This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Peru
Last week I covered Peruvian President Dina Boularte being accused by the Attorney General of human rights abuses. For a point of comparison or precedent, I brought up former President Alberto Fujimori (father of opposition leader Keiko Fujimori) who is currently serving a 25 year sentence for human rights abuses in the same prison as ex-President Castillo. Ironically, this last week the top Peruvian constitutional court ruled to restore a previous Presidential pardon for Fujimori.
Fujimori was President from 1990 to 2000, following a highly populist leader named Alan Garcia1 who ran the country into hyperinflation. Fujimori preceded to liberalize the economy and sent Peru into “Fuji-shock,” a period of short term pain followed by greater stability. The arc is somewhat similar to Pinochet’s neolibreal overhaul following Allende’s populism, inviting the pejorative nickname “El Chinochet,” which apparently Fujimori himself wasn’t so mad about it.
The other similarity between the two leaders was their uncompromising approach to left wing anti-government forces, which in Peru were much more serious than Chile. Aside from the economy, the big issue of the time was El Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group that had been fighting the government for a decade by the 90s (there is an interesting conversation to be had about how much time and money China sunk into spreading its ideology in Africa with little success, only for copycat movements to appear in places like Peru that they never even reached out to). Fujimori addressed this in straightforward fashion by forming death squads and granting them amnesty for human rights abuses, as well as commissioning the armed forces to massacre and mass sterilize Peru’s indigenous population (The Shining Path leadership were European-Peruvians who in theory wanted to draw their membership from the impoverished indigenous Peruvians, but in practice spent more time killing them). Ultimately things caught up with him and he was convicted for directly ordering one of these massacres, as well as for embezzlement.
A later President, Kuczynski Godard, pardoned Fujimori after Fujimori’s son Kenji helped him slide through impeachment hearings over his involvement in the infamous Operation Car Wash scandal that sent Brazilian President Lula to prison. It was pretty nakedly political and the courts reversed it.
So needless to say overturning the ruling now and releasing him from prison is a controversial move. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has protested the decision and urged Peru not to release him, and within a couple days the courts reversed their move and said that he will remain in prison. The decision appears to be reversed again and yesterday Fujimori was officially released from prison. It should still be said that Fujimori is like 85 and probably doesn’t have much longer left anyway, so the main impact of this decision is symbolic. However, the intermediate ruling has unfortunately hit the family twice as hard, and Keiko Fujimori will now be forced to face charges for her role in…also Operation Car Wash.
1Ironically Garcia came back to power in 2006 and oversaw a period of consistent economic growth. He later killed himself after being implicated in, you guessed it, Operation car Wash. If you are wondering if there are any Peruvian politicians who weren’t involved in the scandal, you are not alone.
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