph.
Shortly after he took power, it became more than evident that a cold-blooded, implacable, and calculating tyrant was ruling the country. He quickly established an ironclad alliance with the business sector and the military. He offered his friends bloody pacts and money in exchange for impunity and a rash of corruption.
In April 1992 he launched an internal coup. Fujimori shut down Congress and manipulated the judiciary by firing members who opposed him. By these means he concentrated power in his own hands and from then on governed with the support of the Peruvian military. He deepened all the problems he inherited coming into office—the dirty war, corruption, militarization of the country (especially in rural areas), and privatization of the economy, opening the doors to multinationals in the mining, oil, and public services sectors. As dictators are wont to do, Fujimori launched expansive public projects that lavished contracts on his friends. These supposedly essential projects left the country wracked by bankruptcy and in its wake followed hyperinflation.
In his favor, one can say that Fujimori did bring an end to the war and cause a spurt of growth in the economy. The end to the war was attained at a great cost in human rights and the disappearance and torture of thousands of people. Many innocents were arrested and sentenced by anonymous judges in a continuous parody of justice. Fujimori took the helm of a nation wracked by war; an unusual war in that one side, the Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path, was responsible for more than half of the 69,280 victims verified by the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CVR). This was a war waged against the poor rural Quechua-speaking population—79% of the victims were from rural regions and 75% spoke indigenous languages (including Quechua). But by the time Fujimori endowed himself with absolute powers, the rural farmers were already opposing the Shining Path, organized in "rounds," and they were winning, as noted by the Editor of La Republica, Mirko Lauer.2
The sentence of the Chilean Supreme Court brings to light the true face of the Fujimori cult. The 212-page judgment based on the declarations of the ex-commander of the Army, Nicholas Hermoza Rios, and of members of the "Colina" death squad denies Fujimori's alleged "ignorance" of the massacres and the infringements of human rights. "There are clear indications that Fujimori, after the coup, had firm control of all of the concentrated state powers and the supreme command of the military and intelligence forces, and furthermore that he created a special group within the armed forces tasked with operations against individuals suspected of subversion and political enemies of his regime."3...