Amnesty International Report 1997 - Peru

Some 640 prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience remained in prison. Thousands of prisoners accused of terrorism-related offences experienced delays in being brought to trial or were serving sentences under procedures which fell short of international fair trial standards. Numerous cases of torture and death under torture were reported. Three detainees allegedly "disappeared". Two men were killed in circumstances suggesting they may have been extrajudicially executed. Thousands of past cases of human rights violations remained unclarified. The armed opposition continued to commit human rights abuses, including the deliberate and arbitrary killing of civilians and the taking of hostages. The number of reported attacks by armed units attached to the clandestine Partido Comunista del Perú (Sendero Luminoso) (PCP), Communist Party of Peru (Shining Path), and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA), Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, continued to decline. President Alberto Fujimori claimed in July that "the pacification [of Peru] is being firmly consolidated". However, the government's pacification policy was questioned by several sectors of Peruvian society, particularly in the face of continuing attacks by the PCP and the taking of several hundred hostages by the MRTA at a Japanese Embassy function in December (see below). Significant areas of the country, including in and around Lima, the capital, remained under a state of emergency. The authorities claimed the activities of the armed opposition justified the periodic renewing of emergency legislation. However, members of the parliamentary opposition and independent human rights organizations stated that maintaining emergency powers in some rural areas was not consistent with official claims that the armed opposition no longer had an effective presence in those areas. In April and June, respectively, the Ombudsman's Office and the Constitutional Tribunal, institutions relevant to the protection of human rights, came into operation (see Amnesty International Report 1996). In July, the Council for the Coordination of the Judiciary, charged with comprehensively reforming the judicial system, was established. In March, Congress made a further amendment to the anti-terrorism laws by making provision for released defendants whose High Court acquittal was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court of Justice, to remain free pending their new trial. In October, provisions in the anti-terrorism legislation allowing for the identity of judges to remain secret were extended by Congress for a further 12 months (see Amnesty International Report 1996). In August, the government approved a law bringing into effect an Ad-hoc Commission, presided over by the Ombudsman, charged with proposing to the President of the Republic that he pardon or show mercy to prisoners unjustly accused of crimes of terrorism. The Commission was set up for six months but can be extended for a further six months. Dr Carlos Hermoza Moya, Minister of Justice and member of the Commission, publicly stated that there were some 400 prisoners whose cases merited review by the Commission. By the end of the year, 110 such prisoners had been released. In September, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers visited Peru. At the end of his visit the Special Rapporteur publicly called for an end to the system of secret judges and the trial of civilians by military tribunals. In July, the UN Human Rights Committee issued a series of observations and recommendations, following partial consideration of the third periodic report submitted to the Committee by the Government of Peru in compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee stated that "many of the [counter-insurgency] measures adopted by the Government frustrated implementation of the rights protected under the Covenant." The Committee recommended, inter alia, that the government implement prompt measures to release and compensate prisoners falsely accused of terrorism-related offences and judicially review their sentences; ensure that all trials be conducted with full respect for the safeguards of the accused; strictly limit incommunicado detention; and repeal the amnesty laws (see Amnesty International Report 1996). In November, the Committee concluded its consideration of Peru's report. The Committee took note of the measures adopted to pardon prisoners convicted of crimes of terrorism. However, the Committee stated that pardoning convicted prisoners did not offer them full reparation and reiterated its call for the establishment of an effective review mechanism for those pardoned. The Committee also deplored the government's disregard for its other recommendations made in July and reiterated the need for their adoption. Thirty-five prisoners of conscience and at least 600 possible prisoners of conscience remained in prison at the end of the year. Prisoners of conscience Carlos Florentino Molero Coca and Marco Antonio Ambrosio Concha, university students, had been arrested in April 1992 in Lima and jointly charged with crimes of terrorism. Both claim to have been tortured during interrogation by the police. Although the judge examining their cases concluded there was insufficient evidence linking them to the crimes, they were convicted and sentenced by a High Court to 12 and 10 years' imprisonment respectively. Ninety-eight prisoners of conscience and at least 700 possible prisoners of conscience have been released since 1992. Among prisoners of conscience released in 1996 were Michael Soto Rodríguez, Pelagia Salcedo Pizarro, her husband Juan Carlos Chuchón Zea, Eugenio Bazán Ventura and César Augusto Sosa Silupú (see Amnesty International Reports 1993, 1995 and 1996). Also released was prisoner of conscience Julio Ismael Loa Albornoz, a practising Buddhist who had been sentenced in 1994 to 15 years for the crime of treason. The military judge who examined his case stated that, in view of there being an element of doubt as to Julio Ismael Loa Albornoz having committed the offence, "it [was] preferable to impose a punishment immediately". In August, more than three years after he was detained, Julio Ismael Loa Albornoz was acquitted by the Supreme Council of Military Justice. Rodolfo Robles Espinoza, a retired army general and active human rights defender who in 1993 publicly accused the Grupo Colina, a military "death squad", of murdering nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 to 1996), was arrested on 26 November. Amnesty International declared General Robles a prisoner of conscience and publicly called for his immediate and unconditional release. General Robles was charged with "insulting the Armed Forces" and other military offences, following public declarations in which he claimed that the Grupo Colina was responsible for detonating a bomb at a television station in the city of Puno in November. General Robles was released on 7 December under an amnesty law passed by Congress two days earlier. Thousands of prisoners accused of terrorism-related