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Journalism of Courage
LIMA, Sept 24: Disgraced Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos flew to Panama to seek political asylum on Sunday after Latin American leaders exerted concerted pressure on the Central American country to admit him to defuse a political crisis in Peru that sparked coup fears.
"In the early morning hours Vladimiro Montesinos arrived in the country and requested asylum," Panama’s Deputy Foreign Minister Harmodio Arias told a news conference.
"The government is evaluating the request since various heads of state in the hemisphere have called on the president to reconsider Panama’s position in order to facilitate the democratic process in Peru," he said.
A corruption scandal involving Montesinos, who ran the notorious National Intelligence Service (SIN) and was President Alberto Fujimori’s right-hand man for a decade, plunged Peru into crisis and prompted the president to call new elections.
Montesinos, 56, who had not been seen since the scandal broke 10 days ago, was whisked out of the country in a private jet around midnight on Saturday, hours after Panama rejected a request from the Peruvian Government to grant him asylum.
"It’s getting more like a soap opera every day," said one diplomatic source. "We have no idea what will happen next."
The source said the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia had piled pressure on the central American state, which has a decades-old tradition of providing asylum to prominent international fugitives, to take in Montesinos as his continued influence over the military was fuelling uncertainty.
The region’s top diplomatic body, the Organisation of American States (OAS), also joined in the calls.
Political analysts said it was clear Fujimori had cut a deal with the military to bundle Montesinos, who has enjoyed an aura of impunity, off the scene before a deadline agreed with opposition parties and the OAS to fire him by Monday.
Montesinos, a disgraced former army captain accused of corruption, human rights abuses and spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency, was in a position to demand a deal because he probably had access to compromising information that could have damaged many public figures, they said.
Opposition leaders had demanded the detention and independent investigation of Montesinos, but Fujimori lauded his role in quelling leftist guerrilla groups and the drug trade.
With his ally-turned-nemesis safely out of the country, Fujimori triumphantly presided over the armed forces’ national day celebrations at the army headquarters, the "Pentagonito" (Little Pentagon), on Sunday and praised their backing.
His speech made no mention of Montesinos and there was no official comment from Peru that he had left the country.
"The military has been with me over the last 10 years not making politics but supporting our development work," said Fujimori, wearing a sash in Peru’s red and white colours and flanked by ministers and the military in full regalia.
"For all of this I reiterate my support to the armed forces Chief-of-staff and the commanders of the armed forces who this time, in the face of this complex situation, gave yet more proof of their professionalism and undisputed loyalty to the interests of the country," he added.
The opposition, however, was outraged that Montesinos was allowed to leave without being punished or investigated for his role in incident that triggered the current political crisis, which began when national television aired a video showing him apparently bribing an opposition congressman.
"He’s escaped!" screamed opposition daily Liberacion
in a front-page banner headline.
"Peru is the kingdom of impunity," Antero Flores-Araoz, chairman of the Popular Christian Party, told Reuters.
"We thought justice was equal for all. When someone steals, he goes to jail but when someone bribes and extorts for 10 years, he goes into exile a happy man," Flores-Araoz said.
The Montesinos bribery scandal forced Fujimori, Latin America’s longest serving elected leader, to promise to fire his "security adviser," call elections in which he would not run and disband the notorious SIN, Peru’s "big brother."
Constitutional expert Javier Valle Riestra, a former Prime Minister, said allowing Montesinos to flee was questionable, but could help calm tensions.
"What we can hope for from Panama is that they let him stay but don’t give him political asylum," he said.
Diplomatic sources and analysts believe Fujimori was forced to sacrifice his own political career as well as his adviser because he was now too weak to rule without Montesinos.
They said he was determined to exit with his legacy intact as the president who stamped out leftist rebel violence, brought peace with neighbouring Ecuador, curbed hyperinflation and put the poor Andean nation on the path to growth.
