ICTJ in the News

November 18, 2005

ICTJ Op-Ed: Fujimori's Arrest: A hopeful sign for nascent democracies

The Miami Herald

By Eduardo Gonzalez

For decades central characters in the region's unfolding dramas, Latin American strongmen are now facing indictments and prosecutions.

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has become the latest in the string of recently disgraced heads of state, including former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, to face indictments and prosecution. This is a hopeful sign for nascent democracies struggling to affirm the rule of law.

Having left the safe haven he enjoyed for five years in Japan, Fujimori is now sitting in a Chilean prison cell awaiting the results of a request for extradition to Peru. If extradited, instead of realizing his dream of returning to politics, he will face prosecution for crimes including massacres, forced disappearances, torture and large-scale embezzlement.

This is a critical moment, especially for those who opposed the Fujimori regime, which with the 1992 ''auto-coup'' brought an end to the rule of law and orchestrated massive human-rights violations and corruption.

For years, local and international human-rights organizations and advocates profiled the testimony of victims of human-rights abuse in Peru. The hope was that their stories would raise awareness of the regime's true nature and eventually lead to justice and political change.

When Fujimori's regime finally collapsed in 2001, the interim administration followed the South African example and established a truth commission. The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was given a mandate to shed light on the abuses perpetrated against Peruvians by both guerrilla insurgent groups and government counterinsurgency forces.

The commission organized public hearings in which victims told their stories of suffering and resistance. In testimony after testimony, commissioners and the Peruvian public heard not only about the brutality of the Shining Path insurgents, but also about the operations of government-sponsored death squads. The ''war against terror'' was used to justify the crimes committed by the death squads, which included the execution, torture and forced disappearance of unarmed civilians. Nearly 70,000 Peruvians lost their lives during the 20 years of conflict from 1980 to 2000 -- a third of them under Fujimori's regime.

The commission also documented Peru's demise into a corrupt dictatorship that depended on the war on terror for its legitimacy and as a shroud for its corrupt activities. In its final report, the commission described how Fujimori had constructed a counterinsurgency strategy when the insurgency had already been defeated, clamped down on independent media, restricted other civil liberties, crippled his opponents and participated in the rampant corruption.

The Chilean government should be applauded by the international community for taking the first bold steps to ensure that the former dictator does not once again elude standing trial in Peru for the full spectrum of crimes that he is alleged to have committed there.

It would be a tragedy if at this point, when justice is finally within reach, the Peruvian nation's hopes for accountability would die on the sword of diplomatic horse-trading or political machination, as was the case during his sojourn in Japan. At a time when the region's other strongmen are being forced to confront their nefarious pasts and real progress is being made worldwide in bringing former heads of state to justice, Fujimori should face nothing less.

Eduardo Gonzalez is a senior associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice. He was in charge of public hearings and on the final report editorial committee at the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which completed its work in 2003.