Chris Segal
News Assistant
PHOTO COURTESY TELEMUNDO.COM
The 2004 election cycle has come to an end after months of speeches, conventions, ads and campaigning in swing states. Any voices critical of the elected president in the United States can be thankful that they will not become political targets.
According to 22-year-old Pepperdine senior Victoria De La Fuente, this is what happened to her famous mother, Laura Bozzo, host of the Telemundo talk show “Laura en America.” Bozzo, 53, has been under house arrest in her Lima, Peru television studio since July 17, 2002.
“We traded one dictatorship for another,” De La Fuente said. “They say we live in a democracy but it doesn’t make sense that someone could not criticize the president. It’s like if Kerry wins everyone that supported Bush being persecuted.”
Bozzo is under suspicion of receiving $3 million and a diamond necklace from the former president’s domestic security czar Vladimiro Montesino. Bozzo supported former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) because he rooted out terrorism that had plagued Peru, not because her support was bought, said De La Fuente.
“I didn’t get one dollar from this,” Bozzo told the Los Angeles Times.
De La Fuente said she believes the reason the government is persecuting her mother is because Bozzo had the estranged daughter of Alejandro Toledo, Fujimori’s former opponent, on the show.
“They have nothing to base these charges on,” De La Fuente said.
“They (the government) have checked my mom’s accounts and my grandma’s accounts for the $3 million and have found nothing. They asked the jeweler that made the necklace who it was for and he doesn’t know. The secretary of the man (Montesino) said that she saw he prepared $3 million dollars in an envelope for my mother. But she is also under house arrest giving the government information for her own freedom.”
According to De la Fuente, the Peruvian government can place citizens under house arrest for up to three years without a trial and her mother’s team of lawyers cannot do anything about it.
The show tried to empower women, said De la Fuente. The show presented topics such as domestic violence and human rights in the male dominant culture of Peru.
“It’s all smoke,” said Bozzo’s executive producer Miguel Ferro to the Los Angeles Times. “We in Telemundo fully believe in Laura because we believe justice will be done … She’s been sentenced without going to trial. She’s already lost two years of her life.”
Recently Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks, Calif.) sent a letter to the Ambassador of Peru expressing concern for the action taken against Bozzo.
Montesino allegedly bought off politicians, journalists and judges to influence the political atmosphere in Peru. According to De la Fuente, this became apparent when video tapes of the bribes started airing in Lima. She said she believes Montesino filmed every bribe he has given and if her mother was bought off, a tape of it would have appeared by now.
Bozzo has been compared to a Latin Dr. Laura and a Peruvian Joan of Arc. According to the show’s Web site, five out of every six television sets in Peru are tuned into “Laura in America.”
“She tries to be strong for us,” De la Fuente said. “It is frustrating to someone who hasn’t done anything and no trial to be under house arrest. I cherish the law more while I am here.”
Bozzo’s high profile in the Latin world and in Lima has led to negative publicity and personal allegations against her and her daughters. Bozzo’s younger daughter is 16 and living with the family’s nanny in Miami.
De la Fuente said it has been falsely reported that she and her sister are having frequently wild parties in Miami and are drug addicts.
Spanish publications have published unsubstantiated rumors that Bozzo and her production team pay their guests to lie on air to make the stories more compelling, and that Bozzo was taking money for charities she established to help abused women and children in Peru. It has also been widely reported that Bozzo and Montesion had a romantic relationship, which she and De la Fuente deny.
“I guess we will learn how to deal with it,” De la Fuente said. “Now we just read newspapers and laugh a lot.”
De la Fuente said she does not plan on going back to Peru when she graduates in December.
“I am really independent,” De la Fuente said. “Seeing someone of your family affected by something you can not fight is really frustrating.”
11-04-2004
