THE TRIAL OF ALBERTO FUJIMORI

Jo-Marie Burt witnessed the first week of the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori in Lima as an accredited observer for WOLA. This is her report. The trial of Alberto Fujimori began on December 10, 2007, which was also the 59th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Whether he was aware of this irony or not (it is presumed he was not; human rights standards are not exactly his forte), the fact is that Fujimori is accused of exactly the type of crimes that the magna carta of human rights protection aims to prevent: ordering kidnappings and extrajudicial killings and abusing his authority during his term, from 1990 to 2000. The "mega-trial" (as Peruvians call it) of the former president is currently limited to the charges for which Fujimori was extradited to Peru from Chile in September. These include human rights violations in 3 cases: the Barrios Altos massacre of 1991, in which 15 people died; the disappearance and subsequent killing of 9 students and 1 professor from Universidad La Cantuta in 1992; and the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer following the coup d'état of April 5, 1992, in which Fujimori closed Congress, suspended the Constitution, and took control over the Judiciary with the backing of the Armed Forces.