Is Hugo Chavez a dictator?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

no.

I wonder how many right wingers who would vote yes would say no to Alberto Fujimori in Peru. He's now in exile in Japan and wanted by Interpol for various war crimes under his regime. But right wingers never seemed to be bothered by him.

[Richard]

no.

I wonder how many right wingers who would vote yes would say no to Alberto Fujimori in Peru. He's now in exile in Japan and wanted by Interpol for various war crimes under his regime. But right wingers never seemed to be bothered by him.

I know nothing about him, so I can't vote.  Tell me what he did, and why you think he is a right-winger.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori

As of 2004 Fujimori is in self-imposed exile in Japan, where his citizenship as foreign-born Japanese was confirmed because his parents registered him with Japanese consular authorities in Peru as an infant and he did not give it up under the 1985 citizenship law revision. Therefore his nationality was not at issue in his stay in Japan.

On September 5, 2001, Peru's attorney general filed homicide charges against former President Fujimori.

At the beginning of March 2003, at the behest of the Peruvian government, Interpol issued an international arrest order for Fujimori on charges that include murder, kidnapping and crimes against humanity. "The order will be issued worldwide for human rights crimes for which he can be pursued and which do not expire," said Peruvian Justice Minister Fausto Alvarado. In addition, the Toledo administration lodged an extradition request with the Japanese government in September 2003, but it is not clear how the petition can prosper, as Peru and Japan do not have an extradition treaty.

The former president is accused of murder in connection with the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre in which fifteen people at a barbecue in a poor neighborhood of Lima were killed by an army death squad known as the Grupo Colina and thought to have been set up on Montesinos' initiative. The victims included an 8-year-old boy. Fujimori is also accused of murder in the 1992 La Cantuta massacre, in which nine students and a professor, suspected of belonging to Shining Path, were abducted from their university and murdered by the same army death squad.

Attorney General Nelly Calderón plans to travel to Tokyo to argue Peru's request for Fujimori's extradition before Japan's judicial authorities. She plans to detail Fujimori's crimes to the Japanese authorities and point out irregularities in the former president's dual Peruvian-Japanese nationality.

In September 2003, congresswoman Dora Núñez Dávila (FIM) denounced Fujimori and several of his ministers for crimes against humanity because of forced sterilizations committed during his regime. According to Núñez, the Fujimori administration initiated a family planning program with extensive forced sterilizations in which health workers were given monthly quotas of sterilizations to perform.

On November 14, 2003, Congress approved more charges against Fujimori. It voted 63-0 with two abstentions to approve charges that he took part in the air-drop of nearly 10,000 Kalashnikov rifles into the Colombian jungle in 1999 and 2000 for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Fujimori maintains he had no knowledge of the arms smuggling and blames Montesinos. By approving the charges, Congress has lifted the immunity granted to Fujimori as a former president. It is now up to the attorney general's office to file charges and for courts to decide on a trial.

Congress also voted 65-0 with one abstention, to charge Fujimori for responsibility in the detention and disappearance of 67 students from Peru's central Andean city of Huancayo and the disappearance of several residents from the northern coastal town of Chimbote during the 1990s. They also approved charges that Fujimori mismanaged millions of dollars from Japanese charities to build schools, with an unexplained USD $2.3 million shortfall in funds received, among other irregularities.

[Richard]

Doesn't seem very right to me.

[M]

Fujimori and Chavez are/were both at least semi-dictatorial. But in the case of Chavez, he appears to be evolving into a full-fledged despot. And that is very, very unfortunate. The United States will have to put clear and strong pressure on him to get him ejected in the 2007 presidential elections; Ukrainian style if necessary.

[ThePrezMex]

There you go again BRTD
Alberto Fujimori was elected in 1990 as an independent candidate.
He started to do all the necessary economic reforms to try to fix the economic disaster that the previous President (Alan Garcia) had made.
But most important of all, he started to fight decisively against the Shining Path guerrilla, one of the most dangerous and vicious that had been around. Shining Path was a true terrorist and criminal organization, much like the Farc from Colombia.
They had killed thousands of peasants in the areas they dominated and had terrorized the entire population of Peru. Fujimori fought against them and could capture the vicious leader, Abimael Guzman. There was also this american woman involved, remember?
Fujimori defeated the Shining Path and Peru got peace again. It is so funny that someone like Fujimori, who fought and defeated terror is considered by some as a dictator, while Hugo Chavez who has without any doubt given refuge and help to terrorists (the Farc and maybe others) is considered as a democrat!

[Bono]

There you go again BRTD
Alberto Fujimori was elected in 1990 as an independent candidate.
He started to do all the necessary economic reforms to try to fix the economic disaster that the previous President (Alan Garcia) had made.
But most important of all, he started to fight decisively against the Shining Path guerrilla, one of the most dangerous and vicious that had been around. Shining Path was a true terrorist and criminal organization, much like the Farc from Colombia.
They had killed thousands of peasants in the areas they dominated and had terrorized the entire population of Peru. Fujimori fought against them and could capture the vicious leader, Abimael Guzman. There was also this american woman involved, remember?
Fujimori defeated the Shining Path and Peru got peace again. It is so funny that someone like Fujimori, who fought and defeated terror is considered by some as a dictator, while Hugo Chavez who has without any doubt given refuge and help to terrorists (the Farc and maybe others) is considered as a democrat!

Why do you have a democrat avatar?

[A18]

Asks the anarchist with a Democratic avatar...

[minionofmidas]

What ThePrezMex says about Fujimori and the Shining Path is true...but alas, it's not the full story of Fujimori (and remember that Fujimori was in the end ousted with Ukrainian-style US help...which almost backfired. Alejandro Toledo's association with US money almost destroyed him in the runoff - against the beforementioned Alan Garcia.)
Neither man is/was anything like a dictator.
Chavez is certainly not my favourite South Americna president - more like my second-to-least favourite - but he's still better than anything that ed-up country had in the decades before.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There you go again BRTD
Alberto Fujimori was elected in 1990 as an independent candidate.
He started to do all the necessary economic reforms to try to fix the economic disaster that the previous President (Alan Garcia) had made.
But most important of all, he started to fight decisively against the Shining Path guerrilla, one of the most dangerous and vicious that had been around. Shining Path was a true terrorist and criminal organization, much like the Farc from Colombia.
They had killed thousands of peasants in the areas they dominated and had terrorized the entire population of Peru. Fujimori fought against them and could capture the vicious leader, Abimael Guzman. There was also this american woman involved, remember?
Fujimori defeated the Shining Path and Peru got peace again. It is so funny that someone like Fujimori, who fought and defeated terror is considered by some as a dictator, while Hugo Chavez who has without any doubt given refuge and help to terrorists (the Farc and maybe others) is considered as a democrat!

well as you can see my little excerpt the ccurrent Peruvian government seems to agree with me and Fujimori spent some time backing and propping up terror just as much as fighting it. Fujimori is now in the ranks of Iraqi government officials and former Serb officers as a wanted war criminal.

Chavez is certainly not my favourite South Americna president - more like my second-to-least favourite - but he's still better than anything that ed-up country had in the decades before.

whose your least favorite?

btw, Peru's Freedom House scores:

1993 - 6,5,PF
1994 - 5,5,PF
1995 - 5,4,PF
1996 - 5,4,PF
1997 - 4,3,PF
1998 - 5,4,PF
1999 - 5,4,PF
2000 - 5,4,PF
---------Fujimori is removed-------
2001 - 3,3,PF
2002 - 1,3,F
2003 - 2,3,F

Venezuela currently has a 3,4, higher than almost all of when Fujimori was in power.