Date: Tue, 22 May 2001
"Guilty Until Proven Guilty" in Peru
May 22, 2001 Contact: www.rightsaction.org
info@rightsaction.org
"Guilty Until Proven Guilty"
-- by Grahame Russell, May 2001
Lori Berenson nears the end of her second "trial" in Peru, on charges of
collaborating with the MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) rebel
movement. A final decision is expected in late May, or early June.
Having just returned from a week in Peru observing her trial, visiting
with Lori and other political prisoners in jail, and meeting with
Peruvians working on issues related to human rights and the political
prisoners, I have no doubt that this second court will also find Lori
"guilty" and sentence her to further time in jail - perhaps as many as
20 years.
>>From the moment covert forces grabbed Lori off a bus in the city of
Lima, November 30, 1995, she has been "guilty" of the charges against
her. Both "trials" (a military trial in 1995-96, and this civilian
trial) have not served the interests of justice. They have served the
regime's need to confirm Lori's guilt.
On the website of the Committee to Free Lori Berenson
(www.freelori.org), one can find reports, prepared by US lawyers and
human rights experts who were in Peru observing this second "trial",
that set out a lengthy list of violations of fundamental legal and civil
rights. What is clear from their findings, and from my own trip, is
that Lori is not on "trial" so much for actions she allegedly committed,
but rather for her ideas, and particularly so as to reinforce the
regime's need to confirm the "guilt" of people that they charge with
"terrorism."
Though the pending sentence can be appealed to the Supreme Court of
Peru, there is little doubt that without serious political changes in
Peru, based upon a complete public accounting of the conflict,
repression and terror of the past 20 years, the Supreme Court would also
find Lori guilty.
"Anti-Terrorism"
Over the past 20 years, and particularly during the last 10 years of the
Fujimori regime, all institutions and sectors of the Peruvian society
(including the legal system itself, via the promulgation of the
"Anti-Terrorist Laws" and via the Executive's control and corruption of
judges, lawyers and magistrates) were manipulated and used to blame
society's ills on the "terrorists." It was an easy excuse, and all the
while Peru received considerable international economic and military
support, particularly from the United States.
Since the day she was detained, Lori was labelled a "terrorist" by
political leaders, members of the legislature and judiciary, military
and police officials, and by an orchestrated campaign in the press.
Anyone who might have argued for her innocence kept quiet; speaking in
favor of the right to a fair trial, for someone accused of terrorism,
could and did to charges of "terrorism" being laid against that person!
Internal Conflict and Terror
To understand why Lori will continue to be found "guilty", it is
important to understand the context in which the military regime of
Fujimori used and distorted the concept of who were the "terrorists".
During the past 20 years of internal conflict and repression in Peru,
close to 30,000 people have been killed or massacred, and another 4,000
disappeared. Of this gruesome total, it is estimated that government
forces (military, police, paramilitary and covert death squads) are
responsible for close to 60% of the deaths, and the Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path) armed rebel movement (now pretty much eliminated or in
jail) is responsible for close to 40%. The MRTA (now eliminated or in
jail) is allegedly responsible for less than 1% of the total.
There is no question that State forces planned and employed tactics of
terror in the 1980s and the 1980s, in its efforts to silence any
opposition to the status quo, and in its counter-insurgency campaign
against the armed rebel groups. There is no question that the Shining
Path used widespread terror military tactics in its efforts to overthrow
the Peruvian regime. Many innocent civilians were killed, massacred,
disappeared, tortured and otherwise terrorized by both the State and the
Shining Path.
Thus, while both used terror as an integral part of their military and
paramilitary strategies, it was the State - particularly the Fujimori
regime (1992-2001) - that appropriated and propagated the idea that the
State was fighting "terrorism".
