Rights Action _ ____
Derechos en Acción
March 2003
THE DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS SEARCH FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE IN PERU
“The truth is not too large of a virtue. It is the start of the possibility of recuperating
an essential condition of civilized life: our capacity to become indignant.”
RIGHTS ACTION IN PERU
This report is based on a Rights Action investigative delegation to Peru in 2002, staff visits, and continual monitoring of efforts for truth and justice in Peru. We hope this report contributes positively to the debate about the challenges of truth and justice in Peru, including the work and reception of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación - CVR).
Given the on-going challenges and dangers, much more international attention and support for work for truth and justice in Peru are necessary.
Over the past year, Rights Action staff interviewed representatives of human rights institutions, victims and survivors’ groups, unions, campesino organizations, the Catholic and Evangelical Churches, organizations of displaced populations, and associations of family members of persons sentenced under the anti-terrorist legislation. Rights Action representatives met with persons sentenced and jailed under the anti-terrorist legislation. Rights Action staff interviewed government officials from the Ministries of Interior and Justice, the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE), and commissioners from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Furthermore, Rights Action met with diplomats from the Canadian and United States Embassies in Peru.
In addition to thanking these people and institutions for their time and information, Rights Action congratulates all organizations, institutions and persons involved in efforts to investigate the political violence of the past two decades in Peru, inform the public, and support justice efforts related to these twenty-years of political violence. Though work for truth and justice is difficult and risky, it is vital to the healing of the individual and collective victims who suffered human rights violations and for the society as a whole.
A PROFILE OF THE CONFLICT
The underlying causes
There is general agreement in Peru regarding the political violence’s underlying causes. Most interviewees agree that the Peruvian State’s historical centralization of power and control in Lima had created tremendous levels of economic and racial exclusion with devastating effects on the Andean peasant (Quechua and Aymara peoples) and the indigenous Amazonian populations. These intertwined problems of centuries-old racism and endemic poverty produced social conditions ripe for an armed revolutionary movement.
Commissioner Rolando Ames explained that “the war demonstrated that it is a divided country between the urban modern sectors and the poor peasant population; if the war had been in the urban zones it would not have been as violent as it was.”
The human toll
Routinely cited figures conclude that in a country of 27 million inhabitants, some 40,000 persons were killed, at least 6,000 disappeared, and that as many as 600,000 people were forcibly displaced from their home communities, and that an estimated 500 villages were razed. More than 22,000 people were detained for ‘terrorism’; torture during detention was routine.
Proportioning responsibility
Efforts to proportion responsibility for the violations to the different actors are very controversial. During the 1980s and 1990s, general representations of the political violence, sustained by a well-planned psycho-social campaign, portrayed the insurgent forces as responsible for nearly all the political violence; it was common to attribute 80% of the violence to the armed rebels. However, some sources in Peru now estimate that the insurgent forces are responsible for 20% to 40% of the violence with as much as 60% to 80% attributable to State forces.
Actors in the political violence
-- Communist Party of Peru- Shinning Path (PCP-SL)
Growing out of the Bandera Roja party, a faction of the Peruvian Communist Party, the PCP-SL was founded in the Andean department of Ayacucho in 1970 and initiated armed actions in May 1980. The movement’s initial support base was drawn from university students, many being the first-generation to receive a university education, and from discriminated and marginalized Quechua peasants in Ayacucho.
Its extremely violent discourse and tactics, including assassinations of local leaders, attacks on representatives of the social movement and political opposition for their “reformism,” car bombs, and massacres in highland villages, reduced the PCP-SL’s initial base of support. Though analysts often distinguish the PCP-SL’s violent actions against civilians, its Maoist discourse, and personal allegiance to leader Abimael Guzman (alias President Gonzalo) from traditional Latin American revolutionary movements, the complexity of PCP-SL support and growth fits into a particular socio-historic context where large segments of the population were marginalized.
Guzman’s capture in 1992 provoked a division in the PCP-SL. Although Fujimori later rejected Guzman’s televised exhortation to PCP-SL militants to put down their arms and initiate a peace process, the members who support peace negotiations with the Peruvian State are known as the acuerdistas. Under the leadership of Oscar Ramirez, now detained, a faction distanced themselves from Guzman and his “capitulation” to the State and vowed to continue their armed struggle, resulting in their name of Pro Seguir (Pro Continuation).
-- Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - MRTA
Taking its name from an eighteenth-century indigenous rebel leader, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, founded in 1982 and with its first public action in 1984, has its roots in militant trade unionism and factions of the radical left. Another revolutionary organization, the Revolutionary Left Movement- Rebel Voice (MIR- VR), joined forces with the MRTA in 1986. The MRTA is considered to be a more traditional leftist guerrilla movement.
The MRTA leadership, from the petite bourgeoisie and organized working class, found an initial base of support in the urban areas from which they came. In the 1990s, the MRTA became active in the Northern and Central jungle zones. The MRTA attacked centers of political and economic power, including foreign capital, alongside their “liberation” of food trucks to distribute in poor neighborhoods.
Violations that they are attributed with committing include collection of “war taxes,” kidnappings, assassinations, car bombs, and the armed seizure of the Japanese Ambassador’s residence in 1996. The majority of the MRTA members, never reaching the numbers of PCP-SL, is currently incarcerated, or were assassinated or disappeared. The MRTA, militarily defeated, has never initiated a peace process with the Peruvian State.
-- Peruvian Armed Forces
The Peruvian armed forces’ historic role in national politics is critical to understanding their actions in the most recent wave of political violence in the country. As Cynthia McClintock states, “Overall, between independence in the early 1820’s and 1985 approximately two thirds of Peru’s presidents have been military, ruling for around 100 of those 160 years.” The Peruvian armed forces, such as the Army, the Marines, and the Air Force were active throughout the country during the period of political violence. Starting in 1983 and continuing until the mid-1990s, State officials declared vast portions of the national territory emergency zones, eliminating Constitutional rights (except voting), with the Armed Forces controlling all State functions.
The Peruvian military, like its counterparts elsewhere in Latin America, subscribed to the National Security Doctrine. Identifying the PCP-SL as a manifestation of the global “communist threat,” the Armed Forces did not distinguish between the armed insurgents and political or social organizations. The military and civilian governments criticized and targeted individuals and organizations that promoted and monitored human rights. Under the National Security Doctrine, criticism of the State was viewed as subversive. The armed forces are accused of perpetuating a policy of widespread massacres, assassinations, disappearances and torture.
