Keiko Fujimori is just fifteen in 1990 when her father Alberto wins a surprise victory in Peru’s presidential elections.
She is attending school at the prestigious, private, Catholic College, Sagrados Corazones Recoleta two years later when on 5th April 1992 the President stages an Army coup. Tanks drive to the front of the Congress and Senators are tear-gassed. TV and radio stations and newspapers are raided by armed soldiers.
Making a statement on television that evening, Fujimori senior says he has “dissolved” Congress “…as the initiation of a search for an authentic transformation to assure a legitimate and effective democracy.” After initial international shock, US President George Bush offers his support two weeks later, apparently more concerned by the growing maoist terrorist movement in the Peruvian highlands.
As I write in 2017, it seems that Peru is still searching for the transformation. Fujimoris are still in power. There is no effective democracy. Politicians subvert and undermine legal institutions. Truth is obscured by a media dominated by private interests, and deliberately distorted by congress members and congress committees, supported by a staff of hundreds working in congress and paid from public funds to distribute slander and malicious memes on social media.
Alberto Fujimori had spent much of his two years leading up to the coup denouncing the congressmen and the judges, and the more he did so, the more his approval ratings rose in the polls. In the months leading up to the coup, he had 65% support whilst that for congress dropped to 20% in March 1992.
It was possible for congress to remove a President for “moral incapacity” and in December 1991 the Senate passed a “moral” censure after Alberto had made a speech accusing some legislators of having links to drug smuggling.
It was undoubtedly as true then as it it today. It takes money to become a politician, there is little oversight of where the money comes from, and congress members are in a position to avoid facing justice for many crimes. Congress is a very expensive private club, membership of which has historically put you above the law. It is hardly surprising that many of the members are criminals. In any case, the cocaine industry was 40% of the gross national product in 1990.
The second House, the Chamber of Deputies, failed to support the Senate´s move, but it did allow Fujimori Senior to “victimizarse”, to make himself the victim, to accuse others of plotting against him. He said his closure of Congress was an “anti-coup” and his supporters call it a “counter-coup”.
He initially planned to rule by diktat – on the streets of Lima people largely supported the coup – but under pressure from the USA and the Organisation of American States (OAS) he agreed to hold elections for a new congress. In the intervening six months he signed into law hundreds of decrees firing judges, bank officials and state financial controllers,
and concentrating power in the hands of the executive.
When the new assembly was elected Alberto had majority control. A new constitution, which allowed the President to stand for a second term, to fire judges and to decree laws, was narrowly passed in a referendum.
TIMELINE 1990 – 2000
November 1991. 15 people including children are murdered at a street chicken party, a pollada, in Barrios Altos, a poor district of central Lima. Polladas are a form of street fund-raising where neighbours pay so much per head to eat fried chicken, often to support unexpected family costs such as medical care.
March 1992. Fujimori Senior´s wife Susana Higamuchi calls a press conference to claim that charitable donations of clothing from Japan for the poor of Peru were being stolen and re-sold by Alberto´s sister Rosa and brother Santiago. Many millions of dollars of contributions were placed with two charitable foundations managed by the siblings.
Keiko`s aunt and uncle escape to Japan but remain wanted for trial in Peru, 26 years later. Peru has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Keiko’s mother and Alberto Fujimori`s wife later alleges in court that Alberto Fujimori
had paid 12.5 million raised in Japan for the Peruvian poor into a private bank account. She claimed that she had been tortured by the intelligence services, and then removed from the country to Chile, where she was declared insane, her children testifying against her.
July 1992. A bomb goes off in Calle Tarata in Miraflores – the most pituco, posh, part of town – killing 22 people.
Keiko Fujimori is studying in the US, her tuition fees paid by cash delivered in
envelopes, 10,000 dollars at a time, by Vladimir Montesinos or other members of the quaintly named SIN, National Intelligence Servicio.
At this time much of the country is terrorised, literally deeply frightened, by bomb attacks on police stations, electricity pylons, kidnappings of health workers, foreigners.
In Lima dogs have been strung from lamp posts, and there are curfews. Many wealthy people leave, or send their children away to Madrid and London.
Lima people will tell you of this. But the real terror was outside Lima, in the Sierra, the high Andes, of Ayacucho and Andahuayllas. Here, the terrorists would descend on small villages and kill all the inhabitants, men, women, and children.
Beginning in 1980 University Professor Abimael Guzman created in Sendero Luminoso, Shining Path, a peasant army to fight the “old state”. Its heartland was in the region of Ayacucho, the Highlands six hours south-east of the capital Lima. where 40% of the deaths would take place. Terrorist tactics included assassinating local mayors and justices, as well as community and union leaders. In Lima, the weapons of terror were car bombs and selective assassination of government ministers.
