TRAMAS
Presents
[Caption:]
National Intelligence Service Headquarters
Montesinos' Cameraman: Let's see. The three of them will be over there.
Sit down, Admiral... You over there, Lieutenant... the banker...the chief of police...the three commanders-in-chief over here... Otherwise, they won't fit in the frame.
EYE SPY
(Voice off)
If you'd lived in colonial times, you would have had a balcony, where you could watch without being seen.
Knowing people's weaknesses has always been a source of power. And even more so if you incite that weakness.
Montesinos: You can't see it for shit, can you?
Cameraman: You can't see it...
Montesinos: Can't see it at all...can't see it.
Cameraman: Not at all.
Montesinos: ...because it's dangerous.
Cameraman: Sure is. If they start thinking we're taping them...
Montesinos: ...they won't trust us any more.
Cameraman: I'll put the speaker here, so it looks like part of my stereo.
Montesinos: Fine
Cameraman: So I'll do it... You don't have to hang around...
Montesinos: Yes, yes, yes
Cameraman: I'll make it real cute.
Montesinos: Lucky they haven't caught on...
Cameraman: No.
[Caption:]
Congresswoman, Montesinos, Mayor of Callao, Ex-Minister of Agriculture
Montesinos: This meeting is off the record. No one knows a thing about it.
[Caption:] Daniel Borobio. Publicist for Fujimori Government
[Caption:] Muñoz Arce. Member of the Electoral College
Montesinos: I'll show you the video tomorrow.
Muñoz Arce: You're not filming me, are you?
Montesinos: No, no, no....
Muñoz Arce: I'm just kidding...
Montesinos: I'm telling you... We don't use those things, Man...even if we had that stuff, it would be against our principles... We have a work ethic.
To tape them, what a thought, how unethical, you told them. And they believed you. They felt safe. What a friend you were. They all spoke to you in strictest confidence.
No one suspected that you had rehearsed everything...
Cameraman: Take it, Brother. Take it, Buddy, count it.
Man: Right now?
...even the way they took the money: the dollars had to be in plain sight, humiliating, compromising.
That's why your camera was always on.
You taped thousands of videos, because you had to prove your most cynical theory: every man has his price.
Fujimori: I'm really worried.
Montesinos: Yes, it's coming out tomorrow...
Fujimori: ...because it's coming out tomorrow, and I haven't figured out how to cover it up... Does that thing pick up voices too?
You believed that your camera was the eye of God, but that eye exposed you two as you were, crooks and cronies.
DAYS OF GLORY
You were above it all. On top of everything. You contemplated the great chessboard of power and moved the pieces at will.
The president was like the king in chess, who moves, but never very far, and how he reveled in that role.
And you --you would suddenly appear, once in a while, not often, and never for long. Photographers fought for a close-up, and reporters for a few words. Everyone wanted to know what the man who held the reins of power in this country was really like.
[Song]: ...What a thrill it was, to see their tongues licking my big fat ass, what a power trip, what a fantasy...
How did the two of you get together? What secret complicity kept you together? What on earth made you even wear twin suits and twin neckties?
[Caption:]
April 25 1999
National Intelligence Service Headquarters
Montesinos: For 9 years now, I've been living here at headquarters... working 24 hours a day, as President Fujimori knows, devoting my whole life to fulfilling the responsibilities of my office...
They said that the two of you were like a mythological beast: one body with two heads.
THE MEDIA AND THE MESSAGE
You wanted the president to walk the palace halls forever.
To make that happen, you needed the media.
And, in fact, the television antennas marched to your orders, submissive and obedient.
[Caption:]
Military Commanders
November 24 1999
Montesinos: I've got them all lined up... Every day at 12:30 we get together here and I tell them what to put on the nightly news. We've got the programs planned right up to December 15th.
[Caption:]
Genaro Delgado Parker: Owner of Global Network.
Global Network, First in News. April 7 1999.
Delgado Parker: And I want to let you know that I'm placing the network at your disposal, because I want to help in every way I can to make this electoral process the best, the most successful, the most promising...
GLOBAL LINK
Still, there were the usual troublemakers, the ones who always rained on your parade, like that journalist César Hildebrandt, so you had to take away his microphone and take him off the air.
Delgado Parker: ...but in exchange for this, I'm at your disposal... at your orders...
Montesinos: All I need is your word, Don Genaro...that this Hildebrandt is out.
Delgado Parker: Oh, of course.