-- Civil Defense Committees (CDCs)
As other experiences demonstrate, the formation of civilian militias is a common component of counterinsurgency strategies for internal armed conflicts. In Peru during the mid-1980s the Armed Forces in the emergency zones organized, armed and commanded CDCs in rural villages, composed of local peasants. Peasant rounds (rondas campesinas), with a distinct history, were community security militias that developed in the mid-1970’s in response to the power vacuum left by the disappearance of plantation security forces and the absence of a functional justice system. Since the Army co-opted some rondas to form CDCs, the general public perception confused the CDCs with the historic rondas campesinas.
At least 200,000 men and boys were conscripted to patrol their towns and surrounding areas on the lookout for armed rebels. Although the Armed Forces distributed at least 12,000 high caliber weapons to the CDCs, most were poorly equipped to engage in armed combat. However, the CDCs fought the rebel forces; some sources credit them with the defeat of the PCP- SL. They have also been accused of assisting the army in massacres, assassinations and other crimes.
-- Police and intelligence agencies
Police forces like the Civil Guard, the Republican Guard, the Peruvian Investigative Police (PIP), but particularly the specialized “anti-terrorist” and intelligence units such as the National Directorate of Counter Terrorism (DINCOTE) and the Army Intelligence Service (SIE) participated in counter-insurgency activities.
These agencies gained increasing levels of control over State institutions during the Fujimori government. In July 1992, the National Intelligence System (SIN) was created to centralize the intelligence information gathered by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and government ministry intelligence agencies; the SIN reported to the President. Montesinos, SIN’s unofficial director, used this agency as a vehicle to create and direct a parallel structure to the formal government. The SIN’s inflated budget allowed for an unknown quantity of agents (estimates range as high as 10,000) and massive corruption. The DINCOTE and other agencies, but particularly the SIN, were responsible for the psycho-social campaign against opposition figures who dared question government policy, employing assassination, torture, defamation, and other means to destroy them.
-- Paramilitary organizations
The State condoned, and usually sponsored, clandestine paramilitary organizations, like the Rodrigo Franco Democratic Command and the Colina Group, whom were key actors in the conflict. Many members of both death squads were on active duty with state security forces while participating in paramilitary activities. Named in honor of an APRA state functionary assassinated by the PCP- SL, the Rodrigo Franco Command officially started its illegal actions in 1988 by assassinating lawyer Manuel Febres who legally represented a presumed PCP- SL leader. Operating during the presidential term of Aprista Alan García Perez (1985-1990), this command carried out death threats, assassinations, bombings and other violent acts against supposed armed insurgents, as well as progressive journalists, students, religious workers, and local elected (non-APRA) officials.
The Colina Group began its actions soon after Fujimori’s inauguration in 1990, though it was not until April 1993 that military sources leaked the existence of this clandestine army unit to the press and opposition politicians. This group, headed by National Intelligence Service (SIN) employee Santiago Martín Rivas, is responsible for numerous human rights violations. In November 1991, the Colina Group assassinated fifteen men, women and children during a party in the poor Lima neighborhood of Barrios Altos. This massacre and the July 1992 disappearance and assassination of nine students and one professor from Enrique Guzman y Valle University, known as La Cantuta, less than two days after a Shining Path car bomb exploded in Miraflores, are their most reviled actions.
-- “A certain complicity” of international actors
The United States provided weaponry, training and intelligence for Peruvian military and police forces during the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the infamous former presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos and the head of the Colina Group, Martín Rivas, thousands of Peruvians were trained at and graduated from the School of the Americas and other US military training institutions. In 1999, close to 1000 Peruvians received military and police training in the United States. Involvement of US-trained Peruvian military officials in human rights violations has been documented, in particular the participation of School of the Americas graduates in the 1985 Acomarca massacre and the 1992 La Cantuta assassinations.
The Peruvian armed conflict facilitated the Fujimori government’s neo-liberal economic policies. Days after his 1990 inauguration, the Fujimori government renegotiated “agreements on the external debt” and committed his government “to adopt the guidelines of the Washington Consensus for economic reform and the State apparatus.” Fujimori immediately ended price controls and subsidies and, throughout the 1990s, dismantled and privatized public services. Despite their knowledge of the on-going conflict and the diversion of international funds to “development” programs in emergency zones, international financial institutions (IFIs) continued to provide loans to Peru.
National and international investors took advantage of the political climate to reap profits. Privatized State services became a relatively rapid and secure investment. Starting in 1991, numerous State holdings were privatized. Foreign companies took over control of mining, ports, banks, commerce, transport, communications and health care. National investors benefited from these policies to gain control over the energy sector, airline and railroad transport. From 1991-1998, privatizing State companies and selling State resources brought in close to $8,650 million dollars.
During Rights Action research for this report, only one person mentioned the connection of IFIs to the political violence. The Bishop of Callao, Monsignor Miguel Irizar Campos of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference, who served on the anti-corruption commission during Paniagua’s interim government in 2000- 2001, asserted that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have a “certain complicity” in the violence as they provided loans knowing that Peru was engaged in a brutal internal conflict, and despite of strong indications of serious corruption.
Although current judicial investigations are exposing the manner in which funds from the privatization deals were illegally diverted to individuals, used for partisan objectives and bankrolled other illegal activities, civil society in Peru has not emphasized the need to examine the responsibilities of international actors, including foreign economic actors, in the conflict.
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THE PERUVIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM & POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Widely remembered as the occasion of the first public action of the PCP-SL, the May 1980 elections marked what some political scientists call the first democratic election in Peruvian history. Peru has long been a politically unstable country, constantly alternating between constitutional and de facto rule. The longest period of uninterrupted constitutional rule in Peruvian history was 1895 to 1914.
The 1980 elections brought Fernando Belaunde, leader of the Acción Popular political party, to power. Belaunde had previously been elected president in 1963. During his first presidency, Belaunde was criticized for bowing to foreign economic interests and for not enacting agrarian reform or economic development programs as promised. He also fought and defeated a small guerilla movement in the 1960s.
Velasco’s reformist military regime
Belaunde was overthrown in a 1968 coup that brought a reformist military regime headed by Juan Velasco Alvarado to power. During the Velasco regime a series of social reforms were enacted, including a land reform program, nationalization of banks and mines, expropriation of various foreign business interests, including Standard Oil’s Peruvian holdings, and other reforms. Initially, Velasco’s regime enjoyed broad support, especially from the labor movement.
