Amnesty International Report 1996 - Peru

Thousands of unresolved cases of human rights violations perpetrated by members of the security forces and civilian officials over the past 15 years were definitively closed by law. Twenty-six prisoners of conscience and some 500 possible prisoners of conscience remained in prison. At least 5,000 political prisoners were serving prison sentences after unfair trials. Cases of torture continued to be reported. Nine people were reported to have "disappeared". The armed opposition continued to deliberately and arbitrarily kill civilians. The armed opposition groups Partido Comunista del Perú (Sendero Luminoso) (PCP), Communist Party of Peru (Shining Path), and Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, remained active, but on a reduced scale compared with previous years. However, much of the country remained under a state of emergency. Between late January and March there were armed skirmishes between Peru and Ecuador over a long-standing border dispute (see Ecuador entry). Scores of Ecuadorian civilians were detained in Peru by the security forces. By July the last of these prisoners had been released. In July President Alberto Fujimori began a second five-year term in office after elections in which his political party, Cambio 90-Nueva Mayoría, Change 90-New Majority, won an outright majority in Congress. Peru's anti-terrorism laws, despite further amendments passed by Congress in April, continued to fall short of international fair trial standards (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 to 1995). The amendments included restoring the right of suspects to have prompt access to a lawyer and to have the lawyer and a representative of the Public Ministry present when suspects make statements to the police. Legislation remained in force allowing the identities of judges and prosecutors to remain secret and for milit-ary courts to try civilians charged with treason. Congress passed a law on 14 June granting a general amnesty to all members of the security forces and civilian officials "who find themselves the subject of a complaint, investigation, indictment, trial or conviction", or who were serving prison sentences, for human rights violations committed between May 1980 and 14 June 1995. As a result of a ruling by a judge that the amnesty law was inapplicable to an ongoing investigation into the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre (see below), a further law was passed on 28 June which prohibited the judiciary from deciding on the legality or applicability of the amnesty law. The government justified both laws as contributing to Peru's pacification and national reconciliation. However, according to opinion polls the measures were rejected by a wide section of the Peruvian population. They were also strongly condemned by Peruvian and international human rights organizations, some foreign governments and international governmental organizations. In August the UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on torture, and on the independence of the judiciary, and the Chairman of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, jointly wrote to the Peruvian Government. The UN experts stated that both laws "favour impunity [and] are contrary to the spirit enshrined in human rights instruments, including the Vienna Declaration approved by the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993". The experts also concluded that the second law, in prohibiting the judiciary from reviewing the amnesty law, "violates the basic principles of the rule of law". In August the chairman of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities endorsed the UN experts' statement and added that the Sub-Commission would examine a draft resolution on the amnesty laws in 1996. In November, 20 members of Congress submitted a bill repealing those articles of the amnesty laws which benefited human rights violators and seeking to create a Comisión de Verdad, Truth Commission, to investigate violations of human rights and of humanitarian law since May 1980. The bill had not been debated by the end of the year. In August Congress approved a law outlining the basic structure and functions of the Defensoría del Pueblo, Ombudsman's Office, a new institution charged with upholding human rights. The law provided for the Ombudsman's Office to inspect establishments run by the Peruvian National Police but not by the armed forces. By the end of year the Ombudsman's Office and the new Tribunal de Garantías Constitucionales, Tribunal for Constitutional Guarantees, another government institution relevant to the protection of human rights, had yet to come into operation. Peru retained a law in the 1993 Constitution which extended the scope of the death penalty. According to an Advisory Opinion by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued in December 1994, "the promulgation of [such] a law…is a violation of [the American Convention on Human Rights]" (see Amnesty International Report 1994). By the end of 1995 the government had failed to establish the commission, first announced in August 1994 to the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, to review cases of prisoners said to have been falsely accused of "terrorism". The June amnesty laws closed thousands of unresolved human rights cases documented between May 1980 and June 1995, including at least 5,000 "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions, and hundreds of cases of torture, ill-treatment, death threats and intimidation (see Amnesty International Reports 1981 to 1995 and below). Unresolved cases included allegations that police tortured eight trade union leaders from Cuzco department detained on anti-terrorism charges in April 1981; the killing of eight journalists and their guide by peasants, reportedly ordered to do so by the army, in Uchuraccay, Ayacucho department, in August 1983; the "disappearance" of at least 100 inmates from two prisons in Lima, the capital, following an operation by members of the security forces to quell an uprising by PCP militants in June 1986; the detention and massacre by soldiers of some 30 peasants from the town of Cayara, Ayacucho department, in May 1988; the massacre of 12 men, three women and one child in the courtyard of a house in Barrios Altos, Lima, in November 1991; the killing of 31 peasants in three separate incidents during a major army offensive against PCP strongholds in the Alto Huallaga region of Huánuco in April 1994; and the possible "disappearance" of university student José Clemente Cigüeñas Linares, following his abduction by four men dressed as civilians, in a street in Lima in January 1995. The amnesty laws also pardoned those few members of the security forces serving prison sentences for their involvement in human rights violations. For example, within days of the laws coming into