Montesinos: A gentleman's agreement.
Hildebrandt: I'm sorry. This is my farewell program... unexpectedly... I didn't know...I didn't know...
{Captions:]
ATV KNOWS YOU
Julio Vera Abad, Owner of ATV
October 12 1998
Vera Abad: Cecilia's departure is in the works...
Montesinos: ...besides she said there's a downsizing...
Vera Abad: ...friggin' economic problems... Tomorrow I'll get rid of half the press department...so besides Iberico, we'll throw out all the others who are screwing us up, too.
Montesinos: Of course, you've got to clear out all those assholes.
[Caption:]
Cecilia Valenzuela
Broadcast Journalist
Cecilia Valenzuela: When the owner closed down my program, later on I found out that he'd been bribed. Yes, I could have made a fuss and gone to the press, but at the time I had no proof.
AMERICA TELEVISION PRESENTS
José Francisco Crousillat
Owner of America Television
October 14 1998
Crousillat: I was supposed to get it in dollars...
Montesinos: Look...
[Captions:]
42 YEARS OF PANAMERICANA TELEVISION
Ernesto Schutz, Owner of Panamericana Television
Schutz: Ay, ay, ay...
Montesinos: Here's 100...
Schutz: What a pile... what a pile...
Montesinos: 200, 300, 20, 30, 40 and 50... That's for two months... Did that shopping bag come in handy?
Schutz: Oh, of course, sure...
Montesinos: More discrete than this black briefcase.
And when one of your towers got out of line and broadcast news without your approval, you were merciless. You took the network away from its owner and stripped him of his nationality.
Fujimori: The panorama is so different now.
Everything was rolling along. The latest campaign had begun, to a techno-Latin sound.
.
(Song) This is the song, this is the beat, everybody dances to Fujimori's tune...
[Caption:]
José Ugaz
Anti-Corruption Prosecutor
Ugaz: The media was central to Montesinos' and Fujimori's criminal organization. They invested major resources in bribing the owners of television networks.
[Caption]
Cable News Channel
November 6, 1999
Montesinos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...one million... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...two million dollars.
Hildebrandt: Television wasn't just an ally, or a partner, it was an integral part of the power structure. People think that television was just supporting power. No. Television CREATED the government. The unreal, invented country, counterfeit, statistically false...that was television's media-version of reality.
(Eduardo Calmell - Diario Expreso
September 14 1999
Montesinos: 1,2,3,4,5... There's the 500.
Calmell: O.K.
Montesinos: That's it. Too heavy for you?
[Caption:]
Carlos Ferrero, President of Congress:
Ferrero: You know, the newspapers you read everyday were written by Montesinos...with his money. And all the TV programs, or most of them, were his agents in the power game.)
MAKING JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE
You showed us that power corrupts the most powerful, and how the most powerful came down to your level.
[Caption:]
Dionisio Romero, C.E.0.
Credicorp Group
June 14 1999
Montesinos: So if you'll make that statement in public, that would have a real impact.
(Officer: In another context.
Montesinos: Yes, in another context.)
Romero: You can send me the questions and the answers.
You sent the questions and the answers to the country's leading banker.
And one fine day that banker had some great ideas for the government.
Romero: I've got some ideas about how the government could do private companies some favors...
Another day, another banker offered you a safe place somewhere in the wide world to hide the fortune you had amassed as advisor to the president.
[Caption:]
Banco Wiese Sudameris
Eugenio Bertini, C.E.O.
November 11 1999
Bertini: Some people want to keep their money outside of the country, and that's legal... It's not legal to capture the deposit as a bank and to promote it, but if you want to keep it outside...you just do it. So we could open accounts for you wherever you want.
These used to be the peaceful Villa wetlands, a nature preserve where birds rested on their way south. Unlike the birds, the Lucchetti impresarios flew north and obtained a permit to construct a factory that destroyed the ecological balance of the preserve
Girl: And they built a Lucchetti factory, that's why the birds left, and they can't sleep because the lights are so bright and it's so noisy...
[Caption:]
GONZALEZ MENENDEZ/LUCCHETTI CORPORATION
March 6 1999
Menéndez: I'm asking you directly: I want you and the president to back me up on all possible fronts...the political front, the judicial front...
[Caption:]
Natale Amprimo, Congressman:
Amprimo: The worst thing about this scandal is that it reveals Montesinos' direct intervention in the judicial process. This case demonstrates that the judge who decided the Lucchetti case was named Montesinos, and the court that heard the appeal consisted of three members --all named Vladimiro Montesinos.
