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II. Background: The Fujimori Government

Former President Fujimori currently faces charges in twenty-one criminal cases in Peru. Most of the charges relate to corruption and the misappropriation of public funds. The crimes charged are not isolated acts of personal enrichment, however. Rather, they reflect a broader strategy by the government to hold and maintain power through corruption and the manipulation of democratic institutions.

Indeed, during Fujimori’s time in power, virtually all of Peru’s democratic institutions were exploited and captured by the presidency via a combination of strong-arm tactics, extortion, and bribery.  Thus, while maintaining the appearance of legality, Fujimori’s government replaced the rule of law with the rule of the strongman.

The abuses and corruption of the Fujimori government can be traced back to its earliest days, when then-President Fujimori, according to witnesses, started ordering that the phone calls of politicians and others be tapped.  Shortly afterwards, in 1991, the Colina Group, a squad of military and intelligence operatives, allegedly began committing a series of extrajudicial killings and “disappearances” as part of a strategy of physical elimination of suspected subversives. 

On April 5, 1992, with the backing of the Peru’s armed forces, Fujimori dissolved the opposition-controlled Congress in a “self-coup” and took complete control of the government.  In the years that followed, he drew up a new constitution and replaced much of the judiciary.  At the same time, his government made significant progress on the economic front and in fighting the Shining Path.  Thanks to these successes, Fujimori was reelected president in 1995, obtaining a congressional majority.

After the 1995 elections, the Fujimori government respected the formal trappings of democracy, but steadily eroded democratic institutions.  Fujimori ordered that his close personal advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, be given de facto control over the National Intelligence Service (SIN), and, according to witnesses, ordered that millions of dollars be diverted to the SIN from the armed forces and Ministries of Defense and Interior.  In turn, Montesinos used these funds, as well as other illicitly obtained cash, to buy off politicians, co-opt judges, and wrest editorial control from media owners.  In some instances he also obtained loyalty or silence by extortion and blackmail. The SIN and Army Intelligence tapped the phones of journalists, civil society activists, and politicians, kept them under observation, and engaged in undercover operations to intimidate and threaten them.

Montesinos and Fujimori maintained an extremely close relationship. According to various military and government officials, Fujimori introduced Montesinos to them as his representative and the person through which they should communicate with him, and Fujimori met with Montesinos every night.¹  Former Commander General of the Army, Nicolas de Bari Hermoza, has testified that during much of his government, Fujimori actually resided in SIN headquarters, the base from where Montesinos operated.²

By the year 2000, through corruption, extortion, and intimidation, the presidency had achieved near-total control not only over the Congress, but also over the judiciary, the prosecutorial system, the electoral monitoring bodies, the financial and tax system, and a substantial segment of the media, especially television. To date, anti-corruption courts in Peru have charged 1,509 people for crimes committed in this context, and U.S.$197,628,788 of stolen money has been repatriated from foreign bank accounts.³

Control of the Judiciary

Three days after the April 1992 “self-coup,” President Fujimori passed decrees firing thirteen Supreme Court justices and eighty-nine judges across the country.⁴ Provisional appointees replaced the great majority of the judges and justices fired. By the end of Fujimori’s government nearly 80 percent of the country’s judges lacked tenure and were consequently vulnerable to political pressure. In 1995 and 1996, executive commissions headed by government appointees were placed in charge of reorganizing the courts and the prosecutorial system, assuming many of the powers of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General.⁵  These bodies were also responsible for the appointment of provisional judges and prosecutors.

According to a congressional committee that investigated judicial intervention in 2002, these measures enabled Fujimori to push through his candidacy for re-election in 2000, guarantee impunity for his actions, harass his political opponents, and favor the interests of third parties. 

The same committee also reported that immediately after the self-coup, the SIN removed from the Palace of Justice and the Public Ministry large quantities of files containing evidence incriminating Fujimori’s opponents, information that could be later used for intimidation and blackmail.  Such tactics became a hallmark of Fujimori’s regime.⁶  

Another common tactic was to rearrange the composition of courts to ensure a pro-government majority in cases in which the government had an interest.  In 1997 Fujimori’s party, Change 90-New Majority, dismantled the Constitutional Court, a key guarantor of constitutional rights.  It impeached and fired three members of the court who had ruled that a law crafted to allow Fujimori’s re-election was inapplicable.⁷ One of the justices, Delia Revoredo, came under criminal investigation by a Callao court for the import of a car in a case which had long been closed, a typical government tactic.  After receiving repeated death threats, Revoredo sought asylum in Costa Rica.  Once the Fujimori government collapsed, the case was closed and Revoredo was acquitted.

Control of the Press

Montesinos has testified that Fujimori authorized enormous payments to ensure the government’s control over the media, and Fujimori has been charged accordingly.

According to Montesinos’ bookkeeper at the SIN, by 2002 the SIN handled a monthly budget of close to U.S.$9 million.⁸ In the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections much of this money went toward controlling the country’s television stations. Presidential advisor Montesinos gave millions of dollars to the owners of Channel 4 /America, Channel 5 /Panamericana, and Canal 9/Andina, in exchange for editorial control over their broadcasts. He bought Channel 10/Cable News outright for $2 million. Each of these transactions was recorded on videotape.⁹

Particularly notorious was the case of Channel 2 /Frecuencia Latina, whose majority owner, Israeli-born Baruch Ivcher, was stripped of his Peruvian citizenship in July 1997, which violated his rights under the Constitution and barred him from owing a television station. Minority shareholders beholden to the government took over the station and its editorial line changed accordingly.  A criminal investigation was also initiated against Ivcher and his family; like Revoredo, Ivcher was acquitted after the Fujimori government’s collapse.

Montesinos also handed over money regularly to the owners of yellow press tabloids in exchange for front page headlines ridiculing and insulting opposition politicians and journalists.