Fujimori’s Instructive Fall
Cincinnatus, the Roman who was called to serve as dictator and then returned to his farm when the job was done, is an exception in the annals of power. More common is the leader who wields extraordinary power in a time of crisis and promptly forgets the difference between ends and means and is never held to account.
So it was heartening last week to see a three-judge panel of the Peruvian Supreme Court find Peru’s former president, Alberto Fujimori, guilty of human-rights abuses and sentence him to 25 years in prison.
Mr. Fujimori arguably had the makings of a Cincinnatus. He was an obscure agronomy professor in 1990 when he was elected president, and he worked wonders: He curbed hyperinflation and restored economic stability and crushed the Shining Path terrorist organization. He also systematically abused his power. Among a list of horrifying crimes, the court found him guilty of the murder of 25 people, including an 8-year-old boy, by a military death squad. In 2000, facing corruption charges, Mr. Fujimori fled to Japan. Convinced that he was forever a hero, he flew to Chile in 2005 with plans to make a comeback. Instead, he was extradited to Peru.
At his trial, Mr. Fujimori assailed his prosecutors for failing to distinguish “between hate and evidence.” The court, however, found that it was Mr. Fujimori who failed to distinguish between authoritarian excess and the rule of law. It may be, as the fallen president’s supporters have charged, that Peru’s current president, Alan García (who was also Mr. Fujimori’s predecessor), is not a great improvement. But if so, he is now on notice that Peru’s citizens and its legal system are watching.
That’s why this trial is so important. International tribunals, like those dealing with Rwanda, Yugoslavia or Sierra Leone, are an essential last resort in the battle with tyranny. They are unlikely to have the cleansing or educational power of a country’s own judicial system affirming the primacy of law. However popular Mr. Fujimori may once have been in Peru, by the end of his trial, public-opinion polls found that a large majority of Peruvians agreed that he was guilty as charged.
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