Beginning in 1973, the regime’s support began to break down and there were divisions within the regime. A faction known as the “Institutionalists” won out against the “Progressives.” The Institutionalist leader, Francisco Morales Bermudez, came to control the military regime in 1975. The Institutionalist stance of restricting military activities to national defense and security policies abruptly ended various controversial social-economic experiments of the previous government, including a law forcing all businesses to become at least 51% worker owned.
In 1977, the Communist Party and the largest Peruvian labor central, General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), which had supported the Velasco regime, joined with social movements to demand civilian control of the government. In 1978 the Morales Bermudez regime convoked the election of a Constitutional Assembly which in 1979 rewrote the Peruvian constitution, a process culminating in the May 1980 elections.
Though it appears that through this process the Peruvian military renounced a direct role in political affairs, their role in daily political decisions only was given up in exchange for autonomous control of political decisions relating to national security and defense issues.
Belaunde returns control of the highlands to the military
Following the 1980 PCP-SL destruction of ballot boxes in a the rural town of Chuschi in the department of Ayacucho, the Belaunde government combated the insurgent group with regular police forces, referring to the PCP-SL actions as crimes or acts of delinquency. However, on December 21, 1982 President Belaunde declared a State of Emergency in seven provinces in the departments of Ayacucho, Apurimac and Huancavelica. All constitutional rights (except voting) were suspended and control of the government in those areas was turned over to the military. Over the succeeding years, the State of Emergency grew to encompass over 40 provinces.
The Peruvian military, in direct control of a large part of the Peruvian highlands, initiated control of the Emergency Zones in 1983 and 1984 with what Peruvian political scientist and commissioner of the CVR Carlos Ivan Degregori has called a “genocidal offensive” whose objective was to “dry the water from the Sendero fish by terrorizing the peasant farmers and inhibiting support of the Sendero.” The military employed widespread massacres and disappearances.
Garcia, emergency zones & increasing violence
Amid the heightened criticisms of the military counterinsurgency strategy, Alan García Pérez of the APRA party ran for president with a political platform that included an end to human rights violations, a change in the military strategy, and economic development for the conflict regions. After winning the 1985 elections, García aimed to re-establish civilian control over national security policy and formed the Peace Commission (Comisión de Paz). An initial clash occurred with the military when García solicited the resignation of three high ranking military officers for alleged human rights atrocities. At the same time, the Armed Forces initiated an economic development program, the Army Office for National Development (ODENA), which soon ended for insufficient funds. In the end, the Garcia government, like the Belaunde government, left control of national security policy to the military and widespread human rights abuses continued.
Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Degregori has asserted that from 1983 to 1988 the military perpetrated the majority of the violence in Ayacucho. Between 1988 and 1992, PCP-SL massacres appear to outnumber those the Armed Forces committed. Many sources claim that the highest level of extrajudicial assassinations and gross human rights violations appear to have occurred during the Garcia government. In addition to massacres, assassinations and forced disappearances, torture was standard practice, particularly in the detention centers and prisons through which tens of thousand of Peruvians passed.
Fujimori consolidates power through “anti-terrorist” campaign
Nearly all organizations and institutions interviewed asserted that the initial years of the political violence received little national attention, since most of the tens of thousands of victims were indigenous Andean peasants. The Bishop of Callao Monsignor Irizar explained, “Until it knocked on their door, Lima residents did not care.” However, in the early 1990s the political violence intensified in Lima; multiple blackouts from destruction of electrical facilities and a series of car bombs, particularly the July 1992 car bomb in the upscale Miraflores street of Tarata which killed 24 people, raised levels of fear in Lima.
Running on a political platform of ending the political violence, which had been increasing in urban areas, Alberto Fujimori was elected president in 1990. Fujimori immediately consolidated his autocratic rule by waging a calculated psycho-social campaign using an “anti-terrorism” rhetoric to justify undemocratic laws and acccions and human rights violations. The Fujimori regime intimidated, manipulated, and illegally employed the media, severely limiting freedom of the press. The press was a tool in this campaign. Part of this campaign included the regular exhibition of accused “terrorists” in front of television cameras, normally after sustained physical and psychological torture, to provoke sensational outbursts for public consumption. Victims of State violations and organizations that dared denounce State-sponsored violence received scant media coverage and thus remained virtually unknown to the general public.
At the same time that all acts of “terrorism” were being attributed to the insurgent groups, military and paramilitary forces conducted acts of repression and terrorism, including false flag operations that were attributed to the insurgent groups in order to contribute to the collective panic. There are several well documented examples of these operations, like the December 1992 assassination of labor leader Pedro Huilca, a crime attributed to the PCP-SL. In 1997 a retired general provided evidence demonstrating the crime was a false flag operation committed by the Colina Group. It is currently impossible to estimate the frequency of State-sponsored false flag operations.
Anti-terrorist legislation & the construction of a police state
In April 1992, Fujimori conducted a self-coup, initiating an eight-year hiatus from formal democratic governance. With military support, Fujimori dissolved Congress, reorganized the judicial branch by firing opposition judges and appointing loyal magistrates, and declared an Emergency government for National Reconstruction.
As early as October 1990, a group of generals asserted that the presidential intelligence apparatus, under the control of Fujimori’s lawyer and advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, controlled the State. This was formalized in July 1992, with the creation of the National Intelligence System (SINA). SINA centralized information gathered by all intelligence agencies in the National Intelligence Service, which reported to the President and was controlled by Montesinos. SIN was used as a vehicle to create and direct a parallel government structure, its inflated budget allowed for an unknown quantity of agents (estimates range as high as 10,000) and massive corruption. The SIN destroyed those who dared question government policy through assassination, torture, defamation, and other means.
Although laws against acts of terrorism predate his government, after his self-coup, Fujimori issued legislation that violated international human rights norms, particularly due process. In several cases (Loayza Tamayo, Cantoral Benavides, and Petruzzi et al.), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH) found that the anti-terrorist legislation violated the American Convention on Human Rights and demanded its modification. The latter case led to Fujimori withdrawing Peru from the Inter-American system’s jurisdiction in 1999. Though the transitional government of Paniagua again accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American system in December 2000, the Peruvian Government waited until January 2003 to comply minimally with a select portion of the international rulings on the legislation.