'Vladi-videos'
Only very recently is Peruvian society becoming aware of the depth of
corruption and repression of the Fujimori regime. After illegally
consolidating power in the April 5, 1992 "self-coup", fully backed by
the Peruvian Armed Forces and the international community, "President"
Fujimori named Vladimir Montesinos as his security advisor. Over the
next 9 years, until their ferocious grip on power unraveled in late
2000, Fujimori and Montesinos constructed a (not so) covert State
apparatus based on corruption and repression.
Peruvian nightly news is now showing clips from some of the videos that
Montesinos secretly taped of this corruption, with payoffs from a slush
fund (estimated to be at least 1.1 billions dollars) that Fujimori and
Montesinos operated, with the collaboration of 13 appointed ministers.
Bought and brought into the corrupted shadow government were
legislators, judges, lawyers, leading officials from the Armed Forces
and police, owners of newspapers, radio and TV stations, and corporate
and banking leaders.
This web of corrupted "leaders" of society was backed up by a (not so)
covert state apparatus of repression that counted on the participation
of generals and other officials from the Armed Forces and Police. At
the center of this apparatus was the COLIMA paramilitary death squad.
Yet, even as Peruvian society begins to emerge from 10 years of Fujimori
corruption and repression, learning first-hand of this network of
corruption and repression, there has been no change in the common
understanding of how the word "terrorism" has been manipulated and
abused in a one-sided fashion.
Though it is now clear that the State planned and carried out acts of
terrorism and repression, going well back into the 1980s, politicians,
the press, the church and most human rights groups will not openly
accuse the State of planning and committing human rights violations and
acts of terror.
Though it is well documented that none of the political prisoners
received fair trials, and that many had no substantial links to the MRTA
or the Shining Path, politicians and the press still repeatedly and
almost casually refer to the more than 2,500 political prisoners as
"terrorists".
The point is not to say that armed rebel groups - particularly the
Shining Path - did not commit violations of human rights and acts of
terrorism; they did. Neither is the point that rebel groups are free of
responsibility in the conflict; they should be held accountable.
However, the point is that the State has an arguably greater
responsibility for human rights violations and acts of terrorism, going
further back in history, and yet the State has essentially gotten away
with their crimes and violations with impunity.
Truth Commission
Human rights groups, along with some politicians and some of the press,
are calling now for the establishment of a Truth Commission to
investigate the causes and facts of the internal conflict in Peru over
the past 20 years. If Peru is to have the chance of constructing a just
society, based on the rule of law, real democracy and social-economic
justice, such a Commission is clearly necessary.
But even as they call for such a Truth Commission, many are asking that
this Commission investigate the "terrorism" of the rebel groups and the
"excesses" or "mistakes" of the government!
It might be that most sectors of Peruvian society are still too afraid
of the State to address and challenge this one-sided and distorted
concept of "terrorism." It might also be that they are hanging
desperately onto the concept of the "war on terrorism", so as not to
look directly at just how much the government and the military have
deceived and abused the country and its people.
But if the Truth Commission accepts the double-standard distortion that
the government and military committed "excesses" and "mistakes", then
there is little hope that Peru's structures of impunity, inequality and
abuse will be transformed. There is even less hope that that the
political prisoners will ever get fair trials, let alone honest
revisions of the unjust sentences that most of them received under the
draconian "anti-terrorist" legislation of the Fujimori regime.
*******
Grahame Russell is with Rights Action.
To make tax-charitable contributions in support of humanitarian and
human rights assistance for the political prisoners in Peru, or to
financially support some 60 community relief, human rights and
development projects in Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,
supported by Rights Action, please contact us:
t: 416-654-2074
e: info@rightsaction.org
w: www.rightsaction.org
*******
For more information about the efforts to free Lori Berenson, and to
find out what you can do to help, contact the:
COMMITTEE TO FREE LORI BERENSON
110 Maryland Avenue, NE #102
Washington, DC 20002
T: (202) 548-8480
F: (202) 544-9613
gtaylor@freelori.org
www.freelori.org
*******
Peru | IMF/ WB | PGA