Initially, poorly trained police were sent in from other parts of the country and their violent behaviour reduced public trust. Later the army took a controlling role. They saw it as a war of occupation and set out to retake territory, treating the inhabitants as enemy combatants rather than passive victims of the conflict.
The army murdered whole communities, as did the terrorists, and buried the bodies in mass graves which are still coming to light.
Years later, a Truth and Reconciliation Committee toured the towns
and villages of the Sierra to gather testimonies as a process of recognising, confessing, and forgiving. The eventual report, available on the web in English, Spanish and Quechua, says that of the 140,000 dead, roughly 55% were killed by terrorists and 45
% by the army (http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ingles/pagina01.php).
For some, the report’s conclusions are unacceptable and the whole concept of investigation and confession, some kind of betrayal of the armed forces.
All army personnel, the heroic saviours of the country from terrorism or the grotesque perpetrators of hidden barbarities according to taste, were exonerated by a Fujimori Presidential Decree on June 1995.
President Garcia will also attempt to introduce a 3 year time limit – in effect, an amnesty, for human rights violations by military personnel – in 2010, which could be used to protect him from prosecution for El Fronton, La Baguas, Lurigancho…
18 July 1992. Nine students and a professor disappear from La Cantuta University. Military personnel have been on the campus that night. Head of the armed forces General Hermoza says that military could not be questioned in court for reasons of “security”.
September 1992. Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) Terrorist Leader Abimael Guzman is captured.
1 April 1993. Congressman Henry Pease states in parliament that he has received an anonymous memo from a group of Army officers stating that the Cantuta students have been kidnapped and murdered, in an operation authorised by General Hermoza and Vladimir Montesinos.
Vladimir Montesinos is the presidential adviser who runs the National Intelligence Agency SIN, amongst other things. He lives with Alberto Fujimori and family in the Army base of El Pentagonito, for protection, and teenage Keiko calls him “Uncle Vlad”.
This is the building where journalist Gustavo Gorriti was held after being seized by SIN on the night of the coup. He was released after three days through international pressure.
Later, human remains will be found in ovens in the basement of the building. It is thought that SIN kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people and disposed of the bodies here.
20 April 1993. General Hermoza appears before a congressional commission and denies any knowledge of the La Cantuta operation. He suggests the students could have kidnapped themselves or been taken by terrorists. The Army later issues a statement accusing the Congressional opposition of abetting terrorists. On the next two days, Army tanks and armored vehicles parade round central Lima.
May 1993. Army General Rodolfo Robles confirms that a death squad called Grupo Colina consisting of army operatives operated under instructions from Montesinos and with the knowledge of General Hermoza. He seeks refuge in the US embassy.
The Military High Court charges General Robles with insubordination and making false statements. General Picon, a judge in the Military Court, says in a TV interview that Robles had “mental problems” and if he, General Picon, were in the same situation, he would be so ashamed that he would commit suicide.
24 August 1993. Attorney General Blanca Colan closes the civil investigation into the La Cantuta killings to avoid duplicating the work of a recently opened Military investigation.
February 1994. The Military Court finds nine individuals guilty of the La Cantuta kidnappings and murders, and sentences the two commanding officers to twenty years in prison.
January 1994. Demetrio Chavez Penaherrera, “El Vaticano” is arrested in Bogota and extradited to Peru where he is tortured in a military prison. He supplied cocaine paste to Colombian cartels from 1991 to 1993 with 280 flights, two or three a week, from an airstrip in the upper Huallaga valley of Peru. At his trial he said he paid US$50,000 monthly to Vladimir “Uncle Tio” Montesinos and the local military commanders to allow his flights. He had left for Colombia when the tax was increased to US$100,000.
January 1994. After a tied vote from the Board of Prosecutors for the election of the Attorney General, Congresswoman Martha Chavez introduces a law saying that in the event of a tie, the most senior candidate will take the post, to ensure that Fujimori´s 1992 appointee Blanca Colan will be returned to office. It was later revealed that Montesinos via SIN paid Blanca Colan 10,000 US dollars monthly during her years as Attorney General from 1992 to 2001.
43b The Zoo to Miraflores
August 1994. Keiko Fujimori becomes First Lady of Peru after her parents`divorce. Keiko Fujimori has never held any post other than as a politician in her father’s party. At the age of 19, she is waving to crowds from an open topped car and attending dinners with heads of state, as First Lady to her father.
January 1995. Ecuador seizes part of the territory of Peru in the Amazon.
April 1995. A judge reopens the investigation into the killing of fifteen people at a chicken party in Barrios Altos. General Hermoza and other military refuse to testify.
June 15 1995. Albert Fujimori signs an “amnesty law” that pardons all Army officers accused of human rights violations since 1982. The La Cantuta killers who had been convicted two years earlier are freed and the Barrios Altos investigation is halted.
