A look back at the forced sterlization policies of the Fujimori government

[Derechos]

"The police said to my husband 'if she doesn't get sterilised, the police will arrest you right now and you will be sterilised instead... they threw me on the trolley and tied me up" Rudesinda Quillawamang.

When Fujimori launched a massive family planning campaign in the mid-nineties it was widely hailed and supported by the United Nations and international aid agencies alike. His aim, he said, was to liberate men and women from the burden of poverty and large families. Now, he's facing genocide charges. During the Fujimori regime, the current government says, over 300,000 men and women were sterilised against their will.

snip

We obtain a full, unpublished, government report about the scandal. The report exposes a sinister military plan, called Plan Verde, to exterminate entire social groups such as the poor and criminals. The military and intelligence sources in the report are all anonymous, but we track down one source. This former military officer details how the military was indeed deployed to sterilise people.

See link for rest of article and video http://www.insightnewstv.com/d68/

[Peace Patriot]

1. Odd twist of the rightwing mind, this.

These days--or at least in this country--they're more into denying family planning assistance to the poor, probably to create more "cannon fodder" for corporate resource wars and lots of slave laborers. On the other hand, they've gotten so extreme that I wouldn't be surprised to see this rightwing trend reverse itself, here, with genocidal sterilization as the next phase of the fascist plot.

I sure hope Fujimora's daughter loses the election in Peru.

[Judi Lynn]

2. The long term goals from our right-wing politicians for the country always involve lots of military

pawns for those necessary invasions of more and more countries, a physcial presence to intimidate the locals until they get the message.

Cutting out the middle class furthers the likelihood we'll have a lot of people desperate for work for a long time, people who may be forced to look at the military as a possible employer, and hope they don't get killed or badly maimed.

It seems that the US has much more wide-ranging military intentions than Peru, where a lot of poor people probably screw things up, like protesting the theft of their ancestral lands, and protesting unbelievably deadly pollution (from US-based mine owners, like Doe Run's owner, Ira Rennert, living in the country's largest private residence in The Hamptons) and presenting a need for education for the masses, and medical treatment, and food, when the oligarchs see thse things as THEIR rights, not the poor's.

Does Peru have any use for a lot of poor people? Looks doubtful, doesn't it? The U.S.? Enough to keep the military going, which does have a high turn-over, given high death rates, and an ever-climbing suicide rate these days, not to mention those who would have been killed immediately, but thanks to modern medicine, can be stitched up and sent right back for more combat.

(We all know when they go around the bend, broken mentally and emotionally, they can all be sure, thanks to Republican control of the budget, going back as far as Reagan's governorship, they will never be able to receive the therapy and care needed to make them viable people again through treatment.

If they DO flip out and go wacko, shooting up the town, as they have been known to do, they can be added to our swollen ranks of prison dwellers, thereby keeping prisons a growing industry.)

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for opening our eyes to this, Derechos. First time I'd heard of it.

Hope this information gets a good hearing in Peru before the election.

K & R.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Peru's sterilisation victims still await compensation and justice

Peru's sterilisation victims still await compensation and justice
Keiko Fujimori's weak response to her father's awful policy likely lost her the presidency. It's little comfort to the 300,000 women
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 June 2011 14.18 BST

On 5 June, Ollanta Humala was elected to the Peruvian presidency after narrowly defeating Keiko Fujimori. The daughter of disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori had until the very last week of campaigning managed to dodge accusations that linked her to the corrupt and abusive regime of her father. Many remained undecided until the last week, and she held a slight edge thanks to the backing of the media and the elite fearing the possible election of a left-leaning former army commander accused of being financed by Hugo Chávez. According to pollsters, Keiko Fujimori lost crucial support because of her dismal response to the issue of the mass sterilisation programme carried out during her father's regime.

Between 1996 and 1998, some 300,000 women were sterilised in Peru. All came from the poorest backgrounds, most from the Andean and Amazonian areas where Spanish is still not widely spoken. Some days before the election, vice-presidential candidate Rafael Rey declared the women had not been sterilised "against their will", but "without their consent". This came hot on the heels of Keiko Fujimori's assertion during the presidential debate that she, "as a mother", understood the plight of the women that had been sterilised, while defending the man who as health minister had carried out her father's policies.

Humala lost no chance to remind voters of his opponent's faux pas and women's rights activists took the issue to the forefront of symbolic fighting by parading in Lima's streets with placards of mutilated genitalia during the marches held against Fujimori. The issue was taken up by Peruvians of all social classes and while it was not uncommon to hear taxi drivers argue that "only educated women should have children", many of the women who had so far favoured Keiko Fujimori for her promises of providing school uniforms and lunches had second thoughts about supporting her after her defence of controversial population control policies.

As far as Keiko Fujimori and her advisers were concerned, the sterilisation campaign was executed with the best intentions at heart, although some regrettable errors were made. Thirty women died, and several others were scarred for life, as some of those sterilised had, in fact, never had children. The sterilisation program came about as a poverty reduction strategy. In the early 90s Peru had, under Fujimori, put in practice one of the most aggressive structural adjustment policies ever implemented. It was so forceful that even the World Bank advised the Peruvian government to slow down. As a result of prolonged economic crisis and neoliberal reform, 50% of Peruvians lived under the poverty line and population control was an ideal to aspire to. The UN population conference in Cairo in 1994 and the women's Beijing conference of 1995 provided Fujimori with inspiration, and his government received funding from USAid to undertake the ambitious project.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/17/peru-sterilisation-compensation