The Weekly N&C for November 17th, 2008

An Opportunity to Reopen the Door

This week the main sessions of the APEC PERU 2008 international conference will commence, bringing high-level representatives of the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum member economies together in Lima, Peru. The term “member economies”, by the way, is a convenient euphemism to allow the Republic of China (as Chinese Taipei), Hong Kong, China (Special Administrative Region) and the People’s Republic of China (generally recognized government of China) to all attend. On this week’s schedule are in particular Ministerial meetings that are the prelude to the Leader’s Meeting at the end of the week. Japan’s delegate to the Ministerial meetings is two-months-in-office gaimu daijin (Minister for Foreign Affairs) Nakasone Hirofumi (H. Nakasone). This trip is to continue on Friday with a visit to Colombia for meetings and the celebration of the centennial of Japan-Colombia bilateral relations. Both stops offer much needed opportunities to reopen doors that have closed, for Japan and for each host nation.

In the case of the Colombia visit, it can only be hoped that some balance will be restored (if not some overt preference) after the recent agreements between several Japanese Trading Houses and the Government of Venezuela for some pieces of the Orinoco Basin petroleum pie. No slight to the merchants for finding a way to make an oil deal at a time when prices looked to be going up, and it might even be proven a good idea a few years from now, but restoring Japan-Colombia ties to their ideal fullest and working toward tariff reductions and investment opportunities will likely serve both countries very well.

The situation in Peru as of this date is one fraught with peril as both the instability in the world’s financial system and the resurgence of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) insurgency cast a dark pall over the possibilities for Foreign Direct Investment to continue to come in. Given the experience of the first Alan G. L. Garcia Perez (Alan Garcia) government (1985-1990), which brought hyperinflation, debt-service failures and attempts at nationalizing the banking and insurance industries, one might well look rather carefully at the conduct of the second (and current) Alan Garcia administration. Fortunately, it appears that lessons were learned in the intervening years and the choice in 2006 of A. Garcia over Ollanta Humala, a Bolivarian Socialist whose campaign was supported openly by the H. Chavez government of Venezuela, looks to be a good one for Peru. But those intervening years that saw A. Garcia in exile in Colombia and France are defined by yet another problem that is yet to be completely overcome: then-President Alberto Ken’ya Fujimori.

For by 1990, Peru was in the grip of a vice, pressed on one side by economic failures that had ruined international investment incentives, in particular for Japan which had suffered losses on investments, and unpaid development loans, and on the other by rising guerrilla warfare against the government and foreign assets. Japan’s interests suffered from the violence as well, with interruptions of mining activities and attacks on Japanese-owned manufacturing and banking operations. *Here is a map* of how bad things had gotten by 1990.

But rising to the moment in the presidential election of that year, A. Fujimori upset Mario Vargas Llosa and became the first Japanese-Peruvian to lead the nation. The combination of his “Fujishock” neo-liberal economic intervention and his determination to confront the various guerrilla threats proved instantly commendable in the eyes of the international community, and cast his political rivals (who still controlled the legislature) as obstructionists. Furthermore, in his 1990 visit to Japan, he was accorded almost heroic status in the media and provided with all manner of support including aid campaigns to fight poverty and charters for Non-Governmental Organizations to gather financial support. A. Fujimori saw those commendations as a license to act, and act he did…

The action taken by then-President Fujimori was the rather less-than-common ploy of an autogolpe (self, or presidential, coup) where with the help of the military, he basically ended Peruvian democracy for a time. Other than holding one election to form a Constitutional Congress to re-write the constitution, he ruled as an autocrat from 1992~95. The Organization of American States turned against him, various states broke off or suspended diplomatic relations, but two countries basically stood by and came to support his coup: The United States of America recognized his government “as legitimate” after a brief period of suspension of aid; and Japan, which basically never flinched in its collective adoration of him. More importantly, inside Peru the Fujimori regime was astonishingly popular. The financial reforms mostly worked, and the major guerrilla threats (the Maoist Shining Path and the Marxist Tupac Amaru MRTA) were in desperate decline.

