MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

A Trojan Horse for Peru's Alan Garcia

The Peru that fugitive Alberto Fujimori will return to is going to seem very different from the one he left back in 2000. The man that he ordered to be captured either dead or alive in the 1992 coup is now the President of the Republic.

Furthermore, Vladimiro Montesinos, the political ally to which he gave the implicit order to assassinate Alan Garcia, is currently spending seven years imprisoned at the Callao naval base. The outpouring of sympathizers that, in spite of everything, Fujimori used to have and which he farmed from Tokyo over five years, has been reduced to just ten percent of the Parliament that was elected in 2006. Ollanta Humala, the soldier who tried to rise up against him in the last few hours of his government, obtained the majority of the Congress in 2006, in part thanks to that gesture. Fujimori's political movement- called Si Cumple, the fifth name it has had in politics- is no longer led by his personal lawyers and publicists. His followers have turned into a lost flock, to the extent that they will probably divide in the near future. Satomi Katoaka, his elegant second wife who was going to give him the whole of Japan on a plate, has become a peripheral figure far away from the worst part of the drama. Perhaps Fujimori's only reason for happiness with today's political situation would be his daughter Keiko, who has again reiterated her lack of confidence in Peruvian justice. The young member of congress is becoming an insistent spokesperson about impossible appeals. But at the same time there is a legal battle to fight, and it will all be in the hands of a team of lawyers. And meetings outside prison, of course. For a little while. For the government, Fujimori's return to Lima is a Trojan horse which can only cause complications. It is a triumph for civic conscience and more generally for civil society, against a strong right wing Peruvian government that was mistreating its people from the first day. It is a defeat for the Fujimorists, until now the most stable supporters of these types of government. Does his support in Congress still have the influence to put the government between the devil and the deep blue sea of the judicial system? UPP, the renegade split from humalism, every time is proving to be a more trustworthy ally for the government. But at the same time the aggressiveness and the decisiveness of their opponents are increasing, thereby risking losing swing votes. It is probable that, like what happened with Montesinos in 2000, after a short reflection time the Fujimori case will sink into the specialized tedium of everything judicial. The seven accusations are sufficiently complicated to merit deliberations for a few more years. The people who need congratulating at this stage are the anticorruption attorneys, both the current ones and those before, who throughout the intervening seven years never lost confidence that it was possible to bring Fujimori to justice. The proceedings started by former President Valentin Paniagua and Justice Minister Diego Garcia Sayan continue winning battles under this current government. - This article by the Peruvian journalist and political analyst Mirko Lauer seeks to explain the complicated political scenario in Peru that has resulted from the recent decision by Chile's Supreme Court ordering the extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori back to his homeland.