Author Archives: José Carlos Llerena Robles and Vijay Prashad

Half an hour’s taxi ride from the House of Pizarro, the presidential palace in Lima, Peru, is a high-security prison at the Callao naval base. The prison was built to hold leaders of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), particularly Abimael Guzmán. Not far from Guzmán’s cell is that of Vladimiro Montesinos, intelligence chief under former President Alberto Fujimori, who is also now imprisoned. Montesinos was sentenced to a 20-year prison term in 2006 for embezzlement, influence peddling, and abuse of power. Now, audio files from phone calls made by Montesinos from his prison indicate an attempt to influence the results of Peru’s presidential election after Pedro Castillo, the candidate of the left-wing Perú Libre party, won the election. Continue reading →

Pedro Castillo of the Perú Libre party has already begun to receive congratulations from around the world. It is beyond doubt that he won the June 6 presidential election. The Peruvian electoral authority, ONPE, announced the final results: Castillo won 50.127 percent of the vote (8.84 million votes), while his opponent in the second round, Keiko Fujimori of Fuerza Popular, won 49.873 percent (8.79 million votes). This is with 100 percent of the votes. By all accounts, Fujimori has lost the election. Continue reading →