September 1995. Alberto Fujimori launches a “sexual health” programme at the Beijing World Conference on Women which includes voluntary surgical contraception – sterilisation by tubal ligation. Between 1996 and 2000 260,000 women will be operated on. It appears that the initiative is supported financially and logistically by the US AID Programme. The health officials have targets of up to 50 operations per day and the numbers of sterilised are compiled and reported directly to the president’s office.
Fujimori supporters in 2017 say the claims are defamation from their opponents, though the basic facts are published in a report from the Ministry of Health, whose compilation, like the Truth and Reconciliation Report, was intended to be a part of the national healing and moving on. Others tell me “these people (the indigenous indians) are lice and fleas. Lice and fleas.” There speaks the authentic voice of the Conquistadors.
May 1996. 174 kgs of cocaine is found on a Peruvian Air Force DC-8 Jet heading for Europe.
In December 1996 the terrorist organisation MRTA storms the Japanese Ambassadors Residence in prime real estate Lima. 72 high profile guests are held hostage for four months.
Aug 27 1998. Fujimori senior visits his children Keiko and Kenji in Boston, where they are studying. Back in Peru, Congress votes narrowly to torpedo a referendum on Fujimori’s attempt on a third consecutive term as President, forbidden by the 1992 Constitution. The referendum is stalled by just four votes: Congressman Luis Chu is bought by “Uncle Tio” Montesinos with a $130,000 payoff, Miguel Ciccia is bought by buying off pending legal problems.
Nov 21 1998. Former General Rodolfo Robles identifies an individual arrested by police for the intimidatory bombing of a television station studio in Puno as one of the Grupo Colina members. It is the same General Rodolfo Robles who in the May 1993 had revealed the involvement of the Grupo Colina military group in the La Cantuta killings. Five days later army agents seize him on a street in Lima. As he is thrust into a car he calls out “They are from Intelligence. Tell journalist Hildebrandt!” The retired general`s arrest has been ordered by the military court.
1998 Montesinos purchases 10,000 used Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles from the Jordanian Army through Lebanese arms dealer Sarkis Soghanaliaa. The intention is to sell them to Colombian FARC terrorists.
43b The zoo to Miraflores
May 23, 2000. The army high command issues an official statement denouncing “the naturalized Peruvian Baruch Ivcher” for criticising the armed forces. Iver was the head of the TV channel 2 which after being a loyal supporter of the Fujimori regime had begun in late 1995 to investigate in particular the activities of Montesinos and SIN.
September 14, 2000. A cable TV channel broadcasts a video showing Montesinos bribing Congressman Alberto Kouri fifteen thousand dollars to switch his support to Fujimori’s party. The video had been released by Montesinos’ close personal assistant within SIN, Matilde Pinchi Pinchi. Thousands of similar videos are later found: the owners of Channel 2 being offered US$500,000 a month to ban appearances of the political opposition on their channel, Channel 4 owners getting $1.5 million a month for similar cooperation, the owner of Channel 9 receiving $50,000 to cancel an investigative series called SIN Uncensored.
The videos are all taken in the same room with a brown sofa, and a low table. Montesinos sits to one side and places paper bags filled with stacks of dollar bills on the table as he negotiates his bribes. In one such video, Luz Salgado takes part in a meeting and after the guest has left, looks towards the wall and asks Vlad where the camera is.
In 2016 Luz Salgado will be appointed President of Congress by Fuerza Popular.
In September 2000 Alberto Fujimori authorises a payment of US $ 15 million from the national treasury to Montesinos before he flees to Venezuela in a private yacht, via Galapagos and Costa Rica.
November 13, 2000. Alberto Fujimori leaves the country on a state visit to Brunei. Four days later he travels to Japan, from where he faxes his resignation. Congress refuses to accept his resignation and votes 62-9 to remove him from office on the grounds of disabilidad moral permanente, Permanent moral disability.
Over the next several years, there is a process of national reflection. A Truth and Reconciliation Commision (Commision de Verdad y Reconcilation, CVR) conducts extensive interviews across the country and presents an 8000 page Report, published online in Spanish and English. Legal proceedings are begun against some of those responsible for the abuses of power that have taken place.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission explains: “in the midst of the urban offensive of the Sendero Luminoso, sectors from all social strata indicated a willingness to exchange democracy for security and tolerate human rights violations as the necessary cost to put an end to subversion.”
In 2006, Alberto Fujimori is arrested in Chile, on the way back to Peru to take part in presidential elections, although he is banned for ten years to stand for any political office. Polls indicate that 12% of the electorate would have voted for Alberto in the 2006 elections if he had stood as a candidate. He is eventually tried and sentenced to 25 years in jail for managing the death squads that carried out the killings of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, a further seven and a half years for embezzlement of the money given to the fleeing Montesinos, and six years for phone tapping. Other charges are pending.
Fujimori Supporters Slogan 2017 “The Greatest President Peru Ever Had”