In June 2000, the Inter-American Commission published a comprehensive report on the human rights situation in Peru, outlining the multiple manners that the anti-terrorist legislation (ATL) and the Fujimori government violated human rights standards. The ATL’s vague definition of terrorism allowed almost any act of violence to be defined as terrorism; it allowed for arbitrary detention; the detention process facilitated the use of torture; police agents, not judges, formalized charges against detainees and judges were not permitted to release those accused under the ATL even if there was not sufficient evidence to detain them, which violated prisoners’ rights to presumption of innocence; the infamous military courts and specialized civilian courts presided over by masked judges violated the right to a public trial and the right to a defense. The secret trials had a conviction rate of approximately 97%.
Many factors combined to make access to legal counsel impossible for the vast majority of the more than 22,000 people detained under the ATL. Intimidation and repression against judges and lawyers was common. Some lawyers even were prosecuted under the ATL, especially the defense lawyers of accused “terrorists.” Lawyers were prohibited from representing more than one person accused under the ATL at a time. During the Fujimori government, human rights organizations defended 1,568 people and 1019 were released. Of those, 487 prisoners convicted as “terrorists” were released due to the work of the Ad Hoc Commission on Innocent Persons created by the Fujimori government in 1996.
The National Coordinator for Human Rights in Peru (Coordinator), an umbrella group of currently more than sixty human rights organizations was formed in 1986. In 1994, the Coordinator instituted a policy that member human rights groups could only provide legal defense to persons deemed “innocent”; the criteria for determining a person’s “innocence” seemed arbitrary. Some of the members of associations of victims and family members of people imprisoned under the anti-terrorist legislation noted that human rights organizations, apparently in the assessment of their innocence, asked questions about their families’ or their detained family member’s affiliation with political and social movements.
Former director of the Institute for Legal Defense (IDL) Carlos Basombrío wrote: “The human rights organizations decided expressly not to provide legal defense through our lawyers to people whom we considered with reasonable certainty to be members of Shining Path or MRTA. This decision certainly caused many conflicts of consciences, above all in the final stage, since in some cases we ended up turning ourselves, in a sense, into anticipatory judges. That is, we did not give the accused the benefit of the doubt even though we knew that judges, in deciding the innocence or guilt of an accused person, considered it important to know who was behind the defense.”
Slush funds, the mafia state, and fraudulent elections
Fujimori’s harmful neo-liberal economic policies, combined with massive corruption and the undermining of the Peruvian state structure into what has been called a mafia state, contributed to a deterioration of his popularity. Throughout the decade the massive network of State owned enterprises built up during the Velasco government was privatized, including mining, ports, banks, commerce, transport, communications, health care, the energy sector, airlines and railroad transport. This provided US$8,650 million in income to the Peruvian government. The funds that were not stolen or channeled into appalling corruption schemes were used to fund social programs that the government manipulated for its political gains. However, these were not sufficient to stem growing discontent from the social and economic disruption and growing poverty provoked by the economic policies. A Peruvian congressional report, the Waisman Commission, on corruption released in June 2002 estimated that of the stolen funds, US$1,885 million was used to buy arms for the parallel mafia state controlled by Montesinos and Fujimori.
In 1997, the Fujimori-controlled Congress removed three Constitutional Court judges who had opined that Fujimori was not eligible for a third term; he announced his candidacy in 1999. The 2000 campaign was discredited by blatant misuse of State funds, manipulated press coverage, intimidation of opposition candidates by the government, including tax and security agencies. The April 2000 election was so fraudulent that international observers refused to monitor the May 2000 run-off election.
The fraud galvanized a national movement demanding Fujimori’s resignation. On the days leading up to the July 28, 2000 inauguration, hundreds of thousands of people marched to Lima in the March of the Four Suyos (in reference to the four regions of the ancient Inca Empire). State forces attacked protesters in Lima and then blamed the opposition for the State-sponsored actions that left hundreds wounded and six dead.
One of the final government downfalls occurred in September 2000 when a video leaked to the press showed Montesinos bribing an opposition senator. That same month Montesinos fled to Panama, only to return clandestinely and flee again to Venezuela where he was finally captured in May 2001. After seizures of compromising information and documents in Montesinos’ residences, Fujimori left for an economic meeting in Brunei in November 2000, only to submit his resignation by fax from Japan on November 20, 2000. The Peruvian Congress refused this resignation, immediately declared him incompetent, and removed him from office.
The transition government
Through Organization of American States (OAS) mediated dialogues (Mesa de Diálogo), governmental (official party and opposition parties) and non-governmental representatives looked for solutions to national problems (i.e. democratization, the disarticulation of SIN, corruption and human rights abuses). Non-governmental participants in the OAS round table also demanded a truth commission.
Two days after Fujimori’s removal for “moral incapacity,” then congressional president Valentín Paniagua Corazao was named interim president. Paniagua had the daunting task of rebuilding a destroyed and corrupted State and paving the way for presidential and congressional elections. The interim government (November 2000 - July 2001) established various commissions to investigate corruption, other illegal acts, and unconstitutional legislation.
Alejandro Toledo Manrique, who had been a candidate in the corrupted 2000 elections, won the June 2001 presidential elections. A former World Bank economist, Toledo has focused on raising his profile internationally and promoting regional economic agreements.
On-going violence?
When the media began in early 2001 to give broad coverage to the renewal of political violence in the Peruvian jungle, it appeared to be a ploy to discredit positive changes initiated by the interim Paniagua government. However, recent actions and public statements indicate that the PCP-SL Pro Seguir faction remains active in the Upper Huallaga and Ene Valley.
On the eve of US President George Bush’s visit to Peru in March 2002, a car bomb exploded near the US Embassy and killed ten people. Peruvians were forced to relive the panic and insecurity characteristic of the 1980s and 1990s. The national press regularly reports on alleged “terrorist” activity throughout the country, including the existence of PCP-SL pamphlets, seizures of rural hamlets, and calls for work stoppages. While one faction of the PCP-SL, the Acuerdistas, call for peace negotiations, the Pro Seguir faction allegedly continues armed actions in the central jungle regions and the jungle periphery in Ayacucho. Although their discourse is more conciliatory than in years past, in November 2002 they called for an armed work stoppage (paro armado) on the weekend of the regional and provincial elections.
