Turn the clock back some 20 years ago and much of Latin America was a murky world of dictatorial, authoritarian regimes where human rights abuses were common place. Military regimes had come to power under the belief that they were legitimately holding back the spread of Communism and the social revolutions that were supposedly threatening to overrun the region.
In Latin American economics we talk of the 1980s as the ‘lost decade’ where economic growth stagnated or went backwards. Along those same lines the late 1970s and much of the 1980s can be looked upon as the decade of the desaparecidos (the ones who disappeared). The hundreds of thousands who literally disappeared in the ‘dirty wars’ fought by military governments against those guerrillas and left-leaning movements that opposed them.
One by one though, many of those political leaders who stood at the forefront of these dirty wars are being brought before national courts and sentenced. The Southern Cone countries of Chile, Uruguay, and most notably Argentina have been, and continue to be, at the forefront of confronting their murky pasts. These weeks though the attention has switched to Peru where its former head of state, Alberto Fujimori, has been put on trial for the supposed massacres he ordered at the height of the war against Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) in the early 1990s.
There are some notably differences that make his trial noteworthy. First of all, that he was extradited to Peru from Chile and neighbouring country with whom they have never had the most cordial relations in the world (but then which neighbouring South American countries ever have sincere cordial relations one may ask?). Regional cooperation with regards to dealing with past human rights abuses seems to be an important step forward. Secondly Fujimori must be one of the first democratically elected, civilian Presidents to stand trial for crimes against humanity in South America. Former Presidents in both Argentina and Chile have stood trial but they were both military dictators. So questions may be asked as to which currently elected civilian presidents should be quaking in their boots? Please feel free to nominate any...
At the moment though Fujimori has been found guilty for some relatively minor abuses of power which will see him spend the next years in prison. In the coming months he will face further charges of the more serious accusations with regards to his role in the massacres of civilians in the Peruvian Andes.
Given so many of the problems Latin America faces on a day-to-day basis and how it lags behing the world on so many issues, it is nothing short of impressive how their otherwise weak and seemingly corrupt judiciary systems have been successful in bringing to court some of the most powerful figures of Latin American history. It's perhaps no surprise then that when the International Criminal Court was set up to pursue crimes against humanity on a worldwide basis that they chose Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine with experience their own dealing with human rights abuses to be the court’s Prosecutor.
In Latin American economics we talk of the 1980s as the ‘lost decade’ where economic growth stagnated or went backwards. Along those same lines the late 1970s and much of the 1980s can be looked upon as the decade of the desaparecidos (the ones who disappeared). The hundreds of thousands who literally disappeared in the ‘dirty wars’ fought by military governments against those guerrillas and left-leaning movements that opposed them.
One by one though, many of those political leaders who stood at the forefront of these dirty wars are being brought before national courts and sentenced. The Southern Cone countries of Chile, Uruguay, and most notably Argentina have been, and continue to be, at the forefront of confronting their murky pasts. These weeks though the attention has switched to Peru where its former head of state, Alberto Fujimori, has been put on trial for the supposed massacres he ordered at the height of the war against Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) in the early 1990s.
There are some notably differences that make his trial noteworthy. First of all, that he was extradited to Peru from Chile and neighbouring country with whom they have never had the most cordial relations in the world (but then which neighbouring South American countries ever have sincere cordial relations one may ask?). Regional cooperation with regards to dealing with past human rights abuses seems to be an important step forward. Secondly Fujimori must be one of the first democratically elected, civilian Presidents to stand trial for crimes against humanity in South America. Former Presidents in both Argentina and Chile have stood trial but they were both military dictators. So questions may be asked as to which currently elected civilian presidents should be quaking in their boots? Please feel free to nominate any...
At the moment though Fujimori has been found guilty for some relatively minor abuses of power which will see him spend the next years in prison. In the coming months he will face further charges of the more serious accusations with regards to his role in the massacres of civilians in the Peruvian Andes.
Given so many of the problems Latin America faces on a day-to-day basis and how it lags behing the world on so many issues, it is nothing short of impressive how their otherwise weak and seemingly corrupt judiciary systems have been successful in bringing to court some of the most powerful figures of Latin American history. It's perhaps no surprise then that when the International Criminal Court was set up to pursue crimes against humanity on a worldwide basis that they chose Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine with experience their own dealing with human rights abuses to be the court’s Prosecutor.
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