Amnesty International Report 1994 - Peru

At least 4,000 political prisoners, including some 200 prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience, awaited trial or were tried under judicial procedures which fell short of international standards. Forty-nine people "disappeared" and 27 were extrajudicially executed. Torture was frequently reported. The authorities failed to clarify thousands of past cases of human rights violations. The scope of the death penalty was widened. The armed opposition continued to commit widespread abuses, including torture, deliberate and arbitrary killings and hostage-taking. The clandestine Partido Comunista del Perú (Sendero Luminoso) (PCP), Communist Party of Peru (Shining Path), and Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA), Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, continued to commit widespread armed attacks, although these diminished in number following government counter-insurgency successes. Imprisoned leaders of the PCP, including its president, Abimael Guzmán, reportedly wrote to President Alberto Fujimori in September and October requesting talks leading to a "peace accord"; the President rejected the requests. Active sectors of the PCP subsequently indicated that the armed campaign would continue. In January the newly elected Congreso Constituyente Democrático (CCD), Democratic Constituent Congress, commenced work, following the suspension of constitutional rule in April 1992. It was charged with drafting a new Constitution. The CCD immediately passed a resolution stating that all decree laws issued during 1992, including anti-terrorism decrees, would remain in effect until they were revised or revoked by Congress. Also in January, the CCD established a Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Pacificación, Human Rights and Pacification Commission, to investigate alleged human rights violations. The Commission, which received complaints of hundreds of human rights violations, publicly appealed to the judicial authorities to investigate them. In November the CCD amended existing anti-terrorism legislation to allow writs of habeas corpus to be filed before the courts, repealed provision for the accused to be tried in absentia and permitted lawyers to represent more than one defendant at a time. However, procedures retained in the legislation still fell short of international standards. In March the government renewed agreements with the International Committee of the Red Cross allowing it access to all prisons administered by the Ministry of Justice (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The new Constitution, which came into effect in December, upheld the right to life although it extended the scope of the death penalty to include the crime of "terrorism". This extension violated the American Convention on Human Rights, ratified by Peru in 1978, which requires that states do not extend the scope of the death penalty. The Constitution also made provision for military courts to try civilians accused of "treason and terrorism". In May dissident army general Rodolfo Robles alleged in a signed statement that a "death squad" existed within the army's intelligence services. He accused the squad of responsibility for the massacre in Lima, the capital, of 14 people in November 1991 (see Amnesty International Report 1992) and the killing of a lecturer and nine students abducted in July 1992 from La Cantuta University (see below). President Fujimori acknowledged to journalists in July that a "death squad" possibly continued to operate within the security forces, but no investigation into the allegation was known to have been initiated. In November the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions published a report on Peru which strongly criticized the government for its failure to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for gross human rights violations. Some 200 prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience were believed to be held at the end of the year. All were detained on terrorism-related charges which appeared to be politically motivated. The majority had not been brought to trial. In May Rómulo Mori Zavaleta, an active member of the Partido Unificado Mariateguista, a legally registered left-wing political party, and his nephew, Wagner Cruz Mori, were each sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Both were convicted of assisting an MRTA member to find a doctor to treat an injured colleague. They were prisoners of conscience. Several prisoners of conscience were freed. They included Magno Sosa Rojas, a journalist, who was freed in February after five months' imprisonment (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 and 1993). In March, 11 members of a peasant organization from San Ignacio, Cajamarca department, were released after eight months in prison. At least 2,000 prisoners charged with "terrorism" remained held with no sign as to when judicial procedures in their cases would begin - ostensibly because of lack of resources on the part of the authorities. Many of them had been charged before new trial procedures were introduced in May 1992. In 1992 and 1993 hundreds of other prisoners were brought before secret civilian and military courts under procedures which fell far short of international standards. For example, the lawyer representing Dr Luis William Polo Rivera, accused of being a leading PCP member, had reportedly been given access to his client only once - for 10 minutes in November 1992 - before trial. In January the secret military appeal tribunal confirmed Dr Polo's life sentence and reportedly refused his lawyer access to the evidence on which he had been convicted. In May a civilian lower court judge examined the case of Juan José Chol n Ramírez, a prisoner of conscience who was accused by the army of having links with the MRTA. The judge reportedly concluded that army personnel had obtained his confession under torture, that police had refused him access to a lawyer, and that there was insufficient evidence on which to prosecute him. Despite these conclusions, and in compliance with the law which requires all terrorism-related cases to be heard by a secret high court, the judge sent Juan José Chol n for trial before the Chiclayo High Court. "Disappearances" and extrajudicial executions continued to be committed by the security forces, although on a lesser scale than in previous years. Forty-nine "disappearances" reported during the year remained unclarified. For example, two students, Rony Guerra Blancas and Milagros Flor Túpac Gonz lez, reportedly "disappeared" on 10 and 11 February respectively after their abduction in the city of Huancayo, Junín department, by civilians believed to be linked to the army. Justiniano Najarro Rua "disappeared" in July after he and his 14-year-old nephew were detained in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima, by two armed men who identified themselves as police. Both were driven to an unknown destination from where the nephew was subsequently released. Almost without exception, habeas corpus petitions filed in favour of these and other victims of "disappearance" were rejected by the courts on the grounds