Democratic freedoms quashed in Perú: A call to action
In the mainstream Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, the great Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa demonstrates that even a novelist of his stature can easily confound fact and fiction. Incredibly, at a moment when democratic freedoms in Perú are being trampled and Perú's behavior towards those who protest seem to be modeled after China, Vargas Llosa absurdly heaps praise on Peruvian President Alan Garcia's first twenty months in office. Perhaps because he is in Argentina Vargas Llosa is not in tune with the sad realities that have occurred in his country.
In a letter to you below that Lori wrote on March 21 based on Peruvian news reports, she asks for your help in notifying international human rights organizations to pressure the Peruvian human rights community to not remain silent any longer and to stand up for the preservation of democratic freedoms.
Lori's 2007 end-of-year statement
Thank you for your interest and support over the years. I have been working many hours in the prison bakery so that time passes more quickly as I wait out the remaining years of my sentence. There are still many people like myself, guilty or not of the crimes they are accused of, who are waiting out the next years, some with very lengthy sentences and parole prohibitions, who have not stopped dreaming of a more just world.
With the holiday season and the coming of the New Year I try to remember the most important events of this past year and the things that most surprised me.
Inter-American Court reverses Inter-American Commission in Lori's case
A defeat we could not have expected in our wildest dreams
On December 2, 2004, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the highest judicial body in the Western Hemisphere, incomprehensibly reversed its own position for the past 12 years and demonstrated support for the judicial processes promulgated by the totalitarian regime of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and his "advisor" Vladimiro Montesinos.
The Court supported the position of the Peruvian government against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, which ruled unanimously, 7 - 0, to condemn the system under which Lori was twice tried.
This is a defeat we could not have expected in our wildest dreams. We spoke with Lori and she stoically said the same. She was quite calm but extremely saddened for the hundreds of Peruvian political prisoners who looked at her case with hope that a correct decision would eventually allow them to receive real justice in Perú.
Peruvian Court fails to comply with international standards
On January 3, 2003, Perú's Constitutional Court announced that one of the four anti-terrorism decrees promulgated by the now disgraced autocratic ex-president Alberto Fujimori is unconstitutional and unenforceable, and the other law decrees have serious legal defects. Thus, with the single exception of the most notorious procedure, that of the secret military tribunals, Perú's Constitutional Court has completely failed to comply with prior decisions of the OAS, Inter- American Commission on Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Instead, in an apparent effort to 'create the appearance' that it has taken courageous and historically important steps in reforming Perú's laws, the Constitutional Court has retained within the law mostly all of the abuses instituted by the Fujimori regime, accomplishing the same ends through the civil courts.
Lori Berenson is a US citizen currently being held as a political prisoner in Cajamarca, Perú. After serving nearly five years in harsh Peruvian jails high in the Andes, her conviction for treason against Perú and her life sentence were overturned. In June 2001 she was cleared of terrorism-related charges but convicted of collaboration, and sentenced to twenty years in prison in a trial that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights claims completely violated her rights.