Secrecy and Scandal in Peru

Politics in this country has become a detective story. And the national mystery is whether a man named Vladimiro Montesinos is a misunderstood super-sleuth or a corrupt super-villain.

An advisor to President Alberto Fujimori, he is widely considered the unofficial head of the national intelligence service and the second most powerful man in Peru.

He has a curious resume: cashiered army captain, lawyer for drug lords, espionage expert. And he operates in utmost secrecy. His near-invisibility has created a mythical aura, making him one of the most extraordinary and mysterious figures in Latin American politics.

He has been compared to Rasputin, Svengali, Cardinal Richelieu and J. Edgar Hoover.

Peruvians know him only from a few grainy photos that show a balding man in his 50s with large, square glasses, wary eyes and a tight smile. These days, that enigmatic face stares from every newsstand in Lima.

The presidential advisor finds himself in the public glare of a scandal: A captured drug lord alleged in court that he paid $50,000 a month to Montesinos to protect his smuggling empire.

The scandal erupted amid an outbreak of alleged drug corruption in the military that has implicated generals, sailors and even air force pilots who are charged with using a former presidential jet to smuggle cocaine.

The furor revived longtime allegations that Montesinos has links to drug mafias, the CIA and human rights abuses by security forces.

It all adds up to a crisis for Fujimori, whose power, analysts say, rests largely on an alliance with the military and the intelligence service. Because Montesinos is believed to anchor that triumvirate, Peruvians say the allegations of corruption against him and the military rival the drug scandals that have battered the governments of Colombia and Mexico.

Unlike Colombia, Peru is lauded by the United States for its anti-narcotics efforts. But critics charge that the leadership of this nation, which produces two-thirds of the world’s coca leaf, has been infiltrated by organized crime.

The uproar has mounted as the Peruvian government closes ranks around Montesinos.

“There cannot be tranquillity in the nation as long as there is the suspicion that drug trafficking is manipulating high spheres,” said Henry Pease, a leader of the congressional opposition. “And the effort of the government to prevent an investigation feeds the suspicion.”

Most Peruvians, according to polls, want Montesinos to defend himself. The attorney general and the congressional majority allied with Fujimori have blocked proposed investigations.

To the jeers of the opposition, members of the majority faction abandoned the parliament in droves this month to prevent a vote requiring three ministers to testify about the advisor.

Wall of Silence

Montesinos’ wall of silence and secrecy marks the limits of democracy in Peru, critics say.

He enjoys power without accountability, said journalist Gustavo Gorriti, who lives in exile in Panama.

Gorriti likened Montesinos to a comic book character or one of the surreal political strongmen who populate Latin American literature and history alike.

“He has taken this fear of appearing in public and converted it into the source of his power,” Gorriti said. “He has turned a weakness into strength.”

The “self-coup” that Fujimori carried out in 1992 reportedly only strengthened Montesinos.

Sending tanks into the streets, the president dissolved Congress and assumed sweeping powers that he said were needed to stave off anarchy and defeat Shining Path, a terrorist movement.

Today, 16% of Peru’s population remains under emergency military rule, largely in regions where the cocaine trade, terrorism and official corruption blur together.

But Congress is back in operation, and the guerrilla threat has diminished.

Defending Montesinos, Fujimori and his ministers have called him a chief strategist of the war against Shining Path.

Enigmatic Advisor

Getting the government to answer questions about Montesinos is almost as difficult as catching a glimpse of the enigmatic advisor.

Prosecutors and officials in the executive branch and at a government public relations agency declined comment. The president of the parliament, Victor Joy Way, abruptly canceled an interview with The Times last week. An aide said the topic was too sensitive to discuss.

Although he also expressed reticence, the No. 2 commander of Peru’s anti-drug police spoke highly of Montesinos in a recent interview. Montesinos helped create laws providing investigative tools such as undercover operations, Col. Asterio Tresierra said.

“We have in Dr. Montesinos an extremely intelligent man who has aided the intelligence service and supported different legal initiatives, both against terrorism and in the fight against drugs,” Tresierra said.

As for corruption, he said, “we have seen nothing of that sort regarding him.”

Tresierra said he has not met Montesinos.

He said he believes that the general who commands the anti-drug police meets regularly with Montesinos, but the general does not mention him by name.

“He just says, ‘I was at the intelligence service,’ ” Tresierra said.

U.S. diplomats are similarly tight-lipped. They say Peru has made progress by using the air force to shoot down drug-smuggling planes, cutting the number of flights in half last year. The State Department repeated its official line: Senior Peruvian officials are not believed to be corrupt.

“No information has come to our attention concerning Mr. Montesinos or any other individual that would lead us to change that evaluation,” said spokeswoman Julie Reside in Washington.

Citing standard policy, she declined to comment on allegations that Montesinos is an operative of the CIA.

Suspected ties between the CIA and officials involved in drug corruption and human rights abuses are a perennial concern in Latin America: The latest example is accusations that the CIA worked with Nicaraguan rebels who trafficked cocaine in California.

For years, prominent voices have asked about a purported CIA connection with Montesinos.

In a 1992 letter, then-California Sen. Alan Cranston asked the State Department about Montesinos’ relationship with “the U.S. intelligence community.”

Cranston expressed concern that the U.S. was “running the same risk with him--in terms of the seriousness of our commitment in anti-narcotics activities”--as with Gen. Manuel A. Noriega of Panama, who allegedly worked with U.S. intelligence while raking in bribes from drug smugglers.

