The Great Friendship
by Jorge Vargas
Never in Heaven, Earth, or Hell has such a match been made. They were more meant for one another than Adam and Eve. The friendship between these two individuals transcends any type of adversity and danger.
Forget about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and be careful Frodo and Samwise for you are about to be displaced.
One was on trial and the other, already found guilty of grave violations, still defended his good friend in a very public act of "I've got you covered."
Their friendship goes back some years and when they were in power, these two friends terrorized an entire nation and, essentially, owned that nation. Their case was the most recent and most obvious example of someone financially owning an entire nation - King Louis the XVI be damned.
Vladimiro was promoted by dear old Alberto and Vladimiro used every tool at his disposal to make sure that Alberto stayed in power while Alberto turned a blind eye to any violations that Vladimiro committed. It was a perfect system for both of them. And when the regime fell...
Alberto Fujimori turned on his former spy-chief Vladimirio Montesinos and put on a great show, pretending to chase him all around the four corners of the country despite the fact that Montesinos was long gone and hiding in Venezuela under the auspices of the madman just emerging from his rookie year: Hugo Chavez.
Eventually, Fujimori fled to Japan but was returned - by the Interpol - in October 2007. Montesinos was captured many years earlier and was tried in court and found guilty of several crimes. While Montesinos was being tried, he continually blamed Fujimori for the crimes of the Peruvian State and kept on claiming that he was just following Fujimori's orders.
Fujimori, in the meantime, told everyone that he did not even know Montesinos. “Mr. Montesinos was someone I knew of vaguely and only as it concerned the intelligence efforts against the subversives,” he would say. “Mr. Montesinos had no power in my regime and if he wielded any unofficially, I was ignorant,” he would claim.
But the videos and photographs are there. We saw Mr. Montesinos sitting in at a Ministers' meeting representing you, Mr. Fujimori. Weren't you the President of the Republic, Mr. Fujimori? If he was just a rogue internal spy, why was he addressing the Ministers?
The two friends refused to recognize their friendship. One denied the other, and the other accused the one. I am not guilty, he is guilty said both of the individuals made rich by stealing the moneys of the Peruvian nation.
Frodo was telling Samwise to go back home. Mussolini was betraying Hitler. Stalin was turning on Lenin.
But though the Sun may go down at sunset to be replaced for a while by the lovely Moon whose light brings hope to the darkest depths of night and to the solitude of the accused, the Sun still rises every morning. And as such, all great friendships are eventually remembered.
Samwise returned to dear old Frodo. Mussolini, like Hitler, died for his crimes and they are likely together in Hell. Stalin, like Lenin, became a hero of the USSR.
So Mr. Montesinos remembered his dear old friend Alberto when the prosecutors asked Mr. Montesinos for a statement regarding Mr. Fujimori's knowledge of the death squads that killed countless innocent civilians in the 1990s and on the illegal incarcerations of several influential journalists in Lima, Peru. No, Mr. Prosecutor, Mr. Fujimori really was ignorant of the actions taken by rogue elements of the Peruvian defense forces, said that great friend, Mr. Montesinos, as he threw a sharp grin that perhaps only Satan can understand.
And Satan's emissary on Earth understood Mr. Montesinos' message: I don't touch you, and you don't touch me, because we are still friends, Mr. Fujimori.
Yesterday, a great pact was made; perhaps one of the most influential in Peru's modern history and it was made by the two most embarrassing and shameful examples of Peru's wonderful citizenry.
In 1990, Mr. Fujimori made a pact with Satan, and he sealed it in 1992 when he disbanded Congress. Mr. Montesinos, also plagued in his heart by the vilest form of evil, agreed to protect Mr. Fujimori and, in return, both would be made rich and wealthy.
And the people would suffer.
But this was not the bombing of Coventry. This was not a case of a few being sacrificed for the sake of the greater mass. This was a case of the greater mass being sacrificed for the petty whims of the few.
These two men took the dreams of an entire nation and sold them for a few million Dollars brought about by shady weapons deals. These two men dedicated themselves to building over-priced schools and not staffing them with teachers.
They pushed us into a culture of fear and pretended to protect democracy when, in fact, their evil alliance was made at the expense of that liberty that we so proudly proclaim in our anthem and which we swore never to lose again. If only Simon Bolivar could have met these men; if only they could cross paths with Don Jose de San Martin so that they may remember just how much our liberty cost us.
But they sold it for dollars. The Germans own our airport. The Americans own our mountains. The Chinese own our mines. The Spanish own our telephones. That is the liberty of Mr. Fujimori.
And Mr. Montesinos? His liberty is far worse for his art was cloak-and-dagger. His liberty was a dozen students and a professor shot dead at a party in Lima, Peru. His liberty was the assassination of a bunch of kids at a house party. I do not sing to that liberty when I sing my anthem, gentlemen.
I say the following meaning no disrespect to the President of my childhood and to his right-hand man: Both of you deserve to remain in prison and for your crimes and actions that took away hope from so many in our great but ailed republic, you deserve to rot there as well.
The Peruvian judiciary must remain strong against those obscure individuals who will attempt to bribe them in order to sell off our aspirations for a just Peru. They are our front-line, and we Peruvians can not abandon them to fight the two lions alone if they are to be hounded by those hyenas that long for the days when they could scavenge freely for the spoils of the most successful hunt and killing in our Republic's long sad history.
The Peruvian Government must assist that brave prosecutor and protect that person from those monsters who dream gaily of a Peru that honest Peruvians regard as a nightmare.
And, in the meantime, the testimony of Mr. Montesinos must be ignored and interpreted as what it is: A message to Mr. Fujimori from Mr. Montesinos that the friendship is still very much in force.
But their friendship is not the only strong one, and their friendship is one of convenience and not of love. That prosecutor loves Peru, and so, too, do the judges. And that love is present in millions of other Peruvians and in myself, and together those Peruvians, who are striving for a Peru free from its devils and its lions and from those sharks who prey on the weak and bloodied, will stand up and will be victorious whether it be this year or the following or the following or the following ad infitum because though we may not have all of the answers we know one thing: Peru deserves better than this.
Mr. Montesinos will rot in prison, and now we must see to it that Mr. Fujimori does the same so that any future petty tyrant-to-be will understand what the punishment is for selling off the dreams of our great Peru.
