IJCentral: International Justice Central

“We haven’t waited 17 years to get justice…we’ve fought 17 years to get justice.”  This quote from Eduardo Gonzalez of the International Center for Transitional Justice is in reference to the victims and members of Peruvian civil society that have been struggling since 1992, without pause, to have Peru’s ex-President Alberto Fujimori face justice for the human rights violations perpetrated during his 10-year regime. We met Eduardo in 2002 when he was working with the Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Commission, and Pamela Yates and I were scouting to make “State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism”, the Skylight Pictures documentary about Peru’s 20-year “war on terror” with Shining Path, which covers the role that Fujimori played in gutting his country’s democracy in the name of security, committing the crimes that led to today’s guilty verdict and 25-year sentence.  Today is a big day for all Peruvians that want their country to be ruled by law, but Fujimori’s supporters will surely retaliate as they are a violent cohort.
It’s the first time a democratically elected Latin American president was found guilty in his own country of rights abuses, and Gisela Ortiz and Raida Condor (pictured here) deserve a lot of the credit for it, as they battled tirelessly for 17 years to see Fujimori face justice for ordering their brother and son killed in the La Cantuta massacre.  In Q&As for “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court” I often point to the example that Latin American civil society presents to the world: since the 60s and 70s, when the majority of the region was ruled by dictatorships, we have come to a present ruled by democracies.  It’s a remarkable achievement of what was considered to be an impossible task: namely, to have military leaders and politicians face justice for abuses committed against their own citizens.  To those who criticize the ICC arrest warrants charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and war crimes, saying that it will be a setback for peace, I say look at Latin America and the role that the rule of law played in the continent’s transformation to democracy.