offences awaited trial or were serving sentences under procedures which failed to guarantee international fair trial standards (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 to 1996). For example, these prisoners were subject to procedures which denied them a public trial, concealed the identity of judges and prosecutors, referred civilians charged with treason to military courts, and prohibited defence lawyers from cross-examining members of the security forces involved in their arrest and interrogation. Amnesty International continued to receive numerous reports of torture and death under torture. For example, on 23 August soldiers reportedly ransacked the shop of Juana Ibarra Aguirre in the town of Monzón, Huánuco department, following an earlier unsuccessful search for a firearm said to have been left behind on the premises by a soldier. Six days later Juana Ibarra and her five-year-old daughter were detained when she went to the local military base to request that her merchandise be returned, and to clarify the situation concerning the weapon. Both were held incommunicado at the base until 11 September when they were released. Juana Ibarra was not charged. She subsequently filed a complaint before the Public Ministry in the judicial district of Huánuco-Pasco. She claimed that she was raped, beaten and had water, salt and detergent forced up her nose. In July, the Huánuco Criminal Court found two police officers responsible for the death in custody of Jhoel Huamán García, a student suspected of assault and robbery who was last seen alive in a police precinct in the town of Pasco, department of Junín, in May 1995. An autopsy revealed that Jhoel Huamán died as a result of multiple blows to his body with a blunt instrument. The officers were sentenced to five and six years' imprisonment respectively. An appeal against the convictions had not been heard by the end of year. Three detainees allegedly "disappeared" following detention by members of the army. One of them, María Cárdenas Espinoza, a cook, was detained with two brothers by a military patrol on 27 May, in the hamlet of Chinchavito, district of Chinchao, department of Huánuco. The two brothers were subsequently transferred to a military base in the city of Tingo María, but at the end of the year the whereabouts of María Cárdenas Espinoza remained unknown. A complaint about her "disappearance" was filed before a representative of the Public Ministry. By the end of the year her whereabouts remained unknown. Two men were killed, in separate incidents, in circumstances suggesting they may have been extrajudicially executed. Nicolás Carrión Escobedo, aged 73, was detained on 23 August by soldiers and taken to a military base in Sarín from his home in the hamlet of Uruspampa, province of Sánchez Carrión, La Libertad department. Hours later he was found dead. An autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed in the back of the head. Thousands of complaints of torture, "disappearance", extrajudicial execution and death threats remained unclarified. These included the vast majority of cases filed since May 1980 and closed by the passing of amnesty laws in June 1995 (see Amnesty International Reports 1981 to 1996). A congressional bill to repeal the amnesty laws and create a Truth Commission, submitted in 1995, was never debated (see Amnesty International Report 1996). Hundreds of people were victims of human rights abuses by the armed opposition. The victims included civilians deliberately and arbitrarily killed by the PCP and hostages held by the MRTA. In March, community leader Pascuala Rosado Cornejo was shot dead by PCP members in Huaycán, a shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. She had been actively opposing PCP activities in her community for over 10 years. In July, members of the PCP were reported to have claimed responsibility for the killing of community leader Epifanio Santamaría Rodríguez in the shanty town of San Martín de Porres, also on the outskirts of Lima. On 17 December a heavily armed MRTA unit broke into a function organized by the Ambassador of Japan at his residence in Lima, taking some 700 men and women hostage, including scores of Peruvian government officials, foreign ambassadors and diplomats, and Peruvian and Japanese businessmen. The hostage-takers, who included among their demands the release of imprisoned MRTA members, initially threatened to kill their captives. Amnesty International condemned the hostage-taking, expressed concern for the hostages' safety and publicly called on the MRTA and the Peruvian authorities to bring about a solution designed to ensure their prompt release. By the end of the year at least 600 hostages had been released and 81 remained captive. In May, an Amnesty International delegation visited Peru and held talks with government and military authorities. The delegation expressed concern about prisoners of conscience falsely accused of crimes of terrorism and called for their immediate and unconditional release. The delegation also expressed concern that prisoners accused of terrorism-related offences were not guaranteed a fair trial. In response, several government officials acknowledged that prisoners unjustly accused of terrorism remained in detention, and indicated that steps would soon be taken to have their cases reviewed. However, the President of the Supreme Council of Military Justice told the delegation that not one of at least 1,200 civilians tried by military courts since 1992 had been unjustly convicted of treason. The authorities also informed the delegation that provisions in the anti-terrorism laws, including the use of secret judges and military tribunals, were justified by the serious threat posed to the state by the armed opposition, but added that the laws would be reformed as the country became increasingly "pacified". Also in May, Amnesty International published a report, Peru: Prisoners of conscience, calling for the release of prisoners unjustly accused of terrorism and for internationally recognized fair trial guarantees to be respected. In June, the organization published a second report, Peru: Human rights in a time of impunity, urging the authorities to repeal the 1995 amnesty laws, to reopen judicial investigations into thousands of unresolved cases of human rights violations, and to bring to justice those responsible. In both publications, and through the Peruvian press, Amnesty International condemned human rights abuses by the PCP and MRTA and called on both organizations to fully abide by internationally recognized humanitarian standards. In July and October, the UN Human Rights Committee was informed by Amnesty International of its human rights concerns in Peru. The Committee addressed many of these concerns in its recommendations to the Government of Peru. Amnesty International made a submission in August to the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities concerning Peru's amnesty laws. Although the Chairman of the Sub-Commission had previously indicated that it would address the issue in August (see Amnesty International Report 1996), it failed to do so.