His conviction is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable, as Human Rights Watch pointed out.

TO BE NOTED: From the Guardian:

"The lesson from Lima

The conviction of Alberto Fujimori for human rights abuses is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable

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• • Michael Reid
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 April 2009 21.30 BST
  • Article history

When Alberto Fujimori abandoned five years of voluntary exile in Japan and flew to Chile in 2005, he was planning a political comeback. But his gamble backfired spectacularly when he was extradited to Peru. On Tuesday, after a 16-month televised trial, a Lima court found that he had known about and authorised the activities of an army death-squad which killed 25 civilians in two separate incidents in the early 1990s. The court sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment. Already serving six years for abuse of power, he faces three further trials for corruption.

This verdict is rightly being hailed as a landmark victory for the rule of law in Peru and Latin America. Fujimori is the first elected president in the region to be tried for human-rights abuses in his own country. By the account of many observers the trial, in a civilian court, was fair. Furthermore, Fujimori is still fairly popular. (His daughter, already a congresswoman, is a contender in the next presidential election in 2011.)

During his two terms as Peru's president, from 1990 to 2000, many hailed Fujimori as a saviour. As he told the court, when he took office he was "governing in hell". He ended hyperinflation, and opened up a fossilised state-dominated economy, launching two decades of rapid economic growth that has lifted millions of Peruvians out of poverty. He crushed the vicious insurgency of the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla group which, together with the army's dirty war against them, cost 70,000 lives.

But there was always a dark, cynical side to Fujimori, who governed as an autocrat. He gave the army free rein, using it to shut down Peru's Congress and its courts in 1992. He rigged an election to win an unconstitutional third term, only for his regime to implode shortly afterwards. That laid bare the machinations of Vladimiro Montesinos, his intelligence chief, who systematically bribed politicians, judges and media owners, while extorting kickbacks from businessmen and drug barons. Investigators found that more than $1 billion was stolen from public funds during Fujimori's rule.

His conviction is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable, as Human Rights Watch pointed out. In Latin America, dictators may have largely departed, but in some places they have been replaced by elected autocrats who, like Fujimori, neuter their country's legislature and courts. The lesson from Lima is that the law may eventually catch up with them. Hugo Chávez, watch out."