Javier Diez Canseco

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Javier Diez Canseco is a Peruvian politician and former member of the Peruvian Congress representing the party Partido Democrático Descentralista (PDD), of which he is a co-founder. He was also a candidate for President of Peru as the head of the Socialist Party of Peru in 2006 elections. An avowed socialist, Diez Canseco contributes regular OpEds to the center-left daily La República.

During the 1990s, Diez Canseco was a vigorous opponent of President Alberto Fujimori. He was also involved in investigations of human rights violations committed by both Shining Path and the Peruvian Armed Forces, and was repeatedly given death threats by both groups involved in the armed conflict.

Diez Canseco was taken captive in the 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, but was released after several days. He subsequently called for a negotiated peace settlement between the government and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement insurgents.

In March 1997, Diez Canseco's car was fired upon by heavily-armed assailants wearing bullet-proof vests, but he was not riding in it at the time. The assailants took control of the vehicle, and took its occupants, Diez Canseco's chauffeur, bodyguards, and a friend of his, to an unknown location in Lima where they were interrogated and later freed. The assailants claimed they were police officers. [1]

In 2002, Diez Canseco led a congressional inquiry into the privatization program undertaken in the 1990s by Fujimori. The committee calculated that of the USD9 billion raised during the privatization process only a small fraction ended up benefiting the state. [2]

In April 2006, he ran unsuccessfully for president in the presidential election on the Peruvian Socialist Party's ticket. He received 0.5% of the vote, coming in 9th place.

Diez Canseco has been critical of what he sees as the caudillismo of American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, the leading opposition party in Peru. He also denounced the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq as "neocolonialism".