It was the last act in a naked power play by President Alberto Fujimori and his coterie of military advisers, and the latest example of their crackdown on Peru's aggressive press. That's not something the authorities have accepted. Indeed, the Peruvian government's already limited tolerance for the press began to wane after Fujimori dissolved the Congress in 1992, and turned into hostility after guerrillas from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took over the Japanese embassy in Lima in December. Military officials complained of negative and careless coverage. Critics charge that Fujimori is trying to muzzle a sharp-toothed press in anticipation of his run for a third presidential term in 2000.
Peruvian journalists complain of continual harassment, including phone tapping and surveillance.
The campaign against Ivcher's Channel 2 marks a public escalation of hostilities. It began in August 1996, after Channel 2 aired a report linking a major drug trafficker to corrupt elements in the army. After the allegations were broadcast, the military withdrew the soldiers who had provided street security for Frecuencia Latina since Maoist Shining Path guerrillas sent a dynamite-packed truck crashing through its front gate in 1992. Military officials seemed particularly incensed by a shocking report broadcast on Channel 2 just after military commandos freed the seventy-one embassy hostages in April. In an on-air interview, a former military intelligence officer named Leonor La Rosa alleged that the army had tortured her and murdered a colleague to prevent them from revealing a secret military plan to assassinate journalists.