Standing in the packed courtroom annex as a Supreme Court panel this week sentenced the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori to 25 years in prison for two massacres and two kidnappings, I had mixed emotions. As a human rights advocate who has pressed for Mr. Fujimori to be tried, I rejoiced in this once unthinkable moment. Sitting next to me were relatives of massacre victims, listening solemnly to a verdict that took over three hours to read.
At the same time, I worried that people would forget how we got here. Mr. Fujimori was widely embraced for bringing order to our country. As a Peruvian who lived in Lima during the 1990s, I once shared that sentiment.
When Mr. Fujimori was first elected in 1990, Peru was increasingly under assault by a Maoist insurgency group, the Shining Path, and the economy was a wreck. In April 1992, as a teenager, I watched in disbelief the televised images of tanks rolling downtown in the Peruvian capital and congressmen being arrested. Mr. Fujimori had shut down Congress and taken complete power. Yet I shared in the widespread relief that someone was acting to end the chaos.
I had to take flashlights everywhere because of the frequent blackouts from when the Shining Path blew up electric transmission towers. Many nights I heard bombs explode as the armed group inched closer to the capital. But what we were experiencing in Lima was nothing compared with the unchecked violence in the Andes. My family had given up traveling to the countryside out of fear that insurgents would kill us.
Mr. Fujimori projected discipline and austerity. He'd give press interviews at dawn, over a sparse breakfast, and would then go straight to work. I often saw photos of him grinning, wearing a "chullo" wool cap, dancing to popular "chicha" music and embracing peasants. If there was a flood in some remote part of the country, you could be sure he would personally swoop in on a helicopter to direct the relief efforts.
He also seemed to get results. Police investigators found and arrested the head of Shining Path, Abimael Guzmán. Mr. Fujimori took full credit for the arrest, and had Mr. Guzmán paraded before the news media in a cage wearing a striped prison uniform. The Shining Path movement largely fell apart afterward.
For many, daily life also got easier. I could visit regions that were once off limits. Mr. Fujimori opened the markets and privatized state-owned businesses. Previously bare supermarket shelves brimmed with imports. You no longer had to wait six months just to get a phone line installed. My relatives encountered less paperwork in government offices.
So for years, few people looked closely at the reports of death squad operations, kidnappings and corruption. But the bribes and extortion grew more blatant, as did Mr. Fujimori's efforts to hold on to power. The country I left in 1997 was in the hands of a mafia. Polls suggest a majority of Peruvians think that Fujimori is guilty of human rights violations, and that the abuses could have been avoided. But even today, some will argue that he should not have been convicted. Not because he wasn't guilty, but because he got things done.
Our democracy remains fragile. If crisis hit, would Peruvians turn to a strongman again, no matter the cost? Maybe. But we have come a long way since the 1990s. Perhaps most important, this week justice was finally delivered - by one of our own courts. This suggests that next time Peruvians may be able to put their trust in democratic institutions, not autocratic leaders.
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is a senior researcher for the Americas division
