-Caveat Lector- > > > Fujimori replaces Peru's armed forces chiefs > Plot to restore ex-spy chief rumored > October 28, 2000 CNN.com > Web posted at: 8:31 p.m. EDT (0031 GMT) > In this story: > > Talks disrupted > > Money laundering probed > > 'Lot of money, nowhere to go' > > RELATED STORIES, SITES > From staff and wire reports > LIMA, Peru -- President Alberto Fujimori has replaced the three heads of the > Peruvian armed forces amid questions about their loyalty and rumors of a plot > to restore ousted spy master Vladimiro Montesinos. > Fujimori told reporters Saturday the three officers resigned. "There would be > no authentic democratization if the armed forces and police had not made this > enormous sacrifice, this enormous patriotic gesture," he said. > In the navy, Adm. Antonio Ibarcena was replaced by Adm. Victor Ramos Ormeno. > Gen. Elesvan Bello was replaced by Gen. Carlos Balarezo as the air force > commander. Gen. Walter Chacon, who had served as the interior minister, > replaces Jose Villanueva Ruesta as chief commander of the army. > Gen. Fernando Dianderas becomes interior minister. The only Cabinet member to > retain his position is Defense Minister Carlos Bergamino. > Journalist Claudia Cisneros told CNN from Lima that the move by Fujimori was > seen as a genuine attempt to further democratize Peru. Although the > replacements as leaders of the country's armed forces were former Montesinos > supporters, they were also moderates. > Talks disrupted > Fujimori's grip on power has been in doubt since Montesinos' return on Monday > from Panama, where he had sought asylum after being caught on videotape > apparently bribing a congressman. > The bribery scandal was followed by Fujimori's announcement that he would > step down next year. But Montesinos' return disrupted talks on democratic > reform between the government and opposition and forced the president to > reassure his countrymen he was in control. > Before Saturday's resignations, he had already transferred five colonels from > their posts. He also led a highly visible manhunt for Montesinos this week. > The former intelligence chief has not been seen since he returned and many > analysts suspect members of the military are sheltering him. > Montesinos has claimed all he wants now is to live quietly as a private > lawyer and to avoid public intrigue. Few believe he is telling the truth. > On Saturday, Peru's Attorney General Blanca Nelida Colan -- a Montesinos > loyalist -- appeared to bow to public pressure by assigning three new > prosecutors to investigate Montesinos on a range of criminal complaints from > torture and death squad killings to corruption and money laundering. > Colan also removed from the case a prosecutor who critics charged had > whitewashed a 1997 probe of systematic phone-tapping by Montesinos' > intelligence organization. > Money laundering probed > The prosecutors will investigate allegations that Montesinos laundered money > from a drug trafficker who testified in 1996 that he had given Montesinos > $50,000 a month for the use of an airstrip. > The former spy chief will also be investigated as the man responsible for the > November 1991 murders of 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, in a > tenement building in Lima's squalid Barrios Altos district; and for the > death-squad executions a year later of nine students and a lecturer at La > Cantuta, a poor public university on Lima's outskirts. > In a radio interview from his secret hideout, Montesinos on Tuesday denied > involvement in either massacre. > Legal experts believe the former spy master will find it difficult to hide > from international justice. Already shunned by Latin American countries, > Montesinos has found that the world has become smaller for alleged torturers > and murderers since former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in > Britain two years ago on the orders of a Spanish judge. > 'Lot of money, nowhere to go' > Robert Varenik, director of the protection program at the New York-based > Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said, "What is really clear is that > Montesinos' options have narrowed, Fujimori's options have narrowed and the > options for Montesinos to get around the law are limited." > Martin Belaunde, dean of Peru's college of lawyers, said the former spy chief > "has a lot of money but nowhere to go. > "I don't know how many countries would like to receive him," he said. > One of Montesinos' most promising options disappeared earlier this week when > Venezuela declined to take him. Morocco and Iraq have been offered as > possibilities. > Lawyers said that if Montesinos left Peru he would essentially face life in > "rogue states" that cared little about flouting international law, such as a > 1984 convention obliging states to try alleged torturers. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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