Interviews and bios of the key players:
Montesinos Kurlander Blanca Romero Benavides Crespigny Maugein Gamarra
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Roque Benavides |
Roque Benavides followed his father Alberto into the family business and has run Buenaventura, Peru's largest mining company, since 2001. From 1985 to 2001, he was the company's CFO. He was also president of the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce and, he said, a supporter of the Fujimori regime.
When asked by FRONTLINE/World about the Fujimori-Montesinos era, Benavides replied, "I am one of those that believes that people are not all good and not all bad." He said "in the government of Fujimori, there were good things that were done -- fighting against terrorism, reducing inflation, essentially attracting a lot of investment."
In 1992, Buenaventura and its French government-owned partner BRGM invited Newmont Mining to form a partnership to develop the Yanacocha Mine. Benavides told FRONTLINE/World that his company did not know at the time that Newmont Mining's No. 3 executive, Larry Kurlander, had met with spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, and denied that Kurlander reported back to him or his father about the meeting.
Read more excerpts from the interview with Roque Benavides...