Raid’s Success May Bolster Repression

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is triumphant--and he is enjoying a 30-point bounce in the polls. The rescue operation ending the four-month hostage siege at the Japanese ambassador’s Lima residence was, by most accounts, a great success. Most Peruvians are relieved, if not jubilant.

Fujimori needed the boost. His popularity had been plummeting. Peruvians were unhappy not only with the prolonged standoff, but with the country’s persistent social problems. Despite increasing foreign investment and positive, though declining, growth rates, unemployment and poverty rates remain stubbornly high.

The country’s political and human-rights situation had also been deteriorating. Revelations of violent attacks against political opponents--and an especially gruesome killing resulting from internecine conflicts among different intelligence services--made many Peruvians uneasy, including previous Fujimori backers. The political crisis eventually sparked the resignations of Peru’s interior minister and national police chief.

Fujimori’s luck and daring have, for the moment, partly cleared the air of these troubling elements. But his triumphalism may be deceptive, ephemeral, even perilous.

An efficient and audacious military operation instills pride and makes Peruvians feel good, but it does not begin to deal with Peru’s underlying problems of profound social distress and institutional precariousness. Worse, the success of the raid may make dealing with such problems even more difficult.

The outcome of the rescue operation may serve to fortify hard-liners in the military who wanted to use force from the outset of the siege. In a country where political parties are in shambles, the congress is ineffectual, the judiciary is politically controlled and one of the president’s main pillars of support is the armed forces, such a prospect is deeply troubling.

Although human-rights violations have decreased in the past several years, the armed forces have a history of violating the basic constitutional guarantees of Peruvian citizens, targeting opposition figures, in particular. Since it was force that ended the hostage crisis, other means to resolve problems--dialogue, negotiation--may now be given less attention.

This explains why Peruvians who so fervently hoped for a negotiated end to the crisis are somewhat demoralized. It is not that they believed that such a settlement offered a better solution. Rather, it would have demonstrated the value of conversation and give and take. It may even have forced Fujimori to consider softening his authoritarianism and prepare the ground for democratic politics in Peru. Instead, the notions of dialogue and negotiation may well have been further discredited.

The stubbornness and irresponsibility of Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, the Tupac Amaru guerrilla leader, certainly contributed to this irony. After scoring a major propaganda coup, even displaying the same efficiency and boldness that characterized the rescue raid when his band seized the ambassador’s residence last December, the former union leader clung to his unrealistic demand of freedom for 400 Tupac Amaru revolutionaries in Peru’s prisons.

He also, unpardonably and tragically, led some 11 Tupac Amaru teenage recruits, boys and girls from the Peruvian jungle, on his deadly course. Though the now crippled Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement had contacts with Cuba in the 1980s, and asylum to that country had been arranged, for these kids, Fidel Castro meant absolutely nothing. In the end, Cerpa squandered everything--and ultimately helped bolster the authoritarian forces he was presumably fighting against.

Other countries will continue to analyze last week’s commando raid in Lima. Lessons will be drawn about the best way to deal with terrorist acts. Yet, while it may be instructive to study such an efficient, well-executed operation, it is crucial to put the assault within a broader political perspective--and to fathom the full implications of bolstering the already strong armed forces within a system nearly devoid of institutional checks.

Even before the rescue, Fujimori had set his sights on his next major political operation--his reelection to a third term in the year 2000. The Peruvian president manifestly enjoys power, and wields it astutely. Yet, less than a week ago Fujimori’s popularity was at 38%--and falling.

He now has the opportunity to heed that warning and take bold action in a different direction--to pay serious attention to Peru’s long-term, underlying social and institutional problems. The country’s increasingly sullied political and security situation needs to be rectified--and the rule of law respected. That would really give Peruvians even more to cheer about.