Peru talks set deadline for plans to boost human rights

LIMA (Reuters) -- Peru edged forward on the bumpy road to democratic reforms Tuesday after the government and opposition set themselves two weeks to draft proposals to resolve four of the country's trickiest human rights problems.

The decision, reached Monday night in a meeting brokered by the Organization of American States, was the first concrete sign of progress since talks began after President Alberto Fujimori's re-election in a widely condemned May vote.

The short-list -- for reforms in the media, courts and spy service -- came after the government announced initiatives in high-profile rights cases. Analysts wondered if the hard-line president was yielding to international pressure or merely making cosmetic reforms in an effort to appease his critics.

"It really is a breakthrough," Jorge Santistevan, the government's respected human rights ombudsman, told Reuters.

"There was consensus. For 10 years, decisions have been imposed by the majority. ... This has put these issues on a kind of fast track. ... I think it's positive."

The Expreso newspaper, one of Fujimori's staunchest supporters, trumpeted the apparent opening in a front-page banner headline: "Reform will happen before March 2001."

But political analysts cautioned against opening the champagne yet. "I think this is a dialogue of the deaf. ... Fujimori's not about to change." Juan Ossio, principal of Lima's Catholic University, said.

Fujimori, in power since 1990, has been in the spotlight as one of Latin America's worst human rights offenders since winning a third term in a vote marked by fraud allegations.

The opposition boycotted the runoff vote in May, sparking the OAS intervention to broker the talks.

Monday's rare show of consensus set the stage for working groups to thrash out a return to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which Fujimori withdrew from last year, and regulation of Peru's powerful secret service.

Another group will consider the cases of Baruch Ivcher, an Israeli-born media mogul stripped of his Peruvian citizenship and his television channel in 1997 after criticizing the military, and the ownership of another television station.

The fourth group will grapple with how to restore the authority of Peru's constitutional court, closed in 1997 after three judges ruled against allowing Fujimori to run for a third term in office. The judges were then fired.

Monday's progress -- which followed early threats by opposition parties to walk out of the talks unless the government cooperated more -- was the latest surprise after swift about-turns on two high-profile rights cases in a week.

First, Fujimori declared that Ivcher's Peruvian citizenship would be restored. Within days, a top military commission that Peruvians widely believe Fujimori controls announced that Lori Berenson, a U.S. woman jailed for life in 1996 by a military judge as a leftist rebel, would get a civilian retrial.

But political analysts questioned whether Fujimori's apparent new openness was really more than skin-deep.

"There's a change of strategy -- Fujimori's realizing he is very isolated and he has to give something," said Fernando Rospigliosi, a columnist for weekly news magazine Caretas.

"But I don't think he'll give everything the OAS wants. He's not going to give ground on anything fundamental."

Santistevan acknowledged that issues as politically charged as control and accountability of Peru's feared intelligence service, or SIN, would not be resolved in the next two weeks.

But he saw progress -- probably with "some nuances" -- on returning Peru to the hemisphere's top rights court.

Fujimori pulled out in 1999 after it called for a civil retrial for four Chileans imprisoned in Peru as left-wing rebels.

But Expreso in an editorial signaled no change, saying the conditions that led to Peru's withdrawal "are still in force."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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