The Toledo government’s pacification strategy, reminiscent of that under García, has focused on economic development initiatives and increased counterinsurgency tactics. A November 2001 Executive Decree created the Peace and Development Commissioner to be responsible for “zones in which remnants of terrorist groups subsist.” In March 2002, then-Interior Minister Rospigliosi informed that the anti-terrorist strategy included naming these commissioners “which would depend on his office and whose task is to coordinate with each of the State and collective institutions.” These posts are recognized to have a strategic and intelligence function for the military. The Toledo government has re-opened old military bases and is constructing new ones; Toledo has stated that “the moment has come to re-promote the self-defense patrols and the urban patrols.”
Post-Fujimori modifications of the anti-terrorist legislation
Alongside speculation as to whether the PCP-SL and/or Montesinos-linked forces were responsible for the March 2002 car bomb, commentators and politicians demanded a new, tougher anti-terrorist legislation. Having initially demanded the enactment of more severe laws, Toledo was forced to recant after legal experts challenged the hardening of the already internationally-condemned legislation. Toledo, interfering in functions of the judicial branch, encouraged judges to apply the highest punishment of life sentence to persons responsible for terrorist acts and drug trafficking.
In April 2002, Congress legalized telephone tapping and received Executive Branch support for the approval of the proposed “efficient collaboration” laws which encourage informers and deserters to share information regarding criminal “terrorist” activity. Though similar to a law issued during the Fujimori era resulted in the incarceration of thousands of innocent people, a representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the National Human Rights Commission of the Interior Ministry asserted that this law would respect human rights norms while achieving its objective of gathering information about “terrorist” activities.
In response to the over 5,000 citizens who solicited a Constitutional Court revision of this legislation, in January 2003 the Constitutional Court found that sections of Legal Decree 25659, specifically relating to military trials and cases of treason against “the fatherland”, were unconstitutional. Despite the commendable findings, the ruling hardly changed the notorious over-penalization of crimes of “terrorism” and other problematic issues contained in Legal Decree 25475.
Immediately following the Constitutional Court ruling, President Toledo issued several Executive Decrees that defined the format for the new civilian trials and parameters for sentencing, a task normally reserved for the Congress. President Toledo, again overstepping his Executive functions, in January 2003, repeatedly stated that “no terrorist will be freed under my government” and threatened to declare a state of siege if one “terrorist” was released from prison.
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PERU’S TRUTH COMMISSION
In this context, Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) began its work in late 2001. The Peruvian situation is not only daunting due to the political violence that occurred from 1980 to 2000, but also since little actually has changed in most facets of society.
Origin and mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In early December 2000, Interim President Paniagua named an eight-member working group, composed of the Ministers of Justice, Defense, Interior, and Women and Development, Human Rights Ombudsman, and non-governmental representatives from the National Human Rights Coordinator, the Bishops’ Conference and the Protestant Council (Concilio Evangélico) to propose a framework for a truth commission.
The group, which neither included victims and survivors’ organizations nor the rebel groups, drafted a proposal that would aim to strengthen national reconciliation and the reconstruction of the rule of law, which they presented to the Executive branch in March 2001. Three months later, in June 2001, Paniagua issued Executive Decree 065-2001 that established and outlined the work of the Truth Commission. According to this Decree, the State must guarantee society’s right to the truth without vengeance and under free and democratic principles.
The Decree determined that the Commission would investigate political violence that occurred beginning in May 1980, with the first public action of the PCP-SL, and November 2000, when Fujimori fled Peru. The Decree stated that “in May 1980 terrorist organizations unleashed the violence against humanity; thousands of Peruvians resulted victim of their most basic rights as much by the work of said terrorist organizations as by that of some state agents with a tragic outcome of crimes, disappearances and other serious not clarified occurrences.” In the Decree, political violence is defined as assassinations and kidnappings, forced disappearances, torture and other serious injuries, collective violations of the Andean and native indigenous communities, and other crimes and serious violations against individual rights committed by terrorist organizations, State agents or paramilitary groups. Rights Action notes here, and will discuss below, this prejudicial and problematic association of the word “terrorist” with the actions of non-State actors, and not with the actions of State actors.
In July 2001, interim President Paniagua nominated seven Peruvians to head the Commission, designating the rector of the private Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Salómon Lerner Febres, to head the Commission. While a few of the seven persons named by Paniagua had researched the political violence, only one had experience in the field of human rights. One of the commissioners was a politician who had served as Assistant Labor Minister in 1999 and in 2000 was elected to Congress with Fujimori’s political party. The only non-Lima based commissioner is a former university rector from Ayacucho.
After his July 2001 inauguration, President Toledo issued an executive decree expanding the commission to include more people and rename it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliacion – CVR). It was established that the CVR would have 18 months, extendable for five more, to complete its work. The mandate recently has been extended to end in July 2003. The CVR’s four principle objectives are:
CVR Activities
The collection and analysis of information is essential to any truth commission. The Peruvian CVR was also created to contribute to justice processes. Names of both victims and victimizers are documented and the investigations results will be given to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for prosecution of cases. Emphasis has also been placed on the creation a framework for reparations, reform and reconciliation processes. The CVR’s fifteen-month progress report noted advance on the following activities: public audiences, testimony and data base collection, analysis of crimes and violations, exhumations, an initiative on disappeared people, examination of the national political process, compilation of regional histories, developing detailed exemplary cases, reparations proposal, institutional reform proposal, perspectives on reconciliation and photographic archive.
In addition to CVR staff activities, agreements were established with NGOs to cooperate in specific activities of the CVR, including supplying testimonies and databases documenting violations which the NGOs had collected over years of work, coordination of public audiences, facilitation of CVR investigations, diffusion of CVRs activities and findings, analysis of legal issues and social conditions, etc. CVR members´ statements indicate the commission’s reliance on other institutions’ data from the 1980s and 1990s. In April 2002, only months after their labors began, commissioners Ames and Degregori separately stated that the CVR already had the necessary information and that the commission’s goal was to process it. Commissioner Degregori explained that the CVR had a significant quantity of data that human rights organizations, journalists, and researchers collected.