In the return to “regular” democracy in 1995, A. Fujimori carried nearly two-thirds of the vote and his party swept into control of the legislature. But even before he was inaugurated for his term, whispers of ill-repute began to be heard accusing him of “despotism”, and some rumors of criminality circulated. Then there came the attack on the Japanese Ambassador’s Residence in 1996~97 by the MRTA, the four month long standoff and bloody conclusion. No matter, it seemed, for he was well on his way to the third term (having gained approval from the legislature to run for an unconstitutional third term) when The Montesinos Scandal broke in September of 2000, with video showing the Chief of the National Intelligence Service, Vladimiro Montesinos, paying off bribes to a congressman. Within a month, all the rumors and accusations were *believed* to be fact and public support for the Fujimori government collapsed. By November, he had lost his exemption to be a candidate in the upcoming election and then while out of the country (co-incidentally for an APEC summit), Alberto Ken’ya Fujimori skipped out. He went into self-exile in Japan where he was almost immediately recognized as Fujimori Ken’ya, Japanese National. He sent his resignation letter back to Peru by fax while on the way to Japan.

To describe what happened next in Peru as a “national uproar” is almost an understatement. The remaining Fujimori administration fell from power and almost in a deluge accusations began to pour out: murder, kidnapping, crimes against humanity (those all made the INTERPOL warrant), arms trafficking, grafting of donations from Japanese Charity NGO’s, and just plain old fashioned looting of the national treasury. The Special Prosecutor appointed by the interim Peruvian government estimated the looting and graft to have run to US$2,000,000,000 all in (including Montesinos’ scams and deals) and Transparency International makes the far better defined estimate of US$600,000,000. Even in the lower figure, that is an astonishing sum. With all that lined up, the even more astonishing detail is this: Japan refused to extradite him, or serve the INTERPOL warrant.

That is correct; for six years Japan turned aside every claim, call or warrant against their newly-minted national. Sometimes the Government of Japan actually argued, as in the response to Peru’s direct request: “We don’t have an extradition treaty”. More often, the official position was just to ignore the calls. If that bespeaks that US$600 million (or whatever large sum) lets one buy quite a lot a friendship, well that may be so however no proof of any such has ever been found. The other likely possibility is a sense of entirely misplaced ethnic pride, but be that as it may, for SOME reason, elements of the Japanese government protected him for years.

Had not his own almost inexplicable desire to gain a renewed Peruvian passport (which he got at the Embassy in Toukyou (Tokyo) in 2006) and then an almost quixotic trip back to Latin America with the intent to re-enter Peruvian politics, likely he would still be safely whiling away the time in the elite quarter of the big city. But apparently his 10-year ban from becoming a candidate in Peru did not concern him and he felt that the rather successful minor political party his daughter had risen to the top of back in Peru would form a springboard for his return to rule. But when his flight landed in Chile en-route, the Chilean authorities were perfectly happy to serve the international warrant for his arrest.

It took a while, but the Chilean Supreme Court authorized his extradition on 7 of the 13 cited charges in September of 2007, and his first trial back in Peru (on a single charge of ordering an illegal search) returned a guilty verdict (Spanish language link), a fine and a 6 year sentence. But in the “adding insult to injury” department, Japan had allowed A. Fujimori to rather blatantly attempt to slip Chilean custody by registering as a candidate in the 2007 Upper House election in Japan. Had he won a seat (unlikely as that would have been, given his small sponsoring party), he could have claimed immunity as a Japanese lawmaker on foreign travel and demanded release from Chilean detention before they could hand him over to Peru.

It is time to make amends, Japan. I know full well this is hard to do, but it needs be done.

That means making a good-faith effort to cooperate with the Peruvian investigation of the major crimes A. Fujimori stands accused of, to either his gain or detriment.

That means promising to investigate once and for all the schemes behind APENKAI and AKEN, the two Japan-based NGO’s that may have been misused.

That also means *not* having H. Nakasone visit or pay any notice to A. Fujimori, or his daughter while he is in Peru. Claim the APEC schedule is too hectic. Be a diplomat; dissemble if you must.

And *if* a meeting with Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde can actually be arranged, then our good Foreign Minister need privately but correctly recognize the mistakes ‘our’ nation has made, so things can get back to ‘our’ having a respectful relationship with the whole nation of Peru,

…instead of just the part that sounds like it should be Japanese.

***
End Notes:

All direct citations are embedded as links in the text.

APEC PERU 2008 homepage

Regarding the NGO accountability issue, See note (9) in *this* document.

For general information, the following are Wiki-p links. The usual caveat holds; check all the sources:

Personal Profile: Alberto Ken’ya Fujimori

Personal Profile: President Alan G. L. Garcia Perez of Peru

Personal Profile: Vladimiro Montesinos