Word: peru
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Corruption is nothing new in Fujimori's ten-year-old administration. In 1997, he fired three of the seven members of Peru's Constitutional Tribunal, allowing himself to run for a third five-year term--even though the Peruvian Constitution explicitly limits a president to two terms. After his May victory, Fujimori was internationally criticized for his use of a fraudulent signature campaign as well as smear and harassment tactics against his opponent...
While Fujimori's free-market reforms have made Peru one of the more prosperous Latin American nations, the infringements against his people's civil rights through his efforts to control the country's election processes, media, legislative and judicial systems have made a mockery of Peru's so-called democratic government. Indeed, after he announced his resignation, protestors outside the Presidential Palace chanted "the dictatorship is over...
There is no doubt that Fujimori's pending resignation will bode well for Peru. The Secret Service, the body responsible for carrying out many of the President's civil-rights violations, will be dismantled, creating a safer environment for bipartisan politics and a free press. Because of its economic stability, the nation will most likely be able to build a stable democratic government relatively quickly. In one of the most underdeveloped and bureaucratically corrupt regions of the world, Peru will be able to serve as a model for other Latin American nations to emulate in the development of their governmental...
...Peru's immediate future remains murky, and there's still a strong possibility of a coup within the next 48 hours. Fired intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos is now reportedly holed up in the well-fortified headquarters of the feared SIN intelligence service, guarded by 800 commandos. President Fujimori now seems to be furiously backpedaling from his announcement disbanding the SIN and ordering early elections because he's been unable to win the support of the military, and that may have created a power vacuum...
...controversial Montesinos, who had been implicated in smuggling weapons to the leftist FARC guerrillas in neighboring Colombia. Washington, of course, is planning to spend more than $1 billion in helping Colombia fight the FARC as part of its anti-drug efforts, so it was obviously very irritated that Peru, which has been a key ally in the war on drugs, appears to have been a conduit for weapons to the guerrillas. Fujimori moved to ditch Montesinos when a videotape was leaked to a local TV station showing the intelligence chief bribing an opposition congressman to side with Fujimori...