The CVR established five regional headquarters in Lima, Huancavelica, Huamanga, Huanuco and Abancay, and established six smaller offices and two liaison offices. The activities of the CVR are carried out by 393 full and part time staff people, of which approximately 80% work in investigation, analysis, outreach and coordination (including lawyers, social scientists, journalists, transcribers, etc.) and approximately 20% in administrative and logistical support (including secretaries, drivers, janitors, etc.). They are investigating approximately 30,000 cases. The January 2003 fifteen-month report registered 15,220 testimonies collected, 3,719 testimonies processed.
The CVR established public audiences where victims gave testimony about their personal experiences during the political violence. Although interviews indicated that the principal function of the Public Audiences was to share with the Peruvian public insight into conflict the CVR was investigating, in the fifteen-month report, the CVR noted “We have witnessed that the voices of the victims has challenged the official history inherited from the authoritarian regime overseen by Fujimori, but also tremendous indifference.” Seven public audiences were held in different regions of the country (Ayacucho, Huancayo, Huancavelica, Lima, Tingo Maria, Abancay and Trujillo). In these audiences, individuals, supported by non-government human rights organizations (NGOs) and CVR regional offices, presented their testimonies.
Given the victims and survivors’ interest in participating in public audiences, the CVR in conjunction with local organizations sponsored seven further public assemblies with a focus on areas where the public audiences were not held: Chumbivilcas, Cusco, Cajatambo, Pucallpa, Tarapoto, Huánuco, Chungui. The CVR also conducted thematic public audiences on topics such as the anti-terrorist legislation and due process, crimes and human rights violations against women, the repression in universities, and forced displacement. The CVR additionally sponsored institutional audiences with select actors in the conflict, like political parties, professional organizations, the armed forces, and religious institutions.
Public audiences have been the highest profile element of the CVR’s labors. With the aid of various NGOs and select government institutions, the CVR and cooperating NGOs identified the public participants in the different regional and thematic hearings. According to CVR documents, these hearings aimed to restore the victims’ dignity, contribute to their healing process, and “initiate a moral reflection to give examples of the defense of values, civic courage and an option for life.” CVR commissioner Degregori explained that these audiences are the first form of reparations for the victims.
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OBSTACLES & CHALLENGES TO EFFORTS THAT SEEK TRUTH, JUSTICE & RECONCILIATION
There are serious obstacles to discover the truth of what occurred in Peru, let alone proceeding to have justice done for the political violence of the past. Focusing on the work of the CVR, Rights Action explains some of these obstacles and challenges, recognizing that there are many other courageous efforts for truth and justice in Peru that face similar obstacles and challenges.
A Divided Society
The profound divisions within Peruvian society are key to understanding the roots of the armed conflict. Many expressed that the same conditions continue today. These historical and structural conditions threaten the success of truth and reconciliation efforts.
--Historical inequalities & injustices
Historical poverty and discrimination (based on ethnicity, class and gender) were huge impediments for a majority of the victims of the political violence to participate in the CVR efforts. Most victims and survivors are impoverished indigenous and/ or campesino people who have suffered historic discrimination and poverty, as well as repression. Moreover, many women suffered gender-based political crimes. In efforts for truth and justice, these factors are obstacles to understanding the complexities of the violence and are also obstacles to the actual participation of victims and survivors in proceedings related to discovering the truth about what happened.
--Ongoing conflict
Moreover, on-going political violence affects the CVR’s investigative capacities. Although the CVR mandate used November 2000 as the closing date for its investigations, many factors indicate that remnants and repercussions of the armed conflict continue. The PCP-SL Pro Seguir faction reportedly is undertaking armed operations in certain regions. The Toledo government continues to plan and conduct counterinsurgency operations, including reopening military bases and reactivating Civil Defense Committees (CDCs).
The armed insurgents’ intimidating and destructive acts and the State’s re-militarization, including the reorganization and support for CDCs, limited to the CVR’s ability to enter and openly investigate certain areas of the country (jungle regions of Ayacucho, the central jungle, and the Palma de Espina).
--Political Influences on the Labors of the CVR
The Peruvian CVR is a government-sponsored truth commission. During interviews with human rights organizations and truth commissioners, concern was repeatedly expressed regarding possible political influences over the CVR. Support for the commission initially was polemic. The APRA political party at the outset strongly criticized and attempted to remake the mandate of the CVR. Some speculated this was because APRA affiliated Alan Garcia was president during worst State-sponsored atrocities. Other observers expressed fear that political interests could influence the findings of the CVR.
--Lack of Participation of Armed Insurgent Organizations
While members of the State police forces participated in public audiences, neither the Armed Forces nor the two insurgent organizations contributed in any public forum to offer their clarifications and experiences. In other post-conflict contexts, the national army and armed insurgent groups formally collaborated (in varying degrees) with their national truth commissions to provide information on their methodology, actions and ideological justifications. Some incarcerated people mentioned interest in publicly explaining the reasons that their insurgent organizations took up arms, taking responsibility for their organization’s actions, and denouncing cases of torture, disappearances and assassinations. The imprisoned members of the two Peruvian armed insurgent groups never have publicly presented their vision of the conflict.
Effects of the Anti-Terrorist Campaign
This psycho-social “anti-terrorist” campaign of the last two decades not only shapes the population’s receptiveness to the CVR’s report and conclusions, it potentially hinders a full understanding of the violence. The CVR, as an investigative body, is challenged to overcome these preconceptions.
--What happened?
Disagreement regarding the definition of the twenty-year period of political violence remains a barrier to achieving reconciliation and lasting peace. The political violence in Peru has passed through various phases of definition and social understanding. Despite the initial vision of the political violence as “delinquency” and, later, a “war,” the Armed Forces and successive governments ended up, particularly in the 1990s, defining the conflict as a “war on terrorism.” Yet, human rights organizations versed in international legal standards now refer to what happened as an internal armed conflict, which has legal implications for all parties in the conflict. The CVR investigation will aid in developing a shared and more balanced historical understanding of the political violence that took place between 1980 and 2000.
--A complicated proportioning of responsibilities
Differences in perceptions and the ratio of responsibility ascribed to each of the conflict’s actors makes the Peruvian case different from other Latin American post-conflict societies. In other societies, State and State-sponsored actors were viewed as the responsible agents in the majority of human rights violations, a belief reconfirmed in their respective truth commissions. Although most Peruvian organizations familiar with the political violence recognize that the State’s counterinsurgency policy involved human rights violations, the population generally ignores the State’s responsibility for a large part of the violence. In addition to using and manipulating the specter of “terrorist” acts to undermine the rule of law and to maintain political power, Fujimori’s “anti-terrorism” campaign persuaded the public that the armed insurgents committed the majority of the political violence. The CVR will present Peruvian society with indispensable tools to foster a national consensus regarding the actors and the degree of responsibility that each of the actors has.
