US embassy cable - 05LIMA4915

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 LIMA 004915 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KJUS, ETRD, PE 
SUBJECT: APRA CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS PESSIMISTIC ON 
FUJIMORI'S EXTRADITION, SEE POLITICAL PERIL IN THE LAW OF 
THE SEA CONVENTION 
 
REF: A. LIMA 4861 
     B. LIMA 4842 
     C. LIMA 4596 
 
Classified By: D/Polcouns Art Muirhead for Reason 1.4 (B, D) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. (C)  At a 12/15 meeting with Emboffs, leading APRA 
Congressmen Maurico Mulder and Luis Gonzales Posada said that: 
 
-- They were pessimistic about the GOP's ability to prepare a 
convincing case for getting former President Fujimori 
extradited from Chile; 
 
-- APRA strongly opposed initiating a debate on the UN 
Convention on the Law of the Sea in the midst of Peru's 
election campaign; 
 
-- Alan Garcia and (a debilitated) Lourdes Flores will make 
it into the second round of Peru's presidential vote next 
year; 
 
-- The U.S.-Andean Free Trade Agreement will become a 
hot-button campaign issue if it is signed before the Peruvian 
election; and 
 
-- The issue of Peruvians working for U.S. companies as 
security personnel in Iraq is off the screen for the moment, 
but will return with a vengeance if a Peruvian is killed. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
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FUJIMORI EXTRADITION 
-------------------- 
 
2. (C) Polcouns and Deputy lunched on 11/15 with leading APRA 
Congressmen Mauricio Mulder (who is also Party Co-Secretary 
General) and Luis Gonzales Posada (former Foreign Minister in 
the Alan Garcia Administration).  Mulder raised the pending 
Fujimori extradition (Refs A-B) at the outset, and said he 
was intrigued by reports that the former President had spent 
time in the U.S. en route to Chile.  Poloffs assured him that 
this was definitely not the case and Gonzales Posada seconded 
this point. 
 
3. (C) Mulder went on to observe that he found it ludicrous 
that some commentators were suggesting that Presidential 
candidates Alan Garcia, Lourdes Flores and Valentin Panigua 
should join in the demonstrations taking place in front of 
the Chilean Embassy in Lima demanding Fujimori's extradition. 
 Mulder felt that Peru needed to focus on preparing a 
convincing judicial case, not something rife with errors, as 
had been the case with the extradition papers submitted to 
Japan.  He expressed concern that the 60-day deadline for 
getting a request to Chile could result in a hurried, 
defective product, stressing that extraditions are 
complicated and demanding legal proceedings requiring great 
care, both on substance and on the technical details. 
Polcouns observed that the U.S. had received numerous 
extradition requests from the GOP over the past few years, 
and that we had encountered ongoing problems with quality in 
many of these presentations. 
 
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RED LIGHT FOR LAW OF THE SEA 
---------------------------- 
 
4. (C)  Poloffs inquired about recent press reports quoting 
Mulder's as stating that the UN Convention on the Law of the 
Sea (LOS) should not be debated now, in the midst of Peru's 
election campaign, as proposed by Foreign Minister Oscar 
Maurtua (Ref B).  The congressmen became quite animated, 
vehemently declaring that APRA strongly opposed the 
Convention for two reasons: 
 
-- Peru's coastal ports are Aprista strongholds to the core, 
and fishermen are 100 percent against the LOS.  APRA leaders 
recognized that adherence to the Convention would benefit 
Peru, but there was no/no way that they would run the risk of 
alienating their power base.  Peruvian schoolchildren were 
taught from the first grade about Peru's 200 mile territorial 
sea claim.  Ordinary citizens wouldn't grasp the similarity 
of the 200 mile territorial sea to the 200 mile exclusive 
economic zone contemplated in LOS.  All they understand is 
that the territorial sea would be reduced from 200 to 12 
miles, meaning Peru loses 188 miles.  The Toledo Government 
won't be able to change 50 years of rote education overnight. 
-- Approval of the Convention would double ultra-nationalist 
Ollanta Humala's vote, as he would launch a jingoistic attack 
against LOS that would feed on Peruvian educational 
conditioning, and the anti-Chilean sentiment that went with 
it.  It was totally irresponsible of Toledo to bring up this 
issue during an election year, and Gonzales said he had told 
FM Maurtua as much. 
 
