This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 LIMA 003447 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2015 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS KCRM PE
SUBJECT: PLOTTING ANOTHER COME-BACK:  DOES FORMER PRESIDENT 
FUJIMORI INTEND TO RETURN TO PERU? 
 
 
Classified By: D/P...


id: 38338
date: 8/10/2005 17:23
refid: 05LIMA3447
origin: Embassy Lima
classification: CONFIDENTIAL
destination: 
header:
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.



----------------- header ends ----------------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 LIMA 003447 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2015 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS KCRM PE
SUBJECT: PLOTTING ANOTHER COME-BACK:  DOES FORMER PRESIDENT 
FUJIMORI INTEND TO RETURN TO PERU? 
 
 
Classified By: D/Polcouns Art Muirhead for Reason 1.4 (B, D) 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY.  Former President Alberto Fujimori has done a 
masterful job maintaining his standing as a major political 
force in Peru, despite the fact that he remains exiled in 
Japan, is prohibited from holding public office here, and is 
the subject of extradition requests by the GOP.  His 
supporters' claim that Fujimori will return to Lima in 
December to kick off his campaign for the 2006 elections is 
receiving a great deal of media attention, but has not 
heightened political tensions.  Fujimori faces arrest 
warrants in some 22 criminal cases; we deem it highly 
unlikely that he will return to Peru until he is assured that 
he can avoid imprisonment.  His strategy probably is to 
create a sense of expectation and uncertainty about his 
return as a way of drawing attention to himself and more 
votes for his front parties.  If, as is likely, his forces 
win 10 percent or so of the seats in the next Congress, 
Fujimori will be well positioned to trade his political 
support to the post-Toledo government for an arrangement that 
keeps him out of jail.  (The next Congress is almost certain 
to be much more factionalized than the present one, obliging 
the incoming President to strike a lot of deals for support.) 
 Though the President,s intimates here have suggested he 
might be able swing a deal with the courts by the end of this 
year to avoid imprisonment while charges against him are 
tried, any court order to that effect would be unlikely to 
hold up under the Toledo government,s counterattack.  That 
said, Fujimori mastered Peruvian politics for 10 years by 
catching everyone else completely off guard.  His return 
would throw the political scene into confusion and shake the 
foundations of Peru,s institutionally-weak democracy.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C) Congresswoman Martha Moyano of the Si Cumple Party, 
the new name for Fujimori's main political party (loosely 
translates as "He Keeps His Promises"), called on Polcouns 
and Deputy on 8/5 to probe USG attitudes towards efforts to 
effect Fujimori's return and his 2006 presidential bid. 
Moyano said that Fujimori's attorneys are concentrating on 
challenging the criminal charges against him (particularly 
the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos cases involving 
extra-judicial killings of suspected terrorists), and are 
attempting to have the arrest orders against him changed to 
summonses, indicating that once there are no arrest orders 
outstanding he will return.  Moyano added that Fujimori 
intends to run for President despite the Congressional ban in 
effect through 2011 against his serving, insisting that the 
ban would only prevent him from taking office, not from being 
elected.  (COMMENT:  The Constitutional Tribunal has declared 
that Fujimori cannot be a candidate, but the final word seems 
to lie with the independent National Electoral Board (JNE), 
which has yet to issue a definitive pronouncement.  END 
COMMENT.)  She implied that if Fujimori is elected, a 
political means will be found to get around the ban.  Moyano 
claimed that Fujimori enjoys 68% support in the Peru's jungle 
region, and overwhelming support elsewhere in the interior 
and in the poorer areas of Lima.  Although she demurred on 
endorsing the December return date proclaimed by Si Cumple 
Secretary General Luis Delgado, she emphasized that Fujimori 
 
SIPDIS 
would be back before the elections. 
 