--Double-standard and manipulated use of terms “terrorist” and “terrorism”
Although State forces and the insurgent groups both used acts of terror to achieve their military and political goals, the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” are almost universally employed, including by human rights organizations, to refer to the PCP-SL and MRTA, not in reference to State forces. This creates a double-standard legally, and in social discourse. It also de-contextualizes the actions of the rebel groups from the socio-political framework in which they occurred. The continued manipulated use of these terms is a barrier to truth, justice and reconciliation.
While Executive Decree 065-2001, that established the Truth Commission’s general framework, referred to and distinguished between “terrorist organizations” and “state agents,” the second Executive Decree used more precise language. Although different sources who work closely with the CVR explained the Commission has changed its terminology, some official CVR materials continue to refer to “terrorist organizations” and “state agents.” CVR Commissioner Ames explained that the struggle to even call the PCP-SL a political group that committed terrorist acts “was a battle lost in the media” and concluded that one is product of his society.
The CVR’s final report must challenge these double-standards and contribute to a balanced understanding of the degree with which different actors employed the tactics of terrorism and whether these acts were a policy, strategies, or “excesses”.
Impunity
The Peruvian CVR has the potential to contribute to rectifying impunity and civil society’s lack of access to a functional justice system. Although its mandate establishes that the CVR cannot usurp the functions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Público), the CVR is interacting with sectors of the population who have never had access to justice and will offer recommendations to the Peruvian State regarding impunity and injustice. Commissioner Ames explained that the CVR can show evidence of responsibility, which prosecutors and the judicial branch can later use: “The Commission turns over information that helps to see the responsible figures.”
The undermining impact of on-going impunity lack of access to justice cannot be understated and could affect the population’s ability to present testimony. The effects of the psycho-social “anti-terrorist” campaign of the past continue to affect prospects for understanding the truth and establishing the base for reconciliation.
--Fear of violence
A generalized fear of the actors responsible for the political violence and of the on-going impunity and conflict affect the quantitative and qualitative aspect of people’s participation in the work of the CVR. While Human Rights Watch, in April 2002, denounced that family members of persons who had testified in the public hearings in Ayacucho had received threats, the CVR budget did not permit a witness protection program, as provided for the first Executive Decree. According to Alfonso Wieland, of the Protestant Church’s human rights organization Diaconal Ministerial Peace and Hope Association, the CVR approached different institutions to provide witness protection, which these institutions declined for lack of technical and material capacities to do so.
A representative of the umbrella organization for over sixty human rights groups, the National Coordinator for Human Rights in Peru also expressed concern about the obstacles to complete investigations in all regions affected by the political violence. Alejandro Silva, adjunct to the General Secretary of the Coordinator, stated that in some areas of Ayacucho, the central jungle and the Palma de Espina, the Civil Defense Committees did not allow the CVR to enter. Interestingly enough, these paramilitary groups feel threatened by the CVR’s possible outcome while some of the victims doubt the strength of this same outcome.
In the Andean department of Apurimac, three local human rights organizations assert, in their report on the political violence, “Olvidarte ... Nunca” (Forget You … Never), that testimonies presented for their regional investigation were affected by the local political context. The report states, “The people in the countryside’s common sense identifies the Shining Path as a defeated force and no longer has possibility of doing damage to them. Therefore, now they can denounce all their [the Shining Path’s] aggressions without fear. On the other hand, the armed and police forces are present. … In consequence they still feel fear the possibility of reprisal if they make denunciations against them.” The report further observes that “it is much easier to say that it was the Shining Path because of the official discourse.” This investigation is insightful for its analysis of what might be heard and not heard in hearings and testimony gathering efforts of the CVR and other efforts that involve gathering testimonies.
--On-going State impunity
The absence of a sustained and clear political will to investigate current and former State officials reinforces historic impunity. Political interference and bias in the efforts to prosecute State officials are impediments to the search for truth and to the application of justice. In Peru, State and State-supported actors historically have benefited from impunity for their illegal acts. Recently, local non-government organizations have brought several cases against members of the Colina Group and State actors involved in torture, disappearances and other crimes against humanity during the conflict.
The State has curbed prosecutors’ investigative efforts, destroyed State records, and used amnesty laws to impede the legal investigation and prosecution of State actors. Functionaries in the Interior Ministry’s Permanent Secretariat of the National Human Rights Commission explained that the Interior Ministry burned its records every five years until 2001. This Ministry, responsible for the police forces, thus has no information to present to the CVR or prosecutors regarding the police forces’ internal directives or actions during the conflict.
Although the Inter-American Court for Human Rights ruled, in March 2001, that the 1995 amnesty decrees were incompatible with the American Convention of Human Rights, the State has not supported public prosecutors’ efforts to bring former and current military officials to trial. Although capture orders for certain former State officials, including former President Fujimori, have been issued and resulted in the important capture of Colina group leader, Martín Rivas, in 2002, thousands of other persons responsible for human rights violations during the conflict remain untouched.
Nonetheless, the May 2002 furor that arose after Judge Cecilia Pollack issued detention orders for eleven Armed Forces officers involved in the April 1997 re-seizure of the Japanese ambassador’s residence, which resulted in the probable execution of several captured insurgents, illustrates the State’s disapproval of bringing State perpetrators to violence. Members of the Executive Branch, including the Ministers of Defense, Justice, the cabinet chief, and President Toledo, publicly disagreed with the capture orders; some State officials even called for a new amnesty law that would cover actions through the year 2000. President Toledo remarked, during a visit to a jungle military base, “[this] president will do everything possible to maintain a high moral and they [the Armed Forces] have my absolute support until the contrary is proven.”
While thousands of Peruvians accused of collaboration, membership and leadership in the armed insurgent groups have been incarcerated under the “anti-terrorist” legislation accused of collaboration, membership, and leadership in the armed insurgent groups, only one case exists in which a State official has been imprisoned under this legislation. In February 2002, one of the five accused members of the Colina Group purportedly involved in the October 1996 bombing of Red Global television and Radio Samoa in Puno, was condemned. Although the “anti-terrorist” legislation mandated a minimum 20-year prison sentence for this bombing, it was reduced to six years in consideration of his participation in the fight against “terrorism.”
