 |
Down
to the bone: the forced exile of Fabián Salazar Olivares
by
Marta Grecchi, Digital Freedom Network
(June 13, 2000) In
Peru, a newsworthy scoop can be just cause for a reporter to fear
for her own safety. During President Alberto Fujimori's ten years
in office, Peruvian independent press outlets critical of official
policy have been targeted and harassed so extensively that today
many have become nothing more than Fujimori's own public relations
puppets.
|
Journalist
Fabián Salazar Olivares, a frequent contributor to
La República, fled Peru after being bound
and tortured by unidentified men.
|
Having had a good taste
of these intimidation tactics in the past, Fabián Salazar
Olivares, a frequent contributor to Lima's daily La República,
must have been aware of the risks involved when he agreed to meet
with an informant on the night of May 24. The source, an individual
closely linked to the National Intelligence Service (Servicio
de Inteligencia Nacional, or SIN), had contacted Salazar wishing
to expose evidence allegedly incriminating high-ranking officials
in Fujimori's government.
Bound and tortured
In his Lima office
shortly after the meeting, Salazar had begun to review the material
when he heard a knock on his door. According to reports, the man
who greeted Salazar initially identified himself as an employee
of the National Division of Tax Administration (Superintencia
Nacional de Administración Tributaria, or SUNAT), but soon
pushed his way into Salazar's office, accompanied by four others.
Forcing the journalist
into a chair, the assailants allegedly bound Salazar's feet, eyes,
and mouth with tape and communicated the journalist's capture
via radio to a third party. The unidentified men then began to
question Salazar about the material he had received from just
15 minutes prior in a city parking lot. Hoping to force Salazar
into revealing the identity of the informant, the attackers, whom
Salazar believes to be agents of the SIN, beat him and began to
slowly saw his left wrist, eventually cutting through the flesh
and down to the bone.
Presumably afraid that
building security had alerted the police, the attackers fled the
scene after trashing the office and setting it ablaze, leaving
a seriously injured Salazar, whom they believed unconscious, to
an almost certain death. Despite being bound, Salazar was able
to crawl out of the fire and was eventually rushed to San Felipe
clinic, where he underwent emergency surgery.
Fleeing the country
During recovery, Salazar
related the incident to reporters from several national and international
media outlets, revealing that the documents implicated Vladimiro
Montesinos, head of the SIN and a close ally of President Fujimori.
The evidence allegedly included videos of the president of the
National Elections Jury (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones, or JNE),
and other individuals affiliated with the upcoming presidential
vote, entering the office of Peru's intelligence agency, the SIN.
Another tape documented a meeting between Montesinos, the government's
press advisor and the heads of major television channels. Almost
all of this material was taken by the assailants during the attack.
Once released from
the clinic, Salazar wasted no time in heading directly for the
airport, hoping to avoid SIN retaliation by fleeing the country.
Although sources report that he boarded a flight headed to Los
Angeles, California, Salazar's present location is unconfirmed.
Implications
If it had been allowed
to come to light, the evidence in question could have been extremely
damaging to President Fujimori's re-election bid. The videos seem
to corroborate widespread accusations of both government controls
on the media, which had displayed a persistent Fujimori bias throughout
the campaign, as well as suspicions of fraud and other irregularities
in the election process itself. It was due to these very allegations
that Fujimori's main challenger, Alejandro Toledo, dropped out
of the presidential race in an act of protest. On May 29, Fujimori
overwhelmingly won a third term as president.
With the elections
only a few days away, Salazar had planned to turn this evidence
over to the Organization of American States (OAS), which had monitored
the first presidential elections, when his assailants burst into
his office. Salazar had only just placed a mobile phone call to
his secretary to request that she accompany him to the OAS office,
an act which he believes may have informed the assailants of the
exchange and triggered the attack.
|
|
