Unjust and Groundless Arrest of Adolfo Olaechea

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Unjust and Groundless Arrest of Adolfo Olaechea

“I Am a Maoist Intellectual”

On July 3, while asleep in a hotel in the town of Almería, Adolfo Olaechea was arrested by the Spanish police under an Interpol warrant relating to charges of acts of terrorism in Peru. The Peruvian authorities are seeking his extradition to Peru.

            Adolfo Olaechea is a Peruvian national who has been living abroad since 1967, primarily in England but also in the United States for a period of 4-5 years and all his political activities have been legal and respectful of the laws of the countries in which he has resided. Adolfo has participated in meetings of the London Political Forum in recent months.

            The accusations on which the demand for extradition is based are false and malicious. Adolfo Olaechea is not and never has been a member of the Communist Party of Peru, known as “Sendero Luminoso”. He has not participated in any form in political or armed actions that have taken place in Peru since 1980. 

            During his visits to Peru, lasting three and a half years at the end of the 1970s until the early 1980s and 15 days for his wedding in 1990, he never took part in any party political activity, legal or illegal.

            Between 1992 and 1999 he was unable to travel at all because the Peruvian authorities withdrew his passport.  His passport was returned to him when the Fujimori government was replaced by an interim government lead by Paniagua. In the last three to four years he has travelled to other countries for holidays but not to Peru.

   

In recent years, Adolfo Olaechea has been active as the Secretary General of Justice International, an organisation that advocates and has been campaigning for governments of peace, democracy and legality not just in Peru but also in the context of the wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

            The Interpol warrant for Adolfo Olaechea’s arrest was issued in February 2002 but was originally instigated by Vladimiro Montesinos, the security advisor to former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori who is currently on trial in Lima.  The current Peruvian government accuses Montesinos of overseeing a mafia that permeated the entire power structure – media, business, political parties, the government. He is facing charges of influence peddling, abuse of authority, fraud, coercion, corruption, illicit enrichment, money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, extortion, bribery, forced disappearances, torture, murder, harbouring a criminal, embezzlement, and illegal wiretapping, to name just the first round of potential indictments.

            As the courts and Congress investigate Montesinos's activities, the most glaring source of information are 2,700 videotapes that he recorded in dealings with Peru's makers and breakers. In some cases, exchanges of money and favours were taped. In other tapings, Montesinos and associates spoke blatantly about manipulating the courts, the media and the political system to guarantee their control of the country.

            Among the collection of Montesinos videos is one that reveals how the international warrant for the arrest of Adolfo Olaechea and other Peruvians abroad was initially conceived.

            In the transcription of the video, Mr Montesimos describes in detail how, with the political objective of harassing people whose opinions were uncomfortable for his regime, he had the "bright idea" of violating both the Anglo-Saxon and Roman laws in order to try "in absentia" his opponents and to use Interpol and the legal international extradition system as a trap to realise his objectives of getting at a number of Peruvians living in other countries.

            The text of the charges made in the warrant issued by Interpol in February 2002 is, in fact, identical – including errors of fact – to the original order prepared by the Prosecutor Julia Equia who, like Montesimos, is currently in prison on charges of being an accomplice to his corrupt network.

            The current Peruvian government, headed by Alexandro Toledo, has simply renewed this old warrant without altering it a single dot or comma.

            The Spanish government should desist from its course of becoming accomplices to the illegal actions of the Peruvian government.

Adolfo Olaechea shares the cell in the Madrid jail in which he is incarcerated with five criminals. Yolanda Vaccaro, correspondent of El Comercio was able to interview Adolfo Olaechea on July 9 through a lawyer, Demóstenes Mamani, but was unable to visit him in his cell, because the authorisation for interviews in cases of extradition take approximately a month to obtain. The interview appeared in El Diario Internacional No. 74.

            Asked whether he is a member of the Shining Path, Adolfo said that he has never been a member since he lived in England. He is an intellectual and Maoist politician. Maoism, he said, in developed and democratic countries justifies revolutionary action and violence in countries where this democracy does not exist or is insufficient. In countries such as England, Maoists raise the defence of democratic legality and its advance with peaceful methods.

            Asked whether he knew Abimael Guzmán or other members of the Shining Path, Adolfo said that he neither knows Dr Guzmán personally nor has he communicated with him or his associates directly or indirectly. He had read and studied his works.

            Asked whether he is in agreement with the ideology of the Shining Path, Adolfo said that there is much he agrees with and much in it that he differs with. At the moment, he said, from the ideological point of view, he has been developing the conception of Justice International, which is summed up in the following: “Brothers, you are being deceived, our interests are such that what you want I also cherish, and the emancipation that I seek will be yours also.” Adolfo said that he agrees with some members of the Truth Commission when they pointed out that the Shining Path phenomenon is not of crazy people or assassins, but it is a political party. The internal conflict in Peru will not be solved if we do not include/understand this truth, he said.

            Adolfo said in answer to the question as to how long he had lived in London that he first arrived there in 1967, and he was granted indefinite residence in the UK in around 1970. Later he had to renew his application for residence, since he spent some years in the United States, and this was regranted in 1984.

            In reply to the question as to how many times he had been to Peru since 1967, Adolfo said that he visited Peru in around 1979 and remained there until April 1984. He married his wife, Harriette Spierings, who is Dutch, while in Peru on May 5, 1990, at La Punta (Callao). They were in Peru then for two weeks, spending their honeymoon in Paracas. On that occasion, he saw Fujimori for the first time at a campaign meeting in Pisco when he was unknown, and Fujimori gave the impression that he agreed with the Shining Path’s reasons for insurrection.

            Adolfo Olaechea said that he works in London as a translator and advises companies on market research.

            He had been contracted by Yamaha to come to Spain to make a study of its concessionaires. He had arrived on June 30 and, at the time of his arrest, he had carried out six of the nine interviews he had been entrusted with (in Barcelona, Gerona, Valencia and Murcia). At 10 am on Friday, July 4, he was to have interviewed the concessionaire in Almeria, which left two interviews to be carried out in Madrid. He had a Madrid-London flight booked for July 6.

            Asked whether he recognised any of the crimes that had been imputed to him in Peru, Adolfo said he recognised none because he had not committed any criminal action in Peru while he had been there. He was being judged on false accusation made against him by Mr Fujimori. This was in contradiction with the fact that the Peruvian Embassy in London had ascertained his views at the beginning of 1990 and had sent a document to Peru saying that “Mr Olaechea is not a member of the Shining Path, does not have anything to do with Peru and there is no evidence or proof of any kind against him”, which is confirmed by the fact that in 1990 he entered and left Peru with no problem.

            Asked if he knew there was an international arrest warrant against him, Adolfo said, officially no. Fujimori said many things, but the English authorities had never communicated to him that there was an order against him.

            Adolfo Olaechea also said that the reaction of some Peruvian politicians and of the ambassador Mr Fernando Olivera made him think that he cannot expect a fair trial in Peru. The original verdicts had been annulled and the process by which he was condemned is now regarded as unconstitutional. The public prosecutor who accused him, Julia Eguía, is in jail because of his relationship with Vladimiro Montesinos. The best thing would be for the government of Peru to rescind the arrest warrant, because it cannot be sustained. Adolfo said that he thinks that Peru is throwing away an opportunity to demonstrate that, yes, it has changed and that legal security exists. Instead of setting an example for Fujimori, who says that in Peru there are no guarantees and that he is being persecuted for political aims, the government is giving him ammunition that reinforces his argument. This is ironic, Adolfo Olaechea said.