Video of bribe attempt in Peru called catalyst in unraveling of Fujimori regime

By Sarah L. Rasmusson
Special to
The Freedom Forum Online

11.20.00

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NEW YORK — A video clip broadcast two months ago on Peru's only independent cable TV station has led to the dramatic unraveling of the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, who announced yesterday that he would leave office within 48 hours.

The videotape showed opposition party members counting bills — an apparent payoff from Vladimiro Montesinos, who then was the head of Peru's secret service. The bribe was intended to encourage the opposition figures to side with Fujimori and his policies.

As it turned out, however, Montesinos was the one who leaked the videotape, in an attempt to sully the opposition politicians. But the subterfuge backfired. A political furor swept Peru. Montesinos is now a fugitive and Fujimori is on the verge of leaving office. He announced in Japan yesterday that he would resign in short order.

As the bribery scandal broke in mid-September, Fujimori said he would call a new presidential election in which he would not be a candidate. But before yesterday, he had not said when he would leave office.

Fujimori was reelected to a third term in May amid charges of vote fraud.

The airing of the videotape and its role in unraveling the Fujimori regime were centerpieces of a Newseum/NY panel discussion Nov. 16 about the news media's influence in Peru's presidential politics.

"The situation just reached a critical mass," said Corrine Schmidt, coordinator of the Latin American Studies Department at Johns Hopkins University, in reference to the airing of the videotape on the Canal N station.

"When Canal N started showing this tape," Schmidt added, "the grassroots movement, which has been growing in Peru for the last three years, went out to the streets. Within an hour, even those stations that were more or less controlled by the government couldn't cover it over anymore."

Not only did Montesinos pay bribes to the opposition politicians and then leak the tape to the Canal N, but he also caught himself in the transaction.

The panelists said many Peruvians believed that the Fujimori regime has been more harmful to democratic freedoms than any military regime in the country's history.

"The Fujimori government enjoys the disguise, if you will, of being able to pose as a civilian government elected by the voters," said Roberto Bustamante, president of National Association of Journalists of Peru, a U.S.- based group for journalists interested in Peruvian issues. "It is not a military regime, but the effects are similar."

Bustamante, who is also a reporter for El Diario in New York, presented a report that documented the killing of 12 journalists and the prosecution of hundreds of others in Peru over the last 10 years. "When Fujimori was here at the United Nations General Assembly," Bustamante said, "I raised the question of the persecution of journalists to him in a press conference. He answered with a stern face that nothing was going on."

Fujimori is ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists as one of the 10 leading international enemies of the press.

"There was a huge effort by the government to control TV," Schmidt added. "Because they were trying to keep a veneer of democracy, it was very useful to Fujimori to have Canal N."

Schmidt noted that when foreigners or the international press inquired about whether there was press freedom in Peru, Fujimori would direct people to turn on the television and watch Canal N. "One would say, 'Yeah, there is freedom of expression here.'"

Two government efforts have clouded journalistic integrity in Peru, the panelists maintained. A powerful tax agency audits the returns of journalists in opposition media and some newspapers sell advertising to the government.

Nothing the government was doing "could be pointed to as a censor sitting in the editorial room marking out what the writers could say," Schmidt said. "It was very difficult to pinpoint how this form of control was being established."

During the past two presidential elections, there was only one independent TV station and a handful of non-official newspapers. Schmidt defined the independent news media as the opposition media, because they do not receive funds from the government or only paint a positive picture of the president and his policies.

And the panelists agreed the pro-government newspapers, which offer unwavering support for the regime, also have harmed journalistic integrity in Peru.

Only when the Intelligence Service stops funding the budgets of these papers will news become more accurate and unbiased, Schmidt added.

As a result of censorship, journalistic standards and ethics must be improved, said Norberto Swarzman, a New York-area journalist for more than 30 years who has also worked for El Commercio, the leading independent daily in Peru.

"In general," Swarzman said, "journalists have not been able to develop any (newsgathering) instinct. Television in Peru is pitiful. There is no journalistic push to uncover the facts."

Busamante offered several proposals for the role of the press in post-election Peru next summer. "The press in Peru has a number of obligations," he said. "We must work to break down the 'controlismo' of the press. We must fight against the economic dependency of the means of communication on the current government."

Still, despite the legacy of censorship and back-pocket corruption of the press, the panelists pointed to the coverage of Fujimori's deeds in the independent news media as a catalyst for his downfall.

"If it hadn't been for Canal N, you wouldn't have had that crystallization of opposition," Schmidt said. "The government just couldn't cover up its corruption anymore. There it was."

Schmidt sees a bigger role for the Peruvian press to play in the aftermath of Fujimori's rule.

"I am very optimistic," she said. "It is going to be rough and tumble for a while but the media — as Fujimori withdraws from the stage and new political forces crystallize — will investigate what has been going on in the past 10 years. You will see a return to more stable politics and press."

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