| Jo-Marie Burt witnessed the first week of former President Alberto Fujimori’s trial in |
| Lima as an accredited observer for WOLA. Here is her report. |
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| The trial of Alberto Fujimori started on December 10, 2007, which was also the |
| 59th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Universal Declaration of |
| Human Rights. Whether he was aware of this irony or not (and he presumably |
| wasn’t; human rights law is not exactly his forte), Fujimori stands accused of |
| precisely the sorts of crimes that the magna carta of human rights protection |
| was meant to prevent: ordering abductions and extra-judicial killings and abuse |
| of authority during his rule from 1990 to 2000. |
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| The “mega-trial,” as Peruvians call of it, of their former president is currently |
| limited to charges for which Fujimori was extradited to Peru from Chile in |
| September. These include human rights violations in three cases: the Barrios |
| Altos massacre of 1991, in which 15 people were killed; the disappearance and |
| later killing of nine students and a professor from the Cantuta University in |
| 1992; and the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel |
| Dyer in the aftermath of the April 5, 1992, coup d’état in which Fujimori closed |
| Congress, suspended the Constitution, and took control over the judiciary with |
| the backing of the armed forces. |
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