Tuesday, September 25, 2007

What goes around comes around

It is a surrealistic scene in Peru right now with both Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán and his nemesis Alberto Fujimori in jail at the same time (to say nothing of Fujimori's hatchetman (or master as some would have it) Vladimiro Montesinos, who's also in the slammer).

Fujimori risked everything by leaving his safe haven of Japan to return to South America, Chile to be precise, to apparently try and re-start his devastated political career. He now will stand trial for misappropriation of funds and for human rights abuses related to a military "death squad's" operations in the 1990s.

I have very mixed feelings about this case. Peru was totally screwed and Fujimori saved it. He broke the Shining Path and brought stability, but apparently via systematic extra-legal means.

I also have some doubts about the possibility of a fair trial given that current President Alan Garcia, who lived in exile between the end of his previous term as president in 1990 and when he returned after Fujimori's departure, was subject to two attempts by the Fujimori regime to extradite him back to Peru to stand trial for corruption.

Karma sure can be a beeyoch.