On Thursday it was learned thatThe highest court of Peru gave free rein to the pardon that had been given in 2017 to the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), but which was later taken away in 2018.
The Constitutional Court (TC) issued a ruling that restored the humanitarian pardon given to him in 2017 by then President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, in a decision that reopened the deep division generated by the controversial politician in Peru, a country that has been in political instability for several years .
Despite the internal controversies, in the relationship with Ecuador it was a key piece to close the stage of conflict between the two countries.
This is what Alejandro Suárez, director of the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador, mentions, who mentions that during his stay in the Presidency of Peru his position against Ecuador had three stages.
The first was when President Rodrigo Borja (1988-1992) was still there, who proposed a papal arbitration that was not accepted, but produced a positive response from Fujimori, who presented a counterproposal that opened the possibility that the two countries could talk. There was a visit in February 1992. Later that year he was also at the change of command in which President Sixto Durán-Ballén (1992-1996) took office, whom Fujimori visited again.
“A close relationship is established between the two presidents (Fujimori and Durán-Ballén), and relations enter a very positive stage (…). Things were going very well, there were cooperation projects between the two countries; The dialogue on the territorial issue had not yet started, but the foundations were already being laid for that dialogue to be fruitful. We don’t know what happened, but the fact is that in 1995 the Cenepa war broke out and relations became complicated. And there is a transformation of President Fujimori, who even went to the scene of the fighting to proclaim that Peru had recovered Tiwintza, which was not true; he wanted to give a propaganda coup, ”says Suárez.
At this point, Paco Moncayo, former mayor of Quito and who during the 1995 conflict was the commander of the Ecuadorian Army, He thinks that this happened because there were elections and Fujimori wanted to give an image coup by showing himself next to the soldiers.
“Mr. Fujimori made war on us (…); he was a candidate and he thought he was going for a walk, that he was going and raising the flag and it was the tremendous closing of his campaign. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, he failed and he had to sit down to negotiate peace”, comments Moncayo.
Suárez recalls that Fujimori and the Peruvian government maintained a very hard position during that time. But soon after came the peace talks, which began with the Itamaraty peace declaration in February 1995. The subsequent negotiation process had several stages, until 1998, when the two countries had agreed that, apart from the substantive issue, territorial, the two countries were going to talk about other issues in the field of cooperation, integration, confidence measures and more.
In 1997, the then president, Abdalá Bucaram, even visited Peru and met with Fujimori, something that according to him the military did not like and that was a factor in why they overthrew him that year.
In the end, to improve the platform for negotiations, the two countries proposed to negotiate a border integration agreement, a navigation agreement on the eastern rivers, an agreement on confidence and security measures.
“Curiously, those agreements were the proposal that Fujimori made in 1992, when he came to Ecuador (…). The negotiation took place in 1998 and was successful; but in May, as no negotiation progressed in the territorial sphere, relations began to tense dangerously again. Then there is a change of command in Ecuador and Jamil Mahuad assumes the presidency, and it is resolved, given that the negotiating commissions did not reach an agreement, that the two presidents take charge of the issue (…), but neither do they to an agreement,” says Suárez, who adds that Fujimori’s decision to change his foreign minister, Eduardo Ferrero —from a hard line on the issue—, and to put in the position the one who had led the Peruvian negotiating commission, Fernando de Trazegnies, it was something important. He also deposed Nicolás Hermoza, who was head of the Joint Command of Peru and also had a hard and warmongering line.
“Then, the scenario is transformed with that decision of President Fujimori, who takes it to favor the negotiation process with Ecuador. (…) Then (based on the proposal of the guarantor countries) the definitive peace agreement is signed in October (in Brasilia). With this, what I want to say is that, in general terms, Fujimori made a positive contribution to the process of talks in Ecuador. Regardless of that jingoistic attitude that he had during the war, which also went badly for him, because it was a lie, he did give effective signs that he wanted to reach a (territorial) solution with Ecuador”, affirms Suárez.
According to Moncayo, who has also written about the long conflict between the two countries, reaching peace with Peru meant overcoming a conflict that had been born in the colony and that worsened when we were part of Gran Colombia, to the point that we had the first war being part of that State. And then it was always favorable to Peru, because Ecuador, after the end of Gran Colombia, was left as a weak and small country compared to Peru and Colombia.
“Having signed that peace is having overcome a centuries-old conflict (…), [luego de que] we were forced to sign the protocol of Rio de Janeiro (1942) almost with a gun to our heads, almost that ‘either they sign or Guayaquil is taken over Peru’, that’s how we signed. So, during the 50 years that followed, Peru said that there was nothing to discuss (…). Thanks to the 1995 conflict, Peru agreed to sit down to discuss the Itamaraty agreement (…), and accepted that there was a border problem with Ecuador”, says Moncayo.
The general in passive service comments that this meant that Ecuador began a new century in other terms, without border threats and in cooperation with Peru, which is a country almost identical to Ecuador, both created on the same historical, cultural and social realities.
“[Gracias a eso] we can live in peace and recognize the identities we have with Peruvians, share interests and a positive relationship”, says Moncayo.
The former head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces of Ecuador has a general opinion about Fujimori that he was a dictator supported by the United States, which they saw as a way to defeat the mariateguist communist subversion in Peru, so they did not say anything when Fujimori he closed the Congress and increased his influence in all the powers of the State.
house inside
Before the restitution of the pardon to Alberto Fujimori, on Thursday, he was serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2009 as the mediate author (with control of the fact) of the massacres of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, committed in 1991 and 1992, respectively, by the undercover military group Colina, as well as the kidnappings of a businessman and a journalist after the coup d’état that took place in 1992.
The pardon has caused rejection in the current government of Pedro Castillo and local and international human rights organizations. However, the ex-president also still retains the support of a good percentage of the population for the fight against the Shining Path, within which there were abuses, such as those that are part of his conviction.
His daughter, the Peruvian opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, assured this Friday that her father will remain in Peru once he is released. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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