Menéndez: If we have to spend millions, we'll spend them. All I want, as I said yesterday, is a short, bloody and decisive war.
YES, MY CAPTAIN
You were the one behind promotions, retirements, postings. Maybe that's why they all clicked their heels in front of you. And signed their approval of the end of democracy, when Fujimori orchestrated the self-made coup that suspended the Constitution and dissolved Congress in April of 1992.
Dissolve! Dissolve!
You, an ex-army captain, discharged for treason, how did you manage it, how did you come to dominate the highest ranks of the armed forces?
[Caption:]
Admiral Alfonso Panizo
Ex-President of the Armed Forces' Joint Command
Admiral Panizo: As far as I'm concerned, there was no opportunity for an effective reaction... Besides, seated at that table were all the commanders, the ministers, the Minister of Defense, saying that this was necessary for the good of the country, and I believe they were tricked...
Ferrero: Pathetic...and very, very sad, because it's a shame that there was not one general who said I won't go along with this, or ten colonels who said No, we won't sign, or forty officers who said No...
Admiral Panizo: Worst of all, it's going to be very hard for the people of this country to regain the confidence they used to have in the Armed Forces...
As a captain in uniform you won no decorations. But it's never too late for Vanity Fair.
According to your plans, the grand military parade would last until 2005, through one more re-election, of course. Five more years to run the world that you and your cronies had created, that world where you even made decisions about defense.
[Caption]: Russian representatives for the sale of MIG 29s
Fujimori: These MIG 29s, acquired on terms very favorable to the national budget, guarantee the defense of the country beyond the shadow of a doubt... These flying tigers are an expression of our renewed defense capacity...
The MIGs were your ultimate metaphor; they, too, crashed and burned.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
And suddenly, when you least expected it, the most intimate door was flung open, and the private became public.
The old law of concealment: "sweep it under the rug" no longer worked. Now Peruvians watched these images on television, stupefied.
[Legend:]
September 14 2000
Congressman Fernando Olivera and Fujimori's ex-wife revealing the first secret tape
[Legend:]
Congressman Alberto Kouri receives $15,000 dollars
The rumors were true: members of Congress had been bought. The minority government had bribed enough members to guarantee itself a tame majority that would vote according to your orders. They were called turncoats, and they took their oath under a shower of coins. One of them was more honest:
{Caption:]
Swearing-in Ceremony
Congressman: ...I swear by God, by the money...I mean, the country...
Then all at once everything began to crumble. Two days later, your own videotape brought down the government.
THE FLIGHT AND THE PURSUIT
You looked high and low for your advisor, and couldn't find him.
[Caption:] October 25 2000
(Song): The sea was calm, calm was the sea...
And while you searched for him more like a policeman than a president, he was on a sailboat, fleeing over a calm sea.
You couldn't find him, and then you fled, too.
[Caption:] November 13 2000
Girl: They were friends.
Boy: They stole together. They stole money.
Girl: And they ran away, too. But not together.
THE FALL
People used to stick your image behind bars. They thought that if they trapped your image, someday they would be able to trap you.
Everyone imagined your face transformed by plastic surgery. But no. Evil still had the same face.
[Legend:]
Montesinos is captured in Caracas and brought to Perú on June , 2001.
I never thought that after you fled they'd bring you back to Perú like a demon in chains.
[Caption:]
Saúl Peña - Judge of the anti-Corruption Tribunal
Saúl Peña: It was a symbolic act, which demonstrated that the authorities had forced a powerful man (who had occupied a high position) to appear before the bench, and that Peruvians could see he would have to face the charges against him.
Girl: He had seven faces...so they wouldn't catch him...
Boy: He's a real smart S.O.B.
Girl: If it wasn't for Montesinos, we'd have a real nice school, with brick walls and a real roof, but Montesinos stole it all, so we don't have any of that.
THE LEGACY
[Caption:]
Lima, October 23 2000
Fujimori: When the situation was a real hot potato, when the Japanese embassy was occupied, the president, the one in charge, shouldn't run away and abandon his position, his responsibility --on the contrary, he must stand firm, to help the people, maintain order and not take the easy way out, saying: I resign. It would have been very easy for me to say: I resign. Gentlemen, when there's a problem, a crisis, I'm right here.