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THE ONCE AND FUTURE PRESIDENT? 
------------------------------ 
 
5. (C) The congressmen were confident about former President 
Garcia's prospects in next April's election.  They said that 
the candidates who might fill the dark horse, "outsider" 
role, i.e., Humala, National Justice party candidate Jaime 
Salinas, and their fellow-congressman Natale Amprimo (running 
on the Alliance for Progress party ticket), were failing to 
generate momentum in opinion polls.  The survivors in the 
pack after the first round of voting should be Garcia and 
Unidad Nacional's Lourdes Flores.  Former Interim President 
Paniagua, the newly-announced candidate of the Center Front, 
was being put forward more so by the ambitious politicians 
hoping to ride on his coattails into power than by his own 
desire to be President again.  Although Flores was rabidly 
devoted to her canpaign, her support seemed to be leveling 
out, and as the front-runner, she was bound to be attacked 
mercilessly by the other candidates.  Garcia's strategy would 
be to marshall his resources by running a "medium-intensity" 
race until the beginning of next year, and then pull out all 
the stops in the 90 days leading up to the first round. 
 
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DEVELOPMENTS AT THE CONGRESS 
---------------------------- 
 
6. (C) Mulder said there were several important items on the 
Congress's agenda between now and the end of the year.  The 
Justice Committee, which he presided over, was still pushing 
to develop consensus on reforms in the justice sector, but 
consensus was hard to build, and the eventual shape of 
reforms wouldn't necessarily correspond to the 
recommendations made by the inter-institutional Executive 
Commission on Integrated Reform of the Administration of 
Justice (CERIAJUS).  Mulder was particularly critical of the 
participation of "communist" civil society representatives on 
CERIAJUS, whose initiatives were opposed by the judiciary. 
Work on the national budget was pretty well wrapped up, the 
legislators said, but civil service and other state reforms 
were stalled and unlikely to progress under this Congress. 
Both congressmen complained that as the election season 
progressed, there was increasing difficulty in getting 
together sufficient legislators for plenary sessions, and 
that quorums for committee sessions were the exception, 
rather than the rule.  Some members, they added, seem to have 
completely dropped from sight. 
 
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THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT 
------------------------ 
 
7. (C) Mulder stressed that APRA supports the U.S.-Andean 
Free Trade Agreement in principle, but cautioned that 
agriculture remains a sensitive point.  He opined that the 
GOP needs to provide additional compensation for those 
sectors that could suffer from an FTA, particularly in the 
agricultural sector, in order to make the agreement 
politically marketable.  Luis Zuniga, the new head of Peru's 
main agricultural lobbying group, CONVEAGRO, was a member of 
APRA, an indication, said Mulder, of the party's strength in 
this sector, but also of this sector's influence in the 
party.  Gonzales noted the importance of farm workers as an 
APRA constituency in his home Department, Ica, and in other 
areas of the party's political base.  Both agreed that if the 
FTA is signed before the election next April, it will become 
a hot-button campaign issue. 
 
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PERUVIAN "MERCENARIES"? 
----------------------- 
 
8. (C) Mulder raised the issue of the Peruvians who had been 
recruited by a U.S. company to serve as security guards in 
Iraq (Ref C), and contended that the International Convention 
Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of 
Mercenaries could be interpreted to prohibit such hiring. 
Polcouns explained that the Convention did not/not apply to 
the hiring of security guards, and pointed out that if Peru 
had concerns over the contracting of Peruvian personnel it 
could pass legislation regulating such recruitment in Peru. 
Gonzales agreed with Polcouns's assessment, and said he 
thought that a good portion of the fuss over this matter 
stemmed from the Defense Ministry's failure to consult within 
the GOP about allowing its facilities to be used for training 
these individuals.  Mulder said that the matter had come up 
before his Justice Committee, but that it had since faded 
from view and he had no/no desire to highlight it again. 
That said, he warned that should a Peruvian be killed in 
Iraq, the issue will come to the fore again with a vengeance. 
 
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COMMENT 
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9.  (C)  The Aprista legislators were relaxed, expansive and 
confident.  It is clear that they are comfortable with the 
current political situation and with their party's prospects 
for the 2006 election.  Their pessimism on the prospects for 
Peru submitting a strong extradition request to Chile for 
Fujimori is shared by most legal experts we have talked to, 
as well as those interviewed by the media.  They were not 
hesitant to acknowledge that APRA's opposition to the Law of 
the Sea Convention is based on self-interest -- an 
unwillingness to alienate a powerful sector within the party 
-- but they made a good case that moving forward on 
ratification now would provide a spur to Ollanta Humala's 
election campaign.  With elections looming and the current 
congressional session winding down (it is schedule to end 
12/15), Mulder and Gonzales were probably correct in doubting 
that major initiatives will pass during the remainder of the 
term.  Mulder was also on the mark in noting that the 
protests against Peruvian "mercenaries" in Iraq would become 
a major issue again should a Peruvian be killed while serving 
as a security guard in that country.  END SUMMARY. 
STRUBLE