Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05LIMA4915
2005-11-18 17:41:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Lima
Cable title:  

APRA CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS PESSIMISTIC ON

Tags:  PGOV PREL KJUS ETRD PE 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
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)

----------
SUMMARY
----------

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)

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


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.

--------------
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.

--------------
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.

--------------
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.

--------------
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.

--------------
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.

--------------
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.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


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