Jo-Marie Burt

Quien habla es terrorista: The Political Use of Fear in Fujimori's Peru

Scholarship on the decade-long rule of Alberto Fujimori emphasizes the surprising popularity and support for Fujimoris rule. This essay, which analyzes the politics of fear in Fujimoris Peru, suggests that this presents a partial view of the nature of Fujimoris authority. Drawing on a Gramscian conceptualization of power, it explains how coercion achieved a consensual façade by manipulating fear and creating a semblance of order in a context of extreme individual and collective insecurity. It traces the roots of this insecurity in the economic crisis and political violence of the 1980s and 1990s, and explains how the Fujimori regime manipulated fear and insecurity to buttress its authoritarian rule. This essay also complements existing studies on Peruvian civil society, which point to economic factors, such as the economic crisis of the 1980s and neoliberal reforms, to explain civil society weakness. This paper explores the political factors that contributed to this process, particularly the deployment of state power to penetrate, control and intimidate civil society. Resumen La literatura acerca de la década de gobierno de Alberto Fujimori enfatiza la sorpresiva popularidad y amplio apoyo a su orden. Este ensayo, que analiza la política del miedo durante su régimen, sugiere que esta observación presenta una visión parcial de la naturaleza de la autoridad de Fujimori. En base a conceptualizaciones Gramscianas de poder, explica como la coerción adquirió un aspecto consensual a partir de la manipulación del miedo y la creación de un orden ficticio en un contexto de extrema inseguridad individual y colectiva. El ensayo halla las raíces de esta inseguridad en la crisis económica y violencia política de los ochenta y noventa, y explica como el gobierno de Fujimori manipuló el miedo y la inseguridad para fomentar su orden autoritario. Asimismo, este ensayo complementa los estudios disponibles sobre la sociedad civil peruana, los cuales enfatizan factores económicos, como la crisis económica de los ochenta y las reformas neoliberales, en la explicación del debilitamiento de la sociedad civil. Aquí en cambio se exploran los factores políticos que contribuyeron a este proceso, particularmente el uso del poder estatal en la penetración, control e intimidación de la sociedad civil.

The Struggles of a Self-Built Community

AbstractThough they have not yet managed to create a new democratic social order, the residents of Villa El Salvador in Lima did transform a squatter settlement in a vast and inhospitable piece of desert into a liveable community of nearly 300,000 inhabitants.

From heaven to hell in ten days: the genocide trial in Guatemala

ABSTRACT Latin America leads the world in efforts to prosecute perpetrators of gross violations of human rights in domestic courts. Domestic justice offers a number of advantages to international and hybrid tribunals: proceedings take place in close proximity to the site of the atrocities, facilitating victim participation; they are directed by domestic prosecutors and judges, thus contributing to local buy-in; and they can strengthen rule of law and legitimize fragile transitional democracies. The case of Guatemala appears to contradict such arguments, however, given the overturning of the landmark conviction of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity and the ongoing impasse of the proceedings. Drawing on the author’s work as an international observer to the genocide trial, interviews with those directly involved in the case, and comparative research on human rights trials in Latin America, this article suggests an alternative reading. By situating the genocide trial in relation to the broader transitional justice process in Guatemala and in the region more broadly, it argues that current setbacks should be viewed as a backlash to initial transitional justice success that is neither unexpected nor fatal to the accountability process. Second, the article argues that the genocide case is illustrative of a victim-centred approach to human rights prosecutions that hold important lessons for transitional justice theory and practice, and examines the way in which victims of sexual violence were incorporated into prosecutorial strategies and helped to prove that a genocide had taken place in Guatemala. Finally, the article argues that despite the undoing of the genocide verdict, the very fact that the trial took place is historically and politically significant, both for survivors and for the construction of collective memory in Guatemala and Latin America as a whole.

Peruvian Precedent: The Fujimori Conviction and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice

(2010). Peruvian Precedent: The Fujimori Conviction and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice. NACLA Report on the Americas: Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 6-8.

Fujimori on Trial

In 1990, i received the country on the verge of collapse, overwhelmed by hyperinflation and terrorism,” Alberto Fujimori shouted defiantly on the first day of his trial in December for massive human rights violations committed during his 1990–2000 presidency of Peru. “With 50% of the territory in the hands of subversion, the nation was hemorrhaging, the police in retreat, and the army lacking weapons and locked in conflict with Ecuador and Chile. . . . Now the TV ads talk about how Peru is advancing, and this is because of reforms implemented during my government.” Gesticulating wildly and his voice shrill with emotion, he challenged the public prosecutor who had just read the indictment against him: “Thanks to my government, the human rights of 25 million Peruvians without exception were restored.” After several minutes of this tirade, the presiding judge interrupted, pressing Fujimori to plead guilty or not guilty. “I reject the charges,” he proclaimed. “I am innocent!” Three of Fujimori’s four children, along with several of his staunchest supporters in Congress who were observing the trial from behind a thick pane of glass in an adjacent room, stood and applauded Fujimori’s vigorous defense of his government. The pro-Fujimori press declared the opening day of the trial a “knockout” for the defense. In more critical circles, however, Fujimori’s screeching declaration of innocence became the object of ridicule. His cry of innocence was immediately turned into a cell-phone ring tone, and the mainstream and progressive media repudiated the outburst as a crude attempt to “politicize” the trial. While the international media widely reported the theatrical trial opening, it has paid less attention to the detailed, often macabre testimonies that have followed. Victims of the crimes 0 Fujimori on Trial

Case Overturned by Forces of Impunity

O N MAy 10, 2013, bEFORE A PACkEd COuRTROOM, A Guatemalan court declared that it had found former de-facto president General José Efraín Ríos Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. The conviction was handed down for crimes committed against Guatemala’s Maya Ixil indigenous population during Ríos Montt’s 17-month rule in 1982 and 1983, the bloodiest period of Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict. The verdict came 30 years after the crimes and 13 years after survivors brought the complaint to the Public Ministry. The trial started on March 19, 2013 in an increasingly polarized environment. The three-judge panel of presiding judge Yassmín Barrios and her associates, Patricia Bustamante García and Pablo Xitumul de Paz, overcame several attempts by the defense to derail the process before the sentence was handed down. The judgment is a testament to the resilience and courage of the victims who, after three decades of imposed silence, institutionalized impunity, and official denial, dared to speak out in a court of law about the brutal and systematic violence visited upon them during the scorched-earth campaigns orchestrated by the Guatemalan army. It is also a testament to the lawyers, prosecutors, and judges who worked to bring the case to fruition, often under a cloud of thinly veiled threats. That taking note

Defending Rights in a Hostile Environment

Abstract In the context of authoritarian Peru, a coalition of human rights groups has devised innovative campaigns, using its “moral authority” to place human rights concerns on the political agenda.