Lima, Aug 29: Peru's truth and reconciliation commission has implicated former President Alberto Fujimori and Peru's serving Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani in two decades of violence that left more than 69,000 dead or missing. The commission's 6,000-page report to President Alejandro Toledo yesterday said massacres, political terrorism and summary executions from 1980 to 2000 were perpetrated by maoist shining path guerrillas, the police and the army.

The report blamed the start of the violence on shining path, which launched an uprising in 1980, saying the guerrillas carried out massacres with a systematic "terrorist methodology."

But the commission added that police and the Peruvian military were also guilty of serious rights violations that the commission termed "crimes against humanity." And it said the commission's two-year investigation had concluded that Fujimori held "legal responsibility" for assassinations, abductions and massacres carried out by the feared military death squad known as "Colina."

Fujimori, who served as president from 1990 to 2000, fled murder and corruption charges in late 2000, taking up exile in Japan, the land of his immigrant parents.


Peru is seeking his extradition, but Fujimori holds dual Peruvian-Japanese nationality and Japan does not extradite its own citizens. During Fujimori's 10 years as President, said the report, "the armed conflict was manipulated with the aim of keeping his regime in power."

Bureau Report