In a letter this month, Human Rights Watch/Americas posed much the same question to Anthony Lake, U.S. national security advisor. The watchdog group recalled that Montesinos has been accused of organizing death squads blamed for atrocities such as the murders of nine university students and a professor near the Peruvian capital in 1992.

“The perception in Lima that Montesinos is supported by the United States has contributed to his power and ability to act beyond the reach of the law,” wrote Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch/Americas, asking that Lake explain any relationship with Montesinos.

Ambitious and Adept

There is no mystery, at least, about Montesinos’ birthplace.

He comes from Arequipa, the hometown of two other notable Peruvians: Mario Vargas Llosa, the acclaimed writer who ran for president, and Abimael Guzman, the imprisoned founder of Shining Path.

Rising to the rank of army artillery captain, Montesinos developed a reputation for being bright, ambitious and adept at gathering sensitive information.

In 1977, after a curious episode in which he left hurriedly for a brief stay in the United States, he was expelled from the army for desertion of duty.

Back in Peru, he earned a law degree and became a defense lawyer for drug mafias, or “firms,” as they are known here.

His clients were top gangsters such as Evaristo Porras, who smuggled base cocaine to Colombia to be refined there and sold in the U.S.

This unorthodox career path led journalist Gorriti to remark in a 1994 article that “the idea of Montesinos in charge of the Peruvian side of the drug war was a macabre irony.”

Montesinos reportedly revived his intelligence contacts, cemented Fujimori’s alliance with the military and helped him resolve legal problems that surfaced during the presidential elections of 1990.

Montesinos thus established himself in the president’s tight inner circle, analysts say.

“Montesinos has assumed the role of maximum advisor in the battles against subversion and drug trafficking,” said Ricardo Soberon, a narcotics expert at the Andean Commission of Jurists. “He controls the military establishment for Fujimori. . . . And most importantly, he is presented to public opinion, according to Fujimori, as his top legal advisor.”

After the president declared emergency rule in 1992, the security forces stepped up the war against Shining Path, whose strongholds were coca-growing regions.

It was a shadowy game of shifting alliances; the guerrillas and the military alternately fought and protected drug lords.

Victories over the guerrillas between 1992 and 1995 carried a price, according to analysts: expanding drug corruption.

“The military forces installed in the regions have the freedom to make money, and they do,” Soberon said. “There is an institutional system that permits payments at the highest levels.”

Criminal cases against military officers, radio intercepts by the Peruvian navy and intelligence films illustrate the role of the military in the drug industry. Soldiers have guarded clandestine airstrips and loaded drugs onto Colombia-bound planes, for which regional commanders allegedly charged drug lords a kickback of $10,000.

The man believed to be the top dog among the gangsters was Demetrio Chavez, also known as “Vaticano” or “Limonier.” A flamboyant country boy who partied with movie stars, Chavez allegedly supplied Colombian traffickers from a network of airstrips around the jungle town of Campanilla until his arrest in 1994.

During a congressional hearing that year, a friend of Chavez testified that the alleged drug lord paid kickbacks to the chief of the armed forces--and to presidential advisor Montesinos.

Witness Zoila Vasco told a committee, according to the transcript, that Montesinos “is the one who has made the most off Limonier.”

High-ranking military officers made similar accusations to congressional deputies and the press.

The bombshell was dropped last month in court by Chavez himself.

On Aug. 16, Chavez testified that he paid $50,000 a month to Montesinos through an intermediary during 1991.

In return, Chavez alleged, Montesinos “kept me advised” of anti-drug operations.

The presidential advisor communicated with Chavez in his remote hide-out by radio and once attended a payoff in person, the alleged drug lord testified.

“I saw him; [his group] arrived in two black cars,” Chavez said. “I saw how they gave him the money.”

Chavez said he left Peru for Colombia soon after Montesinos demanded that he double the monthly bribe to $100,000.

The testimony brought a swift and severe reaction.

A chorus of ministers leaped to Montesinos’ defense. Chavez returned to the stand days later, looking disoriented, and stammered a retraction. His attorney and others charged that he was coerced or even drugged.

The treatment of Chavez had previously caused suspicion.

After his arrest he was accused of collaborating with terrorists, not drug trafficking.

That pushed his case into the secretive military justice system, where he was held in virtual isolation, spurring complaints that the military was trying to shut him up.

Strangely, transcripts of radio intercepts compiled by Peru’s navy intelligence and viewed by The Times give the impression that Chavez was actually an ally of the military. In the transcripts, Chavez talks about working with military officers and fighting off an assassination attempt by a terrorist hit squad.

Chavez was convicted of treason in a military court in 1994 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He made his allegations about Montesinos during a civilian trial on drug charges.

‘El Loco’

Views of Chavez’s credibility split along predictable lines. Critics of the government say he has no reason to lie. On the other hand, Col. Tresierra said Chavez is known for erratic behavior that earned him another nickname--”El Loco.”

“Perhaps it is a desperate measure on his part,” Tresierra said. “What he alleges is incredible. He has had so much time to say this.”

By refraining from a public denial, Montesinos has heightened the suspense.

Fujimori recently told a television interviewer that it might be a good idea for Montesinos to speak out, causing speculation that the wall of secrecy has begun to crack.

And the pressure on Montesinos may intensify: U.S. officials hope that the furor will subside before a planned visit next month to Peru by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the U.S. drug czar.