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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
______________________PERU____________________
“Full truth” demanded
Prelate wants corruption exposed
While Peruvians are being shocked by a series of videos showing how key members of Peru’s political elite took bribes from former Secret Police head Vladimiro Montesinos, the Archbishop of Lima has encouraged efforts to expose all of the facts involved in the corruption scandal, saying that this full exposure will be “necessary to reconcile the country.”
Peru has been deeply shaken by a series of videos known as the “Vladivideos” after Vladimiro Montesinos, the top aide to former President Alberto Fujimori. The former head of the Secret Service, who is now at large, secretly filmed hundreds of meetings with top members of Peru’s establishment. A court reviewing 700 of the “Vladivideos” has been releasing them at a painfully slow pace, shattering the reputations of legislators, judges, and corporate leaders.
One of the tapes even showed the vice president of a congressional commission that had been probing Montesinos, Ernesto Gamarra, receiving a $3,500 bribe from a Montesinos associate. Since the indictment of Gamarra, who had been regarded as one of the corruption-busters within the country’s legislature, Peruvians have become fascinated with the investigation, eagerly awaiting the release of each new video, while rumors about other personalities allegedly involved with Montesinos swirl around in public discussions.
Since only around 40 videos have been seen by the state prosecutors investigating Montesinos, several people, including Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Lima, have requested a more efficient process to show the whole truth. “Peru needs desperately to go back to truth, ethics, and national reconciliation, but it can only be achieved if we know the full truth,” said the archbishop during Mass at Lima’s cathedral. “We urgently must get rid of the culture of lies, manipulation, blackmailing, and corruption afflicting the country in recent years, and we need to find as soon as possible, our path to peace and brotherhood among Peruvians,” he added.
Cardinal Cipriani also insisted on the need to “accelerate the process of knowing the truth, so we all will know for whom to vote in the coming elections.”
“We hope that this new moment may bring us all to a culture of honesty, decency, and values both at private and public levels,” he concluded.
In response to the prelate’s request, Attorney General Jose Ugaz asked for the appointment of a panel of seven special judges who would examine all of the available videos. The panel, he said, should classify the videos in three categories: those showing criminal acts, those showing acts that are morally objectionable but not illegal, and those taken by Montesinos from the private lives of political dissidents. Videos in the first two categories should be released to the public, he said. Those in the third category should be handed over to the dissidents, who could then determine whether they wanted to take legal action against Montesinos and his agents for violating their privacy.