force, members of the army who were widely believed to belong to the "death squad" Grupo Colina, and who had been imprisoned for their part in the murder of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University in July 1992, were freed (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 to 1995). Amnesty International deplored the two amnesty laws and called on the government to have the laws immediately repealed. Following public criticisms of the amnesty laws by human rights defenders, several received anonymous death threats. For example, in November, 10 human rights activists received a wreath for their own funeral signed by "the Colina family", a reference to the Grupo Colina "death squad". Twenty-six prisoners of conscience and at least 500 possible prisoners of conscience remained in prison at the end of the year. Among them was Eugenio Bazán Ventura, who had been held for 17 months before being sentenced in March 1994 to 30 years' imprisonment. He had been convicted on the basis of uncorroborated claims by the police that he had participated in the laying of land mines near the village of Araqueda, in the province of Cajabamba, Cajamarca department. Witnesses testified that Eugenio Bazán, who was allegedly tortured and forced to sign a confession by the police, was not present in the village on the day the mines were laid. His appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice was still pending at the end of the year. Seven prisoners of conscience were released during the year. They included Santosa Layme Béjar, released in February, and María Elena Foronda and Oscar Díaz Barboza, released in October (see Amnesty International Report 1995). However, the Supreme Court of Justice was reported to have overturned High Court verdicts acquitting some 300 former prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience charged with "terrorism", because of administrative and procedural errors during High Court hearings. As a result these prisoners faced renewed detention and retrial. For example, prisoners of conscience Juan Alberto Huapaya Palomino and César Augusto Sosa Silupú were redetained in July and November respectively after the Supreme Court of Justice overturned their acquittals by a High Court. Retrials were still pending at the end of the year. Peru's anti-terrorism laws continued to fall far short of international fair trial standards. According to official figures, since 1992 more than 5,000 prisoners had been convicted of "terrorism" and sentenced to imprisonment. All were denied the right to have their cases heard in public and to cross-examine members of the security forces involved in their detention and interrogation. Hundreds of such prisoners were tried before military tribunals. Complaints of torture by detainees suspected of "terrorism" continued to be filed. In August a military patrol reportedly arrested 32 men and nine women from the village of Chalhuayacu, district of Pólvora, San Martín department, and transferred them to a military base in the town of Tocache. A group of soldiers were said to have beaten and threatened to kill them with their firearms. The following day the men were apparently beaten on their buttocks and backs with a strip of wood and a sand-filled leather tube. Pedro Rodríguez Miranda survived near-drowning in a water-tank and strangulation with a cord. All the detainees were said to have been forced to sign a document in which they admitted to being "subversives". By the end of September all but four of the 41 detainees had been released. A complaint about their treatment was filed before a provincial prosecutor in Tocache. Dozens of Ecuadorian civilians detained by members of the security forces in the context of the border conflict with Ecuador were also reported to have been tortured. For example, Ecuadorian journalists Ramiro Cueva and Pablo Reyes were detained near Puerto Pizarro, Tumbes department, on 12 February. They were taken to a nearby naval base where they were undressed, handcuffed, and buried in sand up to their necks. Ramiro Cueva was apparently punched in the stomach and kicked in the testicles and Pablo Reyes had electric shocks applied to his chest. On the same day, both were released without charge. Nine people were reported to have "disappeared". They included five people detained by members of the Navy in three villages in the rainforest province of Pedro Abad, Ucayali department, between January and April. Dozens of civilians were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by the PCP. Many of those killed had been previously tortured. Among the victims were local officials, community leaders and captured members of civil defence patrols. In February members of the PCP were reported to have detained and killed seven people during three separate attacks near the towns of Aucayacu and Tingo María, Huánuco department. Four civilians died and at least 16 others were injured when a car bomb, attributed to the PCP, exploded in May in the residential and commercial district of Miraflores, Lima. Amnesty International appealed to the authorities to bring to justice members of the security services responsible for the thousands of unresolved human rights violations perpetrated over the past 15 years. The organization also appealed to the authorities to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally, to bring the anti-terrorism laws into line with international fair trial standards, and to abolish the death penalty. The authorities responded to many appeals for the release of prisoners of conscience, giving information about the legal situation of the prisoner. In February Amnesty International wrote to the Minister of Justice, to the president of Congress and to the president of the Congressional Human Rights and Pacification Commission requesting information about special measures to review cases of prisoners falsely accused of terrorism. The authorities did not reply to the request. Also in February, Amnesty International urged the authorities to ensure that the security forces fully respected the human rights of Ecuadorians detained in the context of the border conflict with Ecuador and to initiate a prompt and effective investigation into the alleged torture of the two Ecuadorian journalists detained in Puerto Pizarro. Amnesty International called on the armed opposition to end human rights abuses and to fully abide by humanitarian standards enshrined in Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Amnesty International published two reports, Peru: Reforms of anti-terrorism laws fail to match international human rights standards and Women in Peru: Rights in jeopardy, in October and in November respectively. In an oral statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February, Amnesty International included reference to its concerns about unfair trials and torture in Peru.