History
by Jorge Vargas
On September 21, 2007, the world received news that, for the first time in several years, democracy had won a clear and unquestionable victory. For the first time in history, a Peruvian dictator would be tried under a modern judicial system for violations against human rights. Furthermore, the world can now say that a dictator has been extradited to his home country, an event that had never before taken place.
On September 21, 2007, Chile proved to Peru that despite an ancient animosity, we Peruvians have no truer friends than our estranged southern neighbors, and though there remain issues between the two nations, there is no question that, being both civilized republics, we will work them out in a matter befitting lands that respect the basic principles of human rights and peace, and though we may not gain all that we wish to gain in the issues that remain, we now have proof that a diplomatic solution can be reached. Chile has proven to the world something more than its inherent unity and friendship with Peru and the other romanticized republics of southern America; Chile has proven that it is a nation with strong and developed institutions, with a just judicial system, and which, despite issues that may have once seemed inimical to the Latin nations, truly respects democracy, though that may be without the fanfare of other, less honest, distant northern neighbors.
Alberto Kenyo Fujimori, ruler of the largest and most geopolitically important of the Andean countries, was extradited back to Peru by a decision taken by the Chilean Supreme Court, which found him worthy of being tried for crimes against humanity on two separate counts. The man who stole millions of US Dollars from Peru's national Treasury, the man who physically tortured his wife for speaking out against him, the man who once walked over the dead bodies of his enemies and kicked them, finding a sick humor in that action, is now being held in a Peruvian police building in Lima, Peru's economic, socio-cultural, and political capital. His followers, who once ruled Peru with an iron fist and a loaded wallet, have now been reduced to the pitiful act of burning tires on some major roadways.
Of course, the Peruvian efforts against tyranny are far from over. We now need to try him, fairly, in our own national judicial system, praying that though justice may not be swift, it will come, and it will be decisive.
We must now do what so many will refuse to do: We must trust in our judicial system. The coming months and perhaps years will prove if the old maxim that 'the worst enemy of a Peruvian is a Peruvian' is true, or not. Yes, it is the case that throughout history, despite the crimes of Spain, the unspeakable atrocities of the United States, the antiquated conflicts with Chile, and the pitiful intentions on the part of our smaller and weaker neighbors, most of the harm done to Peru has been at the hand of Peruvians. After all, all of our dictators were Peruvian, and when a Peruvian comes around with a plan for change, another Peruvian will shoot down the plan before anyone else has time to react. This we know, we have witnessed, and we must accept.
Every nation has a great shame, and some have more than one. Spain persecuted Jews and Muslims for centuries, destroyed rich and ancient civilizations, and plundered an entire continent for hundreds of years. France set up colonial systems in Africa and in its Asian domains that left vestigial elements, which today continue to cause constant hardship and heartbreak in those seemingly cursed lands. The United States has threatened, humiliated, insulted, and murdered innocent civilians throughout the world in the name of a warped sense of democracy, which so many are now finally beginning to understand as the mad ravings of the neighborhood lunatic. Every nation has a great shame that it wishes to hide.
Our great shame does not come from any injustice that we committed to a foreign people. Our dealings with our neighbors, though perhaps at times erroneous, have been just, have almost always been peaceful, and, when locked into a time of conflict - almost always brought about by a foreign government - we have fought with fairness and, above all, with honor.
Yet we have committed an injustice to ourselves. The system that was set up by Spain but which we refined and continued, is today our greatest source of shame. That injustice, brought about by racial ignorance, by socioeconomic necessity, and by self-doubt and self-hatred, was responsible for the internal conflicts that shook our Republic to its very foundations less than 20 years ago. We should be ashamed of the way we have treated those Peruvians who for so long lacked a voice. We should be ashamed of the way in which we treated ourselves.
But the trial against Fujimori will be one step, perhaps the most important so far, on the long road of correcting the crimes that we, the Peruvian collective, blindly committed in the past. We can bring to justice a man who perpetuated all of the crimes and injustices that started with the arrival of those three ominous caravels that landed on the virgin beach of Guanahani some 515 years ago.
The extradition of Fujimori is not simply a Peruvian triumph, but also a global one. Peru and Chile, two nations that were in a dictatorship at some point during the last twenty years, have shown the world a lesson on democracy, on justice, on freedom, on human rights, and on respect for humanity. We protected the most sacred of human resources: Humanity. And we did so without fanfare, without illegal invasions, without false pretenses, and with no interest other than that of the promotion of the ideals that our great philosophers stumbled upon in the Enlightenment but which the world's leaders have ignored since.