--The role of international actors
The role of international actors, particularly foreign governments and transnational entities, during the internal conflict remains uninvestigated. In March 2002, US President George W. Bush visited Peru to meet with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and presidents from Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia to discuss regional international cooperation. Although the US government and its agencies have funded certain non-governmental organizations engaged in support work for the CVR, budgeted one million dollars for the CVR, and declassified US documents related to Peru, neither President Bush or any other US official since this visit has mentioned the role of US military advisors, training, arms and even US economic interests as contributing to the internal armed conflict.
Human rights activists in Peru appear unfamiliar with the complex and often damaging role played by various foreign actors. Commissioner Degregori asserted that the US government only was involved in ant-drug initiative and international actors were not embroiled in the conflict in Peru. Clarifying the role of international military advisors, specialists, and engineers during Peru’s armed conflict will add to a fuller understand of the political violence and contribute to justice and reconciliation efforts.
An additional investigation of the international financial institutions that provided loans and monetary aid during the twenty years under investigation is also essential. “Development” monies and other funds should be examined to verify that they were not misused or directed to fund counterinsurgency efforts.
Continued Impact of the Anti-Terrorist Legislation (ATL)
During most of the CVR investigations, the 1992 anti-terrorist legislation remained in effect, effectively prohibiting people from sharing information regarding the actions committed by the armed insurgency. Current and formerly incarcerated persons, their family members, and others risked being accused, tried and condemned for offering information on topics related to “terrorism.” The 1992 legislation criminalized the vaguely defined “apology for terrorism”, with punishment of six to twelve years imprisonment. While different sources asserted the improbability of prosecution for those who provided information to the CVR, the law remained legally and socially operational during the CVR investigations.
--The Law against Apology
Despite on-going fear of repression, organized family members of persons sentenced under the anti-terrorist legislation support efforts of the CVR. The Association of Family Members of the Disappeared and Political Prisoners of Peru (ASFADEPREPP), representing family members of persons accused of belonging to the PCP-SL, offered the CVR information regarding human rights violations, while some individual members of the Association in Favor of Life and Freedom Micaela Bastidas (APRODEVIL), representing family members of persons accused of belonging to the MRTA, met with CVR representatives.
In May 2001, a newspaper reported that the Direction Against Terrorism (DIRCOTE) had investigated both family member associations. The article asserted “what can be questioned in this case is their [the two family member associations] possible participation in the terrorist organizations’ political projects. Intelligence reports, written by the Peruvian National Police, indeed confirm this thesis upon finding indications of a close and concerted relation between both fronts.”
--Limited participation of persons imprisoned under the anti-terrorist legislation
More than 22,000 Peruvians were detained and approximately 11,000 arrest warrants remain outstanding, all of these for persons accused of collaboration, membership or leadership in the armed insurgency. The majority of the over 2,000 people currently in jail for crimes of terrorism lacked legal defense when they were tried in military and civilian courts, often by hooded judges.
Persons in jail under the anti-terrorist legislation were not able to participate in the public audiences, though hundreds of incarcerated persons did share their personal testimonies and relevant information when CVR representatives visited Peruvian prisons. Despite the CVR’s stated interest in the public educational affect of the CVR processes, none of these prison visits were publicized.
Many people received disproportionate sentences ranging from twenty years to life imprisonment. In 2003, those persons sentenced in military courts will be re-judged in civilian trials with modified legislation that only partially complies with international standards. It is possible that the unresolved legal situation of incarcerated persons and the continued existence of internationally condemned ATL, including the law against apology, could have affected the ability of prisoners and others to openly present testimony. Moreover, as pressure had been building to modify the anti-terrorist legislation, have re-trials, and receive case revisions, some prisoners sentenced under the ATL expressed concern that certain people might present testimonies to the CVR to assert their innocence, or accuse others for certain actions, in an effort to strengthen their chance at release.
The National Coordinator for Human Rights in Peru has not modified the position of only defending “innocents” since the political changes that started in late 2000. In November 2001, the Coordinator’s Executive Committee expelled the Defense and Peasant Aid Team (EDAC) as a member organization since its legal director Nilda Tincopa --in her individual capacity-- assumed the defense in a re-trial of a person sentenced in a military court to life imprisonment in 1992. The January 2003 Constitutional Court ruling upholds the 1992 law, repealed in 1995, that prohibits lawyers from representing more than one client at a time for crimes of terrorism. This new ruling makes access to legal defense more difficult.
--Humanitarian Law and Prison Conditions
Representatives of human rights organizations and the CVR mentioned that the armed rebels’ actions will be evaluated according to standards of international humanitarian law. While this step is useful to properly investigating and understanding the conflict, State institutions and non-governmental organizations still reject referring to persons incarcerated under the anti-terrorist legislation as political prisoners or prisoners of war. If the CVR or any other State body assesses the armed insurgencies’ policies and actions according to the Geneva Conventions, the incarcerated members of the subversive organizations also must benefit from the internationally established rights and obligations for prisoners of war. International human rights and humanitarian norms cannot be complied with on a pick and chose basis. The III Geneva Convention, related to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, confers prisoner of war status on members of organized resistance movements who are captured by enemy forces and are “commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; … having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; …carrying arms openly; … conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.”
International humanitarian law provides for the treatment of prisoners of war, which includes the freedom from physical and psychological mistreatment and torture during detention. A majority of the persons detained for crimes of terrorism claim to have suffered torture during their detention. Furthermore the conditions of incarceration experienced by imprisoned persons during the conflict, solitary confinement, prohibition of family visits, and high altitude prisons violate international norms.
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CONCLUSIONS
Rights Action applauds the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and all efforts to investigate and expose the truth about the political violence in Peru from 1980 to 2000. The comments and analysis presented are given with the hope of contributing to the possibility of achieving truth and reconciliation. We reiterate here what are, in the opinion of Rights Action, the biggest challenges in these efforts:
Furthermore, Rights Action also finds that some of the challenges that Peru faces relate to the role played by the “international community.” International actors (foreign governments, “development” institutions –IMF, WB, etc--, and multi-national companies and private banks) were involved in Peru’s conflict, though perhaps indirectly, economically and militarily supporting the various regimes. Sadly, the same international actors are continuing with “business as usual” (a “certain complicity”), even as Peru struggles to deal with the past.
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