Ángel Páez interviews Peruvian prosecutor AVELINO GUILLÉN

LIMA, Mar 25 (IPS) - With a sentence set to be handed down shortly in the trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) for two notorious massacres of civilians – known as the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings – the prosecutor in the case, Avelino Guillén, said the defendant’s guilt has been amply proven.

More than 60 witnesses have testified in the trial, which began on Dec. 10, 2007, and 500 pieces of documentary evidence have been presented, along with nearly 50 newspaper articles and media recordings containing statements by the former president – all of which prove that he authorised violations of human rights as a method for fighting alleged guerrillas, many of whom were merely innocent civilians, Guillén says in this interview with IPS.

In the first massacre, military intelligence agents killed 15 people in the central Lima neighbourhood of Barrios Altos in November 1991. The victims, who included an eight-year-old boy, were at a neighbourhood barbecue when heavily-armed masked men burst in, ordered everyone to lie down on the floor, and opened fire on them.

It was later reported that the assailants had been targeting a meeting of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrillas, which apparently took place on another floor of the same apartment building.

And in July 1992, nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University were abducted and murdered, as suspected members of Sendero.

The perpetrators formed part of a death squad known as the Colina Group, which was created within the structure of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE). According to the prosecutor, there was no way that Fujimori could have been unaware of the group’s activities.

In its 2003 report, the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that nearly 70,000 people were killed in the 1980-2000 civil war between guerrillas, government forces and vigilante groups.

Guillén, who is seeking a 30-year sentence for Fujimori, said he was confident that the court would hand down a guilty verdict.

IPS: Why aren’t there any documents that clearly show that former president Alberto Fujimori ordered the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres?

AVELINO GUILLÉN: Because we’re talking about a power apparatus that has two key aims: efficiency in its mission, and impunity for its members. The power apparatus protects those who give the orders, which means there are no written orders. This explains why documents saying "go out and kill" are not going to be found.

IPS: So what evidence is the accusation against Fujimori based on?

AG: We presented a range of evidence that demonstrates that Fujimori ordered the use of dirty war methods in Peru. There are seven orders that we showed that he gave and that were followed.

Those seven orders are: the appointment of presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos (now in prison) as the real head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN); authorisation for Montesinos to oversee and administer the secret expenses of the SIN; the mandate for Montesinos to exercise control over the armed forces, in representation of the head of state; the order for Montesinos to run the intelligence apparatuses of the armed forces and the SIN; the naming of Montesinos as the president’s interlocutor, through whom the president issued orders; the naming of General Julio Salazar Monroe as the nominal head of the SIN, which allowed Montesinos to act in a parallel, clandestine fashion; and the designation of Montesinos as the personal adviser to the head of state, the only person he was accountable to.

IPS: But documents have been presented linking Fujimori to the activities of the Colina Group, which committed the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings?

AG: Yes. There is a string of documents that show that Fujimori was aware from the start of the origin, creation and mission of the Colina Group, an organisation made up of SIE agents. And that he knew what the group’s real mission was.

Fujimori authorised the use of a new methodology to fight terrorism, and that methodology was the dirty war, which implied the elimination of alleged subversives.

And who used these dirty war methods? The Colina Group. It was Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori’s personal adviser, who created, brought together and designed that group. Hence, the president had control over the power apparatus, and the operative head of the power apparatus was Montesinos. This has been proven.

IPS: Could you cite some evidence of what you are asserting?

AG: On Feb. 7, 1991, Fujimori delivered a message to the nation, revealing the work of "a small intelligence group." That was a reference to the Colina Group, which in effect began as an intelligence analysis group and evolved into a squad of operatives.

That speech by Fujimori was drafted in the SIN, as admitted by a former adviser to Montesinos, Rafael Merino Bartet, who even handed over a copy extracted from the intelligence service’s computers.

IPS: In your view, have Fujimori’s defence counsel maintained the same line of argument, or has it changed along the way?

AG: It has changed many times. At the beginning, Fujimori claimed that the Colina Group did not exist. Later, in the face of the evidence, he said it was a sporadic group.

He also stated at the start that the group only responded to the SIE, but given the evidence, he was forced to admit that it responded to the SIN. And the SIN responded to the president.

Fujimori slept, lived, and worked at the SIN; he could not have been unaware of the Colina Group’s existence and operations. Fujimori had absolute control over the intelligence apparatus.

IPS: What is your perception? Will he be convicted?

AG: We are confident that the court will avail itself of the evidence that the prosecutor’s office has presented. Our arguments are based on the 500 pieces of documentary evidence that we presented, the testimony of 60 witnesses who back up our position, as well as 18 audio and video tapes and 30 journalistic articles recording remarks by Fujimori stating the opposite of what his defence counsel argues today.

That is evidence that shows that the president is contradicting himself. The proof allows us to establish a concrete reality: he is guilty, he gave the order.

IPS: According to surveys, Peruvians recognise that Fujimori overcame the violence of the guerrillas. Is he in the dock today for applying a successful policy against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso insurgency, which allowed peace to be reestablished in Peru?

AG: No. To start with, the winner was the people themselves, organised in (rural vigilante) "rondas campesinas" and self-defence committees, whose members expelled Sendero from the countryside and inflicted a strategic and military defeat on it in the 1980s. That was not Fujimori’s achievement, because he was not president yet.

And the capture of Sendero (founder and) leader Abimael Guzmán was the work of an anti-terrorist police Special Intelligence Group (GEIN) in 1992, which was not under the control of either Fujimori or Montesinos.

The GEIN also captured the majority of the members of the Sendero central committee, without firing a single shot. That policy is not in the dock. What is in the dock is the parallel, clandestine method that Fujimori ordered, which had one single outcome: the death of the victims that were selected. He is being tried for the dirty war methods whose implementation he ordered in Peru.

IPS: We are in the last stage of the trial, and Fujimori will be speaking in court. What do you think he’ll say?

AG: At the start, he acted like he had control over things. That changed when we interrogated him and made him understand that he was on trial. It was a radical change. Of course, when it is his turn to speak in court, he will undoubtedly give a political speech and say that he is being tried for defeating terrorism.

IPS: In the last few days, the former president’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, has said that if she were to win the next presidential elections, her father would be released. Isn’t that a warning to the judges?

AG: Of course. The steady stream of statements by leaders of Fujimori’s political faction are aimed at undermining the independence of the court. They are trying to tell the judges: "Nothing that you do will matter because we will have the final decision," through a pardon in an eventual pro-Fujimori government.

That is the constant threatening message of the Fujimoristas; it is obviously a desperate attempt to change the course of the trial, in the face of the compelling nature of the accusations.