that the security forces denied their detention. Some progress was made in the investigations into the "disappearance" of a lecturer and nine students from La Cantuta University in July 1992 (see above and Amnesty International Report 1993). In April a congressional commission and the military justice system both opened separate investigations into the case. In June Congress rejected a majority report of the commission, which found the army responsible for the "disappearances", adopting instead the minority report which absolved the army. In July and November unmarked graves containing remains of the "disappeared" victims were discovered near Lima. Following excavations ordered by the Public Ministry, keys and clothing retrieved from the graves were identified by relatives of the victims. In December the Minister of Defence announced that the military investigator into the case had ordered the arrest of at least four implicated officers; and a civilian prosecutor filed charges of kidnapping, enforced disappearance and aggravated homicide against 11 officers. However, by the end of the year it was not clear whether those responsible would be brought to trial before a military or civilian court. Twenty-seven people were reported to have been extrajudicially executed by the security forces. On 21 August, four hooded and heavily armed men, two of them in police uniform, reportedly detained Teófilo Núñez Quispe in Huancan district, Junín department, and took him to an unknown destination. Two days later his body was found in the nearby city of Huancayo. Ten settlers, among them three boys, were reported to have been extrajudicially executed on 10 September in Delta, Chanchamayo province, Junín department, by members of a civil defence patrol linked to the army. The victims were said to have been hacked to death with machetes and axes. Thirteen members of the patrol identified by witnesses were detained by the police, but nine were subsequently released by an examining judge. Members of the security forces were convicted for illegal killings in three cases following international pressure to bring those responsible to justice. However, in the vast majority of alleged extrajudicial executions the perpetrators were not brought to justice. In February the Supreme Council of Military Justice upheld the 10-year term of imprisonment imposed on army lieutenant Javier Bendezú Vargas in connection with the massacre of 15 peasants in Santa B rbara in July 1991, but acquitted him of aggravated homicide. Two soldiers implicated in the massacre and convicted of rape, aggravated homicide and abuse of authority, had their convictions quashed (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 and 1993). In March the Supreme Council of Military Justice upheld the six-year prison sentence imposed on former lieutenant Telmo Hurtado for the massacre of 69 peasants in Accomarca in August 1985 (see Amnesty International Reports 1986, 1990 and 1993). In November, three police officers were each sentenced by a civilian court to 18 years' imprisonment, and two others to five and six years' imprisonment respectively, for the unlawful killing of brothers Rafael and Emilio Gómez Paquiyauri and student Freddy Rodríguez Pighi in June 1991 (see Amnesty International Report 1992). Three other officers accused of having been directly implicated in the killings were acquitted. The five who were convicted appealed against their convictions but their cases had not been heard by the end of the year. Torture and ill-treatment were frequently reported. In March the bodies of Alberto Calipuy Valverde and Rosenda Yauri Ramos were found in Angasmarca district, Santiago de Chuco province, La Libertad department. The military reportedly acknowledged that both had died as a result of ill-treatment in the Angasmarca military base. A judicial investigation was reportedly opened into the case by a military court, but nobody had been brought to trial by the end of the year. Juan Abelardo Mallea Tomailla, a prisoner of conscience, was reportedly tortured on 21 July by members of DINCOTE, the anti-terrorism branch of the Peruvian National Police, and forced to sign a self-incriminating document. He had been arrested in Lima on 10 July, on suspicion of having links with the PCP. Hundreds of civilians were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by the PCP, many of whom were first tortured and ill-treated. Members of the security forces who surrendered or were otherwise hors de combat suffered the same fate. On 18 August the PCP detained and hacked to death at least 62 men, women and children in the province of Satipo, Junín department. The PCP accused the indigenous communities of setting up army-controlled civil defence patrols. Herminia Barboza Oré, a community leader in the neighbourhood of Cruz de Mopute, San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, was reportedly shot dead in her home by the PCP on 21 August. The MRTA also committed human rights abuses, although on a lesser scale. In February the body of David Ballón Vera, a businessman who had reportedly been held hostage for five months by the MRTA, was found with two bullet wounds in his head and bearing signs of torture. Amnesty International appealed to the authorities to investigate thoroughly and impartially the thousands of cases of human rights violations perpetrated since early 1983. With few exceptions the authorities failed to bring to justice those responsible. In January and June Amnesty International urged the President and members of Congress not to widen the scope of the death penalty and appealed for its abolition in the new Constitution. In February the organization submitted to Congress recommendations for the protection of human rights to be incorporated in the new Constitution. In May Amnesty International published a report, Peru: Human rights since the suspension of constitutional government, which detailed extensive human rights abuses by the government and the PCP and MRTA. The organization urged the government to end human rights violations and bring anti-terrorism legislation into line with international standards. Amnesty International condemned deliberate and arbitrary killings and other abuses by the armed opposition and urged such forces to respect human rights and basic humanitarian standards. Amnesty International urged President Fujimori to ensure that allegations of extrajudicial executions made by dissident army general Rodolfo Robles were the subject of a full, impartial and independent public inquiry. In oral statements to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February and to its Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in August, Amnesty International included reference to its concerns in Peru. In March Amnesty International submitted information about its concerns regarding torture in Peru to the UN Committee against Torture, pursuant to Article 20 of the UN Convention against Torture. In April Amnesty International submitted information about its concerns in Peru for UN review under a procedure established by Economic and Social Council Resolutions 728f/1503, for confidential consideration of communications about human rights violations.