Lima, Peru

STANDING in the packed courtroom annex as a Supreme Court panel this week sentenced the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori to 25 years in prison for two massacres and two kidnappings, I had mixed emotions. As a human rights advocate who has pressed for Mr. Fujimori to be tried, I rejoiced in this once unthinkable moment. Sitting next to me were relatives of massacre victims, listening solemnly to a verdict that took over three hours to read.

At the same time, I worried that people would forget how we got here. Mr. Fujimori was widely embraced for bringing order to our country. As a Peruvian who lived in Lima during the 1990s, I once shared that sentiment.

When Mr. Fujimori was first elected in 1990, Peru was increasingly under assault by a Maoist insurgency group, the Shining Path, and the economy was a wreck. In April 1992, as a teenager, I watched in disbelief the televised images of tanks rolling downtown in the Peruvian capital and congressmen being arrested. Mr. Fujimori had shut down Congress and taken complete power. Yet I shared in the widespread relief that someone was acting to end the chaos.

I had to take flashlights everywhere because of the frequent blackouts from when the Shining Path blew up electric transmission towers. Many nights I heard bombs explode as the armed group inched closer to the capital. But what we were experiencing in Lima was nothing compared with the unchecked violence in the Andes. My family had given up traveling to the countryside out of fear that insurgents would kill us.