The Fujimori Legacy: The Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism in Peru

5. The Immoral Economy of Fujimorismo

FIVE The Immoral Economy of Fujimorismo catherine m. conaghan Historians will forever thank Vladimiro Montesinos for his devotion to documentation in the video age. Since the fall of the government of President Alberto Fujimori in November 2000, hundreds of videotapes and audio recordings chronicling the abuses and corruption of the regime have been made public. Most of the videos released to date feature the clandestine meetings that Fujimori’s national security advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, held in his office at the Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (National Intelligence Service [sin]) with notables and would-be notables from every walk of Peruvian life. The tapes, along with the numerous investigations that ensued, confirmed what many Peruvians had long suspected : the Fujimori administration was not just a government; it was also a vast criminal conspiracy. Just as the Nixon tapes opened a window on the darkest vistas of American politics during the Watergate scandal, the Montesinos videos provided Peruvians with an unprecedented look at the backstage behavior of a ruling elite. The videos (later followed by testimony from Montesinos and other principals) showed how systemic the deceit, hypocrisy, and cynicism was and how integral these practices were to the reproduction of the regime. In pursuit of Fujimori’s reelection in 2000, no part of the state or society was left untouched by corruption as Montesinos reached out to ensure complete control over the political landscape. He found willing accomplices. Professionals from every field—media execu- the immoral economy of fujimorismo 103 tives, consultants, businesspeople, public officials, judges, and congressional deputies—lined up for the hefty bribes that Montesinos patiently doled out. As he handed over envelopes or briefcases full of cash, Montesinos gave his associates their marching orders, spelling out their political obligations to the president. There is no doubt that democratic institutions were eviscerated during the Fujimori era, but it would be a mistake to view the period as bereft of any institutionalization. The denaturation of democratic institutions went hand in hand with the routinization of other behavior meant to perpetuate the regime. As Guillermo O’Donnell (1996, 40) argues, the apparent weakness of the formal institutions of democracy in Latin America should not blind us ‘‘from seeing an extremely influential, informal , and sometimes concealed institution: clientelism, and more generally particularlism.’’ During the Fujimori era in Peru, this other ‘‘institutionalization’’ was in full gear; the governing clique developed an elaborate system of corruption and clientelism, one with its own code of conduct and culture. In postarrest ruminations, Montesinos acknowledged his own culpability and that of his clients, the ones he found in the boardrooms and newsrooms and among the ‘‘best and brightest’’ technocrats. Fujimori and Montesinos counted on collusion and complicity at the highest levels of Peruvian society to maintain the regime. Members of the Peruvian elite were active participants in an immoral economy that revolved around untold opportunities for illicit economic gains made possible by the official culture of impunity. In contrast to a moral economy, in which economic justice is defined as access to a tolerable minimum standard of living, the Fujimorista elite constructed its own immoral economy, one based on maximizing the economic spoils of power and structured deceit .1 In the Fujimori era, corruption was not simply an unhappy by-product or a symptom of an incompetent or inefficient regime. Rather, corruption was a primary constitutive feature of the regime, the ‘‘cartilage and collagen ’’ that held it together and ensured its reproduction.2 Fujimori’s autogolpe of 1992 laid the essential groundwork for a government steeped in crime and cover-ups. By effectively eradicating any oversight of the executive branch by the legislature or the judiciary, Fujimori and his inner circle were free from scrutiny and could act with impunity. They did so, and the result was a system in which corruption flourished. Corruption became both a means and an end—a way to retain power and the reason to stay in power.3 the fujimori legacy 104 Unpacking the Crimes: The Investigations The investigations undertaken after Fujimori’s removal by the Peruvian congress in November 2000 were unprecedented in their number and scope. Both Congress and the judicial branch have played an active role in the Herculean task of documenting the crimes of the Fujimori era. Congressman David Waisman led the original congressional commission on Montesinos’s corruption rings. Waisman’s commission concluded work in June 2001, but Congress...