Peru Reopens Probe Of Forced Sterilizations

[Judi Lynn]

Peru Reopens Probe Of Forced Sterilizations
by The Associated Press

LIMA, Peru October 28, 2011, 09:18 pm ET

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian prosecutors have reopened an investigation into evidence that thousands of women were forcibly sterilized during the 1990-2000 government of Alberto Fujimori, a practice rights groups say was official state policy and constituted a crime against humanity.

Rights groups say they have proof more than 2,000 Peruvian women were forcibly sterilized under Fujimori. But they believe the number is closer to 200,000. Most of the victims lived in rural areas, were poor and barely educated or illiterate.

The goal was to reduce poverty by lowering the birth rate among the poor, who at the time accounted for one in two Peruvians, the groups say.

"It was a premeditated development policy because it was done fundamentally, in areas of extreme poverty, rural and Andean," said Francisco Soberon, executive director of APRODEH, Peru's leading human rights organization.

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[ocpagu]

1. Disgusting...

And I'm afraid we've just started to know what really happened in Peru during Alberto Fujimori's government.

Thanks, Judi.

[Peace Patriot]

2. What's even more worrisome is that Fujimora's daughter,

who is supported by the same fascist elements and some of the same advisers, ran a close second to Ollanta Humala in the last presidential election. So there are likely some in Peru--more than the lunatic fringe--who apparently still think that forced sterilization of the poor is a "solution" to poverty! And this is only a few steps away from nazi death camps.

I hope that the investigation is successful and widely publicized, so that these genocide-minded fascists crawl back into their dank, dark holes and are forever removed from political power in Latin America.

I also hope that the investigation makes the U.S. at least hesitate as to the rightwing causes and candidates that it supports with our tax dollars. I think they did hesitate over Fujimora's daughter (not entirely sure, but it looks like it) and made some kind of deal with Humala instead, possibly to protect U.S./Canadian corporate interests that are benefiting from U.S. "free trade for the rich" (the U.S./Peru "free trade" agreement adopted by the previous Peruvian government, that of the very corrupt Alan Garcia). Humala is a thorough-going Leftist (into good government, democracy and sharing the wealth) but has a similar problem to Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, that is, a U.S. "free trade for the rich" agreement already in place and the country already on its way to becoming a U.S. client state. He not only needs to serve the people, and his particular constituents--the vast poor majority--he has to be pragmatic and not invite the wrath of the giant that has one foot firmly inside the door. There is always the threat that the U.S. will support more rightwing horror in Latin America. The U.S. has pretty much openly done so, time and again--and, wherever the U.S. gains a foothold--as in Colombia and Honduras, and most recently in Mexico--it massively funds militarists, trains them in techniques of repression and helps turn containable or solvable problems (armed leftist guerrillas, drug trafficking) into extended bloody wars, and also uses these situations to expand the Pentagon's footprint (new U.S. military bases going into Honduras, as I write this) and to permanently install rightwing leadership.

Humala's sympathies are with the poor and with the many other Leftist leaders in the region who have created such a remarkable change in the Latin American political landscape--which includes common goals of independence from the U.S., social justice, peace and shared prosperity. In every case, they are dealing not only with U.S. support of the rightwing opposition but past U.S. support of outright war criminals (and in some cases, current support, as in Honduras, as well as support for legal impunity, as with Uribe, the Bushwhack leader of Colombia until recently), in addition to support of rightwing coup groups who would, if they gained power, start by killing leftists.

Exposure of the fascists' sterilization of the poor and the Indigenous may help fend off the threat that the U.S. poses--that governments that do not do U.S. bidding will be replaced with fascist/criminal governments, by outright coup or by massive propaganda, buying elections and/or election fraud. The bottom line is justice, of course. These fascist horrors cry out to be exposed, the victims compensated and the criminals punished. But there is more to it than simple justice. A healthy society does not let such things be forgotten. And a healthy democracy provides more choices than one viable candidate vs genocidists, or rather, does not allow genocide to be a choice.