Condemned
by Jorge Vargas
Please excuse me if I go on. Please excuse me if my words appear to be a ramble, a verbal hemorrhage, a barrage of words.
Please excuse me for these things beforehand, but I have awaited the writing of this article for longer than I can remember.
I have awaited this article since my earliest infancy.
So let me cut to the chase: Former President Alberto Kenyo Fujimori Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, was declared guilty of violations against human rights on 7 April 2009 at approximately 9:42 AM.
The entire Republic of Peru watched the trial. All 28 million Peruvians watched or listened to the speaker as justice gave a list of the proven (beyond a reasonable doubt) events that led to the the guilty verdict against the former tyrant.
Proven: Alberto Fujimori was responsible for the violations of the human rights of the victims of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings in 1991 and 1992 respectively. He is guilty of abuse of power. He is guilty of the kidnappings of 5 April 1992, also constituting human rights violations. He commanded the Peruvian Armed Forces during the years in which that group systematically and discriminately violated human rights.
Proven: Alberto Fujimori was a known accomplice of Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, de facto spy-chief of the Peruvian State during the 1990s, and the power behind the throne of Fujimori's shamed presidency.
The verdict agaisnt Fujimori is a cause for joy and contentment.
His verdict was not a vendetta, it was not the result of a trial of passion, nor was it the ending of a power play deigned to rule illegitimate the State's unmistakeable triumph over the hateful winds of terror that threatened to consume the Andean Republic.
His verdict was the end result of an act of justice.
Not justice in the sense of fairness or equality or pay-back.
The justice in question is the justice of legality. It is the justice of laws and constitutions and courtrooms and international agreements and due process.
It is the justice of impartiality, of laws made and laws observed and laws broken.
It is the justice of ideals, of procedures that, though imperfect in design, were carried out to perfection.
It is the justice of a system that Mr. Fujimori once sought to trample on shamelessly and without regard. It is the justice of Peru.
On 7 April 2009, Peru demonstrated many things.
Peru demonstrated the courage to quickly and readily look into the still-recent past of violence and death that has so darkened the national consciousness. Peru demonstrated the resilience that was required to bring Mr. Fujimori to trial in the first place, following his cowardly retreat to a Japanese Empire that hid behind banal arguments of citizenship and national pride.
Peru demonstrated that the big and powerful are as subservient to the law as the meekest citizen. Peru demonstrated that, despite the myriad imperfections that haunt the Republic, the nation is capable of ethical, moral, and social growth.
Peru demonstrated that presidents are citizens, and that all citizens are equal.
And Mr. Fujimori?
With his scribbling on paper as the court read his sentencing? With his complacent expression as a decade of lies and manipulations were made clear for the world to see?
He demonstrated something too.
He demonstrated that even the most arrogant of men can be humbled by the crushing and inevitable power of the law, of the State, and - most importantly - of the res publica known as Peru.
The world has seen a Peru finally turning to justice.
And the children who cowered from the sight of soldiers loose on the streets? And the infants who listened to the gunfire with a fear so powerful that every part of the soul shook with it? And the innocents who learned, from an experience that no child should ever possess, that soldiers are never heroic but always barbarous?
They saw more than justice.
They saw closure.
They saw that the monster who was in charge of the violence break down and melt away before a judicial power that exists - dare one write it - for the protection of the citizenry, for the protection of children who were forced to cower, who learned to discern between the sounds of gunfire and explosions long before children in other countries even learn the alphabet.
And the dead saw justice, and their survivors were able to release their anguish.
In the meantime, the tyrants shivered and they will continue to shiver, and to cower, and to curse this world because Peru has demontrated that any nation, without help from a superpower, is capable of bringing justice to the monsters, to the sharks, who dominate our lives haphazardly and who sell our dreams cheaply.
On 7 April 2009, Mr. Fujimori was condemned to 25 years, a sentence that will end in February of 2032.
On 8 April 2009, as the day neared its end, I was able to find the words necessary to write the article that had been waiting to escape my soul since I was a child.
An article that could only be written when the darkness of our world finally lost ground to the small candle of justice, to the small candle that can easily start a brushfire.
