Ollanta Humala Carries the Weight of Whether or Not to Pardon Fujimori http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2012/10/05/actualidad/1349472173_153684.html

 The Fujimori-centered members of parliament pressure the government to choose release.

Newspaper: El País, International Section Author: Jacqueline Fowks October 5, 2012 Photo: Demonstration against the petition to pardon Fujimori. / P. Aguilar (EFE)

The political debate for and against the humanitarian pardon of the Peruvian ex-president has become more vicious with the passage of days. The followers of Fujimori (the “fujimorists”) announced that this Friday they would formally ask for the release of their leader, although in the end nothing came of it. “Those who do not want him, hate him; and those who want him, love him,” said , congressmen and Fujimori’s personal doctor, convicted in 2009 for , speaking of his patient and ex-president.

Eight days ago, the four children of ex-president Fujimori met in Lima and reported that their father had decided, after months of being against that possibility, that he would, in fact, ask for such grace. In reality, the reopening of this debate began on September 20th, when Kenyi, a congressmen and the youngest son of Fujimori, showed the media a photo of his father with an injury on his tongue, asserting that the detention undermined his father’s health and that a pardon was fair.

The ex-president was transferred to a location where he is being held at a clinic in order for them to evaluate if he needs a sixth tongue surgery, this time as a result of a hemorrhaging granuloma. The doctors at the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases have repeatedly explained that the patient Fujimori does not have terminal cancer and that every time he has suffered a cancerous lesion in his mouth, it has been removed.

When the media asked President about the possible pardon, he responded that he could not refer to something that he himself had not requested.

In May 2009, Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for command responsibility in the homicide of 15 people from Barrios Altos – a residential zone in downtown Lima – and the forced disappearance of nine students and a professor from the University of La Cantuta; in addition, for aggravated kidnapping of a businessman and a journalist.

“Until recently, Fujimori’s family have said that they would not ask for a pardon, and that instead they would seek to free the ex-president through legal channels, since they did not accept that the ex-president was guilty, least of all for crimes against humanity,” explained Jo-Marie Burt to El País. Jo-Marie Burt is a political scientist from the who has followed and researched trials following Fujimori’s extradition.

Burt is also Senior Fellow to the Washington Office for (WOLA), an institution that on Wednesday sent a letter to Ollanta Humala indicating that to grant the pardon without complying with domestic and international legal standards would represent a step towards impunity and an erosion of the rule of law in .

“The of Peru’s decision to comply with the Inter-American Court of ’ judgment to annul the Villa Stein sentence in the case of Barrios Altos seems to have closed a legal route in this sense. The Fujimori family will evaluate and decide what is politically favourable to them in pursuing the petition for pardon,” adds Burt. The Villa Stein sentence – which takes the name of Villa Stain, the Supreme Court Justice who dictated the decision—from last July upholds that the crimes of the Colina Group – an army group created during Fujimori’s government – was not a crime against humanity.

Human rights organizations, opinion leaders and the “Perú Posible” (the Possible Peru) – of the ex-president – maintain that the medical group that examines the president should be independent, that Fujimori should pay the civil reparation of 27 million soles to the government, and that he should ask for a pardon for all the crimes committed; however, Kenyi Fujimiro had already anticipated that there will be no repayment or apology.

The hot potato of the pardon is uncomfortable for President Humala, who, when asked about his decision, avoids the question and alleges that it is not on the agenda. “If you insist I will take them to the top of the hill,” he responded on Thursday. The Prime Minister, Juan Jiménez, has also complained to the media about this question because “there are many other problems” in the country.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary delegation of Fujimoristas has been friendly with representatives during the five months of Humala’s government, who are now gathering signatures for a request to question the Defence Minister as a result of the unexplained death of a girl during a counter subversive operation in the central mountains on September 8th. The congressmen listened to the insufficient explanations and contradictions of the Defence Minister midway through last month, but they did not question him at that time. Now, it is a tool with which they can begin to pressure Humala, in order to show how the Fujimorists will be when the opposition wants to play.