The decision by Peru's military this week to throw out the 1996 terrorism conviction of Lori Berenson and grant her a new trial by civilian authorities is an unexpected but welcome turn in a case that has been a black mark on that country's human rights record. While the new trial may afford the former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student no more due process than the first, it offers hope that there will be at least some measure of justice. Both the circumstances of Berenson's conviction and the severity of her prison conditions - for the first three years in a special jail for terrorists at an altitude of 12,700 feet - have strained relations between Lima and Washington.
The agreed-upon facts in the case are few. Berenson was a sympathizer of Latin America's oppressed poor who was trying to establish credentials as a journalist in the mid-1990s, a time of frequent outbreaks of violence by leftist guerrillas in Peru. In late 1995, government forces arrested her and members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement who were sharing a house with her. The military said she helped plan an attack on Peru's Congress. Berenson has denied it, but she did not help her cause in the court of public opinion in Peru when she was videotaped angrily screaming support for the group.
She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison by a military tribunal whose members met in secret and wore hoods to hide their identities. According to Berenson and her supporters, her lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine prosecution witnesses or present evidence at the trial.
This week's decision came as a surprise because during the presidential election this spring, the incumbent, Alberto Fujimori, attacked his opponent for proposing to review Berenson's case if he won. Irregularities and outright voter fraud in that election, which was won by Fujimori, have shaken the credibility of Peruvian democracy. One explanation for the new trial is that Fujimori is seeking to improve his country's image overseas.
Peru's prime minister has specifically denied that the action had anything to do with talks on a reform agenda for Peru that have been sponsored by the Organization of American States and have included both the government and opposition parties. But if, in fact, the OAS talks were a factor, more power to that organization. The new trial has sparked criticism on the Peruvian home front, where newspapers that usually support Fujimori have accused him of caving in to foreign pressure.
Whatever the motive behind the military's decision and Fujimori's role in it, the action is overdue. With guerrilla violence now suppressed, Peruvian officials have regularly been reviewing the cases of persons convicted in circumstances like Berenson's, and more than 1,000 have been pardoned and released. A new trial for Lori Berenson with high standards of due process should both clarify what her role, if any, was in the violence of the 1990s and help to build a system of law in Peru.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
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