Hearts will have sunk this week in Peru when news emerged that the Shining Path guerrillas appear to have recommenced operations after a lull of ten years, with the kidnap of sixty engineers working on a pipeline high in the Andes. The Shining Path were second only to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the obscene violence and brutality they used against anyone they believed stood in their way. It had seemed to be the sole bright spot in the dismal career of disgraced Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori that he had the determination to take on the Shining Path butchers and the good fortune that their leader, Abimael Guzman, fell into the hands of the Peruvian security forces. With the capture of Guzman in 1992, it seemed that the terror which had gripped Peru throughout the 1980s and cost the lives of over 30,000 people was at an end.
The downfall of Guzman and his henchmen led, however, to questionable behavior by the Peruvian authorities. The terrorist leader and some 400 of his associates were all tried behind closed doors by military tribunals. The Peruvian courts have rightly decided that justice should be seen to be done. The government has quashed the verdicts and initiated hundreds of retrials. While the guilt of many of those still held in custody is hardly in doubt, it is right that the evidence that convicted them originally should be tried and tested in a public court of law. Unfortunately, the ten years that have passed since most of these cases were originally heard have created difficulties for the prosecution in regathering witnesses and evidence.
The more unfortunate consequence of the retrials is that they may have given heart to the remnants of the Shining Path killers still at liberty and have thus caused the recommencement of their terror campaign. If this is indeed the case, there will be powerful arguments that the government was wrong to stick to the letter of the law and should have left well alone. Enticing though such reasoning may be, it remains a fact that all civilized societies must be based upon the rule of law. The temptation to stoop to the same foul level as the terrorists, who have no use for legal niceties, is always considerable but must be resisted. Because Alberto Fujimori was prepared to cut corners and bow to demands from his military chiefs that they handle the prosecution of Guzman and his fellow thugs, even what seemed his only moment of greatness, is now seen as another dereliction of the responsibilities of his office.
It must be hoped that the wretched legacy of the Fujimori years will not continue to haunt the people of Peru and that this latest terrorist outrage is not the first of a new outbreak of horror and lawlessness.
