Archive Expert Testifies in Fujimori Trial

For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000

Lima, Perú (September 8, 2008) – National Security Archive Senior Analyst Kate Doyle testified yesterday before Peru’s Special Tribunal of the Supreme Court of Justice in the case against former-president Alberto Fujimori. Doyle provided expert testimony, explaining how 21 declassified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provide illuminating information on human rights abuses carried out under the Fujimori government (1990-2000)

The 21 documents, produced by the U.S. Embassy in Lima, describe how the Fujimori government tried to hide the involvement of government security forces in human rights crimes. Doyle emphasized that, “over time, and after years of study, the declassified documents produced by the U.S. Embassy reveal that the extra-legal operations were a part of official state policy and not a result rogue elements out of control of the military, police or intelligence services.”

During her testimony before the tribunal Kate explained how the documents reveal evidence of two-sided government strategy in the fight against terrorism, one was public and “the other was secret, a clandestine strategy of aggressively fighting subversion with the use of state-sponsored terrorism. The operations were carried out outside the state’s legal process, without respect for the rule of law or basic human rights.”

The Fujimori trial is yet another case that has benefited from access to declassified U.S. government records. The National Security Archive has provided documents for legal cases in twelve different countries; in Mexico, Guatemala, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Rwanda, Italy, and Spain. Archive analysts have provided expert testimony in other human rights cases as well, most recently in the case of the Diario Militar, presented before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in October 2007 (see Kate Doyle’s testimony in previous posting on the Death Squad Dossier).

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