The Peruvian Supreme Court has handed down a highly controversial sentence in a case involving the members of the Colina Group death squad. According to human rights defenders and the victims in the relevant cases, the sentence is a major step backward in Peru’s tortured quest for truth and justice in cases of egregious human rights violations.
A vote for Keiko Fukimori could result in a revival of Peru’s tragic past when her corrupt, authoritarian father was president.
On January 3, 2010, the Peruvian Supreme Court handed down its decision to uphold the April 2009 conviction of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) for four cases of human rights violations. “My son must be very content, as I am, with the judges’ ratification [of the verdict],” said a visibly moved Raida Cóndor in a press conference the morning the ruling was made public. Raida’s son, Armando Amaro Cóndor, was one of the nine students that the Colina Group death-squad kidnapped from their dorm rooms at the Cantuta University and brutally killed in July 1992. “God does exist, and it is He who has given us the strength to persist in this struggle.” Gisela Ortiz, whose brother Luis Enrique was also one of the Cantuta victims, reminded her compatriots just how long a struggle it has been: The confirmation of the verdict represents the culmination of nearly two decades of searching for truth and justice by the family members of the victims.