Victims of forced sterilization denounce delay and inaction by Peruvian justice system

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The change of judge in charge of the case of forced sterilizations in which former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori is implicated is a ‘new mistreatment’ of the judicial system and could further delay the process that keeps thousands of survivors, who have been waiting for justice for almost two decades, on tenterhooks.

This was decried on Wednesday (17) by human rights organizations and victims of forced sterilizations committed during Fujimori’s term in office (1990-2000), after the Judicial Power’s decision, the day before, to remove from his current position lawyer Rafael Martínez , who has been studying the case for three years and has spent more than two months reading his extensive resolution on whether to finally open a trial on the case.

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The Judicial Branch indicated when announcing the change of Martínez, who was transferred to another jurisdiction, that the ongoing judicial actions would continue in the hands of the magistrates who were already acting on them, but did not expressly clarify until when this situation would be maintained nor what other implications it would have for the case.

‘It is outrageous and unprecedented. I feel it is a political move,’ Victoria Vigo, one of the survivors, told Efe. She called the appointment of the new judge a lack of respect and discrimination against all the women who initiated this judicial process in 2002.

“For us, this change is a mistreatment. It has already been 20 years asking for justice,” agreed Inés Condori, another of the victims of forced sterilizations, in a press conference held hours before the eighth hearing for the reading of the resolution of the case scheduled for this Wednesday.

Specifically, this day’s session was not installed by Martínez due to circumstantial issues and was rescheduled for next Saturday, November 20, although the judge already announced that he does not expect to conclude ‘definitively’ the reading of his ruling on that date.

A CROSSROADS

Not to delay any longer this stage of the judicial process was one of the most urgent requests of the survivors and feminist organizations, who also urged the authorities of the Judicial Power, the Attorney General’s Office and the National Board of Justice to pronounce themselves immediately on the change of judge, which they consider a violation of the rights of the victims.

They demanded that Judge Martinez comply with the Judicial Power’s resolution, according to which he himself must determine, before Littman Ramírez replaces him, whether to open a trial against Fujimori and his former health ministers, who are allegedly accused of committing the crimes of serious injury followed by death and culpable injury.

Defense lawyer Milton Campos thanked Martínez, who according to local media is being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for being part of an organization that collected bribes to free drug traffickers and prisoners for extortion, for his willingness to finish the reading of his sentence.

“We are at a crossroads because we are in the hands of a corrupt judge or of a new judge (…) who cannot resolve something he does not know about and can say that he needs to go back to square one,” warned María Ysabel Cedano, lawyer of the feminist organization Demus.

DAVID AGAINST GOLIATH

Cedano insisted on the possible danger that this change of judge will further prolong the process, while victims are dying and justice is not achieved.

“If an investigation is not opened, the only thing we will have left are the doors of international justice,” said the lawyer, who insisted there was discrimination and unequal treatment against the victims, who are mostly indigenous women, in a situation of poverty and Quechua speakers.

Jennie Dador, executive secretary of the National Coordinator of Human Rights (Cnddhh), expressed herself in the same line to Efe, linking the prolongation of the investigation to the fact that the two extremes of the largest power zones in the country are involved in it.

She said that it is a struggle like that of David against Goliath, because next to these women, whose life does not count much in the Peruvian social hierarchy, are the accused, who are political figures, a former dictator president and several ministers.

2,000 COMPLAINTS

The forced sterilizations occurred during the application of the Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program 1996-2000, under Fujimori’s mandate, when “voluntary surgical contraception” (VSC), as tubal ligations and vasectomies were called, increased greatly.

This program was focused on the poor population in order to reduce their birth rate and, as a consequence, avoid the increase of poor people in the country, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.

During that period, about 300,000 people were sterilized, among them more than 272,000 women and about 22,000 men, although only a little more than 2,000 have formally denounced having been forcibly sterilized. Among them, 1,307 ended up with serious injuries, and five died as a result of the after-effects of the intervention.