Transition

Abstract

WHEN A COUNTRY SUFFERS A PROFOUND CRISIS, the political leaders who emerge can rise to the challenge and put that country on a path to recovery, or they can harness the seething discontent and uncertainty of the public to undermine the rule of law and empower themselves. In 1990, Peru suffered the latter; in the context of economic collapse and armed conflict, the voters put their trust in the populist outsider Fujimori, with the devastating consequences to democracy and human rights described in the previous chapter. But in 2000, as Peru entered an equally perilous moment and the credibility of the Peruvian state reached a new low, leadership was placed in the hands of an interim president committed to reestablishing democracy and the rule of law. Though he served as president for only eight months, Valentín Paniagua oversaw a period of profound advances in human rights and transitional justice. Yet his administration is often relegated to a mere footnote in the broader history of the country’s recent convulsions.