A Peruvian precedent
On Saturday morning an elderly man in suit and tie stepped aboard a rickety Antonov in the Chilean capital, Santiago. His only luggage was a briefcase. When he emerged from the plane nine (!) hours later on a military air base in Peru, a historical event had taken place. It was the first time a former president had been extradited to his home country to face trial for human rights abuses.
The man, of course, was Alberto Fujimori who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000. He faces charges of murder in two different incidents in 1991 and 1992 when a total of 25 people died at the hands of police. Add to that three cases of corruption, including the 15 million dollars he allegedly gave his spy master Vladimiro Montesinos by way of a retirement package.
The case is without precedent. In two other incidents a former head of state has been turned over to an international tribunal. First was the Serbian Slobodan Milosevic who was extradited by his government to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. The other was former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, shipped by Nigeria to the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But never before was a former head of state forced to return home and face a local judge for crimes committed in office.
For Latin America the fact that this landmark extradition took place here, between two countries whose historic animosity is no secret, makes it all the more significant. It sets a precedent for the region.
Bolivians, for instance, will look on this ruling with hope. They want former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada extradited from the US. He is charged with human rights abuses for supposedly setting the military on demonstrators in 2003.
The Fujimori case “is a significant example for Latin America and will serve as a reference point for us,” Rogelio Mayta, a human rights lawyer in Bolivia, told the Christian Science Monitor. A much more poignant case in the region is the former Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega. His case is similar to that of Fujimori’s in more ways than one.
The old CIA-hand has already been condemned to a 40-year prison term for murder by a local judge in Panama. The Central American country has asked the US for his extradition, but so has France, who wants to put him away for 10 years on charges of money laundering. His 17-year US jail sentence ended on September 9 and currently his lawyers are appealing a court decision to send him to France. That raises the question why a judge would extradite a prisoner to a third country on relatively minor charges, when his own country wants him for human rights abuses?
The curious thing about the Noriega-case is that although Panama’s government says it wants Noriega in jail there, few believe it actually does. The former general is still rich, still influential and certainly has a few secrets up his sleeve. Panama’s elite is numbered and many of those, such as justice minister Daniel Delgado Diamante, are old cronies of carapiña, his not so nice nickname poking fun at his heavily pockmarked face. The country’s economy is growing at a great pace so for many a controversial blast from the past is something to be avoided.
In that sense, Peru is no different. Fujimori still has supporters in the country, many of whom turned out in vain to meet the man they call El Chino at Lima’s airport (the flight was deviated, and landed at a military base instead).
In fact the main reason Fujimori left Japan for Chile in November 2005 was because he intended to run in Peru’s 2006 presidential elections. Keiko Fujimori, the ex-president’s daughter, heads his congressional party, controlling a significant bloc.
They also provide the government of President Alan García with a desperately needed majority. “With the same energy with which we have supported the positive initiatives of this government, we will have no problem confronting them if they violate the rights of Alberto Fujimori,” Carlos Raffo, a leading fujimorista congressman, told El Comercio. “We are prepared to do battle, whatever the consequences.”
Opponents of Fujimori are already warning of the possibility that García and cohorts could go weak at the knees. “We should pay close attention to what the government and its allies do,” writes law student Alberto de Belaunde on his blog RealPolitik. He foresees political pressures on the judicial system as it gears up to try the former president. So despite the landmark extradition and the positive precedence it sets, the case of Alberto Fujimori still has a long way to go before anyone can safely say justice has been done.
That said, one country can already claim the moral high ground in this affair. After years of struggling yet failing to put their own past on trial, in the form of General Augusto Pinochet, Chile has finally managed to do the right thing by giving its neighbour its chance to prove itself a mature nation. That feeling was probably best expressed by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley who said, after putting Fujimori on that historic flight, “I feel a great sense of relief.”
First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 25/09/2007
The man, of course, was Alberto Fujimori who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000. He faces charges of murder in two different incidents in 1991 and 1992 when a total of 25 people died at the hands of police. Add to that three cases of corruption, including the 15 million dollars he allegedly gave his spy master Vladimiro Montesinos by way of a retirement package.
The case is without precedent. In two other incidents a former head of state has been turned over to an international tribunal. First was the Serbian Slobodan Milosevic who was extradited by his government to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. The other was former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, shipped by Nigeria to the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But never before was a former head of state forced to return home and face a local judge for crimes committed in office.
For Latin America the fact that this landmark extradition took place here, between two countries whose historic animosity is no secret, makes it all the more significant. It sets a precedent for the region.
Bolivians, for instance, will look on this ruling with hope. They want former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada extradited from the US. He is charged with human rights abuses for supposedly setting the military on demonstrators in 2003.
The Fujimori case “is a significant example for Latin America and will serve as a reference point for us,” Rogelio Mayta, a human rights lawyer in Bolivia, told the Christian Science Monitor. A much more poignant case in the region is the former Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega. His case is similar to that of Fujimori’s in more ways than one.
The old CIA-hand has already been condemned to a 40-year prison term for murder by a local judge in Panama. The Central American country has asked the US for his extradition, but so has France, who wants to put him away for 10 years on charges of money laundering. His 17-year US jail sentence ended on September 9 and currently his lawyers are appealing a court decision to send him to France. That raises the question why a judge would extradite a prisoner to a third country on relatively minor charges, when his own country wants him for human rights abuses?
The curious thing about the Noriega-case is that although Panama’s government says it wants Noriega in jail there, few believe it actually does. The former general is still rich, still influential and certainly has a few secrets up his sleeve. Panama’s elite is numbered and many of those, such as justice minister Daniel Delgado Diamante, are old cronies of carapiña, his not so nice nickname poking fun at his heavily pockmarked face. The country’s economy is growing at a great pace so for many a controversial blast from the past is something to be avoided.
In that sense, Peru is no different. Fujimori still has supporters in the country, many of whom turned out in vain to meet the man they call El Chino at Lima’s airport (the flight was deviated, and landed at a military base instead).
In fact the main reason Fujimori left Japan for Chile in November 2005 was because he intended to run in Peru’s 2006 presidential elections. Keiko Fujimori, the ex-president’s daughter, heads his congressional party, controlling a significant bloc.
They also provide the government of President Alan García with a desperately needed majority. “With the same energy with which we have supported the positive initiatives of this government, we will have no problem confronting them if they violate the rights of Alberto Fujimori,” Carlos Raffo, a leading fujimorista congressman, told El Comercio. “We are prepared to do battle, whatever the consequences.”
Opponents of Fujimori are already warning of the possibility that García and cohorts could go weak at the knees. “We should pay close attention to what the government and its allies do,” writes law student Alberto de Belaunde on his blog RealPolitik. He foresees political pressures on the judicial system as it gears up to try the former president. So despite the landmark extradition and the positive precedence it sets, the case of Alberto Fujimori still has a long way to go before anyone can safely say justice has been done.
That said, one country can already claim the moral high ground in this affair. After years of struggling yet failing to put their own past on trial, in the form of General Augusto Pinochet, Chile has finally managed to do the right thing by giving its neighbour its chance to prove itself a mature nation. That feeling was probably best expressed by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley who said, after putting Fujimori on that historic flight, “I feel a great sense of relief.”
First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 25/09/2007
posted by PIT @ 8:49 PM
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