This week was mainly focused on the terror in Peru and the rule of Alberto Fujimori. Alberto Fujimori’s approach as a president was to reconstruct Peru. He believed that Perus way of life and government was plagued with terrorism, drug trafficking and corruption that was weakening the country. He planned on basiclally taking away the “democratic” society to reform the government so that it would actually be democratic. He believed that although the government was said to be for the people, it was corrupt and only did harm to its citizens. Fujimori had the idea that taking away certain rights and democratic rule would lead to a better future as in his eyes they were never a real democracy. The philosophy of the means justify the ends, can be closely related to how he viewed it. As we see in the last text of “A Day in the Trial of the Century (Family Member of La Cantuta Victim).” That Fujimori’s ideals did not end in a more democratic society but one plagued with terror.
Today in modern day and age we can see just how little Fujimori’s ideals helped the Peruvian people. On November the 9th of 2020, Perus congress impeached Perus elected president of the people. Although the congress said they were doing such for the benefit of the people, that was not the case as they had a hidden agenda. The president they impeached was trying to pass a bill to change the laws that protected the congress and gave them a certain immunity to punishment for their crimes they could have committed, in a sense they were untouchable. The congress opposed the bill and threw out the president and put in the head of congress to be the interim president for their benefit. Meaning they controlled both congress and the President. Thus we can see just how little the government has evolved from corruption. We can even go as far as to say that although Fujimori said he wanted to bring a more democratic society his rule helped only reinforce the idea of corruption and a more forceful rulling.
Further discussion
- Do you think Fujimori had good intentions at the start and things just unravelled poorly or do you think he was just pretending to look out of the greater good of Peru and always had bad intentions?
Nitya Ramirez Machado
November 23, 2020 — 10:26 pm
I think it really depends on the person who has the power. When thinking about other dictators, it would seem that they were doing what they considered the best thing for their country. However, sometimes a nation can deteriorate to such a level under their mandate that one really has to question if they truly think what they are doing is the best. Also, with tyrannical leaders it’s really difficult to justify their doings by just “corruption of power”. But anyways, as for Fujimori, it doesn’t seem he had good intentions from the get-go because he immediately implied anti-democratic policies.