Looking frail & wearing a face mask, the 85-year-old was received by 2 of his children Kenji & Keiko Fujimori – his political heiress and thrice presidential candidate – & helped into a waiting vehicle amid cheers. Disclaimer: personal opinions follow: 🧵theguardian.com
I've been covering Alberto Fujimori for more than 15 years; from Japan to his extradition from Chile to Peru, his trial, and everything about the Fujimori clan since. I understand Kenji's tears but my heart goes out to the families of the victims of his decade-long regime..
...many of whom I've had the privilege to meet and bear witness to their dignity, their grief & their tireless activism. People like the exemplary Gisela Ortiz, who could have a more devoted sister?
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Norma Méndez, the mother of Melissa Alfaro, whose young life was cut short in such a cowardly attack with a letter bomb. 🧵
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It was a dirty war and Grupo Colina, the clandestine army death squad, did the Fujimori regime's dirty work. They murdered and tortured indiscriminately with seemingly no interest in whether their victims were actually subversive 'terrucos', or not...🧵
..and mostly there were not. José Luis Aguero clutched his chest, barely able to breathe, as he recalled how he heard the screams of his male relatives echoing in the night as they were tormented with a blowtorch at the Pativilca massacre. 🧵
... at the same killing spree, Carlos Rodriguez Esquivel was made an orphan at the age of six. Neighbours found his father's burnt corpse & he remembers the painful absences of Christmas holidays without a dad..🧵
Rosa Rojas Borda, whom I met at her kiosk in Magdalena del Mar, lost her husband and her 8-year-old son Javier in the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre. Masked gunmen sprayed them with bullets during a chicken BBQ fundraiser to buy a new sewage pipe.🧵
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
She thought the attackers were Shining Path, but no, they were state-sponsored terrorists. I remember her ineffable sadness as she told me how she clutched her boy's lifeless body. A faded colour photo of Javier looks out through the glass corner of her kiosk which sells snacks
..I've covered 3 elections in Peru with Keiko Fujimori as a candidate. I've seen the denialism & the historical revisionism. But in the end, all it took was a negotiated pardon in 2017; Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's doomed bid to escape impeachment. 🧵theguardian.com
..by 2023, it came full circle. PPK's under house arrest, while Fujimori is free without ever apologising to the families of the victims nor paying a penny of $15m in civil reparations. Thanks to the venal
@TC_Peru & the craven government of Dina Boluarte & Alberto Otárola.
@TC_Peru & the craven government of Dina Boluarte & Alberto Otárola.
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