Tokyo, November 21, 2000
Fujimori (in English): I feel very much that my resignation has been done here, in Japan.
[Legend:] Voice of Vladimiro Montesinos from his cell at the Callao Naval Base.
Montesinos: President Fujimori, act like a man, don't run away. Come back to the country and let's look each other in the eye, you and me -otherwise you're just hiding behind a geisha's skirts with your ancestors.
Girl: Now he's in Japan, he's left us with nothing.
Young Woman: There's our brave president, whose motto was "Honesty, Technology and Work"...and I believed in him, too...
Teacher: As a teacher, I've worked with our desperately poor children. Really...I am absolutely furious with Fujimori, and I don't understand how a country like Japan can shelter a criminal. It's incredible...
Street Vendor: Worse than Montesinos...We believed in him... As president, he let us down, too... leaving the country like that and resigning so far away...
Grocery Clerk: He's done Peru so much damage...
Butcher: Oh Lord, he fooled the whole country --not just his own party, the whole country...
People: Japan, Give us back our thief!
THE EPILOGUE
[Caption:]
Japanese Embassy
April 23 1997
Have you seen their smiling faces?
Twenty-four hundred years ago Sophocles said: No one knows a man's heart until he has seen him in power.
How can someone who has shed so much blood and corrupted so many people go on smiling?
[Legend:]
Nine students and a professor murdered on July 18, 1992
[Caption:]
Exhumation at La Cantuta
July 8 1993
Raida Cóndor: Here's where we found the students' remains, in a cardboard box, in black bags, charred remains.
Gisela Ortiz: He was a happy person, young, he liked sports, always, since high school... He was my only brother...
[Legend:]
Intelligence Service agent, dismembered on March 29, 1997
[Caption:]
(Photo:) Mariela Barreto
Oswaldo Barreto: It was a revenge killing, because the whole country knew that my daughter gave information about the location of the students' bodies... Young students from La Cantuta who were killed, also their professor...
[Legend:]
Intelligence Service agent, tortured in February 1997
Leonor Rosa: They tried to liquidate me, but they couldn't...thanks to the timely intervention of the doctors, and to God, I'm still alive...
Fabián Salazar: They blindfolded me, tied my feet...
[Caption:]
Fabián Salazar
[Legend:] Fabián Salazar, the journalist who discovered the first secret Montesinos tapes in May 2000.
Salazar: ...they didn't tie my hands because they were cutting them.
They started to search the whole office...and then they started questioning me, about who had given me the videos. There were five videos. Out of five, I only saw three of them.
[Legend:]
Holding Peruvian flag, Alejandro Toledo, opposition figure, now president of Perú
[Legend:] Banco de la Nación, burned down by Montesinos to implicate demonstrators from the opposition parties, July 28 2000.
Girl: It's a shame that when people think of Perú, they'll think of Fujimori and the corruption, but not all Peruvians are like that.
Male hiker: Look, this is a place we've dreamed of for years - it's extraordinary -a dream come true.
Female hiker: It just stuns you. We have so much natural beauty, but this place was made by people...
Woman: Incredible, it´s magic.
Girl: No more stealing...
Boy: No more stealing, not anymore...
Girl: No more stealing...
Boy: ...No more stealing...
Girl in red: Better not happen again...no stealing anymore...
The 2,400 secret tapes Montesinos filmed have been crucial in bringing those guilty of corruption to trial. For now, 1,473 people have been investigated and indicted, there have been 340 prosecutorial investigations and there are 146 detainees, including 14 generals, one attorney general and several government ministers, members of Congress, judges and businessmen. There are also 110 fugitives from justice and six extradition warrants, among them, one for Alberto Fujimori.
· Alberto Kouri, ex-Congressman, in jail
· Nicolás Hermosa Ríos, ex-president of the Joint Command, in jail
· Francisco and José Enrique Crousillat, ex-owners of América Television, fugitives.
· Ernesto Schutz, ex-owner of Panamericana Television, fugitive
· Daniel Borobio, government publicist, fugitive
· Victor Joy Way, ex-president of Congress and Minister of Finance, in prison
· Rómulo Muñoz Arce, Member of the National Electoral College, in prison
· Laura Bozzo, television hostess and Telemundo star, under house arrest
· Blanca Nélida Colán, Attorney General, in prison
· Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, in jail, facing life imprisonment for more than fifty criminal cases
· Alberto Fujimori Fujimori, facing an extradition process. In Japan... for now.
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