¶3. (C) D/Polcouns recently discussed Fujimori's intentions 
with Fernan Altuve, a former Congressman of the Cambio 90 
Party (Fujimori's first electoral coalition).  Altuve, a 
Constitutional lawyer, said that he was in frequent contact 
with the ex-President.  He said Fujimori would head the 
presidential ticket of his new party, and that Si Cumple 
would field a full slate of Congressional candidates as well, 
claiming that the party had the best grass-roots organization 
of any political grouping in Peru.  He endorsed the same 
hypothesis as Moyano on Fujimori's legal status as a 
candidate:  he was banned from taking office, but not from 
running.  Altuve contended that once Si Cumple's Vice 
Presidential candidate had taken office, the party's 
Congressmen (with the support of other parties looking to 
their own future interests) would easily overcome the ban on 
Fujimori taking office.  Altuve also claimed that a new Si 
Cumple administration would be the best ally imaginable for 
the USG, taking a hard line against drug trafficking, and 
opposing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. 
 
¶4. (C) Assistant Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Walter Hoflich 
told Poloff in July that his office has no specific 
contingency plans for Fujimori's arrival, other than to 
proceed with pressing the charges already pending against the 
former President.  Should Fujimori arrive, Hoflich was sure 
that he would be arrested by the National Police.  He 
doubted, however, that Fujimori would ever return until 
charges against him are dropped.  The fact that Fujimori 
maintained several different identity documents indicated his 
nervousness about being detained by Interpol. Hoflich 
believed that Fujimori's strategy was to keep in the 
spotlight by talking about returning, and then hope that a 
pro-Fujimori bloc in the next Congress would clear the path 
for him legally. 
 
¶5. (C)  Polcouns raised Fujimori's possible return with 
Presidency Political Advisor Juan de la Puente and Labor 
Minister Juan Sheput in separate meetings on 8/8.  De la 
Puente thought it unlikely that Fujimori would return, though 
he did expect the former President to be nominated to head Si 
Cumple's ticket, as well as those of the other two 
pro-Fujimori parties, Cambio 90 and Nueva Mayoria.  He 
predicted that the JNE would disqualify Fujimori, and that 
the Vice Presidential candidate on the list, who he thought 
would be Fujimori's brother Santiago, would replace him. 
While Fujimori's supporters would seek to portray his 
disqualification as a political move designed to frustrate 
the electorate's will, de la Puente thought that this would 
not have much resonance and that the Fujimoristas will wind 
up with a dozen-or-so seats in the next Congress. 
 
¶6. (C)  Sheput was not so sanguine.  He expressed concern 
that Fujimori's attorneys could make headway in their legal 
challenges to the criminal charges against the former 
President, noting that rampant judicial corruption makes 
anything possible.  He was also worried that the JNE could be 
subject to political pressure from the Fujimoristas, given 
that the latter are expected to gain a strong foothold in the 
next Congress. 
 
¶7. (C) COMMENT:  Toledo Administration contacts have told us 
repeatedly that they want to put Fujimori on trial (although 
their pursuit of the extradition case has been 
lackadaisical), and that they will arrest him if he sets foot 
in Peru.  Fujimori is aware that he would face jail if he 
comes back voluntarily before the April elections; even 
though he is endeavoring to cast himself as a victim of 
persecution, none of our contacts believe he is interested in 
buffing his credentials by being imprisoned.  It is also 
telling that despite all the trial balloons that have been 
floated about Fujimori's return, his surrogates here have 
been unable to energize mass public support like he enjoyed 
in the past -- even with some semi-clad female dancers as a 
draw, a recent Si Cumple rally only drew a couple of thousand 
people.  Our assessment is that Fujimori is taking a prudent 
approach -- trying to rebuild his political base, painting 
himself as a martyr, and allowing the criminal charges 
against him to wither with the passage of time.  The formula 
of a patient exile while keeping a hand in the game worked 
for Alan Garcia -- in the late 90s; few predicted his return 
as a viable presidential candidate in 2001.  Alberto Fujimori 
seems determined to make history repeat itself.  END COMMENT. 
STRUBLE 

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