Archive for December, 2007
Monday, December 31st, 2007
President Alan García swore in the new director of Peru’s national police today. Gen. Octavio Salazar replaces Gen. David Rodríguez amid a growing drug trade connected to remnants of Shining Path guerrillas.
Before his promotion, Salazar was the head of Lima’s Seventh Police Division.
During the ceremony, García stressed the importance of fighting corruption and Peru’s growing drug trade. “I’m sure we will make the drug traffickers and money launderers back away this year” said García. “They are the ones who corrupt the resources of our national society.”
“We have to continue lowering the crime rate, increasing the acceptance of the national police, and fighting narco-terrorism, as well as corruption,” Salazar told reporters after the ceremony. “The important thing is that we have a plan in which we need to incorporate the population, the media, and each and every person.” (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice, Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
The only survivor of the Barrios Altos massacre testified today at the human rights trial of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori. Tomás Livia Ortega was paralyzed when the Colina group death squad killed 15 people, including his wife, during a barbecue in a tenement in Lima’s Barrios Altos district in 1991.
According to Agencia Andina, Livia testified the Colina group entered the tenement dressed in black and wearing balaclavas to hide their identity. He said he recognized Major Santiago Martín Rivas, the head of the paramilitary group, when he showed his face. The gunmen believed Livia was dead. Rivas “was the only one that had his face uncovered,” said Livia. “For a long time I have accused him.”
Fujimori, 69, is charged with, among other things, authorizing the state-sponsored Colina group to carry out the Barrios Altos massacre and the 1992 killing of nine students and one professor at La Cantuta University. (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Friday, December 28th, 2007
An Italian judge has issued an arrest warrant for Peru’s former president, General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez, for the disappearance of 25 Italian citizens in the 1970s. The warrant was issued by Judge Luisianna Figliolia on Monday. Peru’s ex-Prime Minister Pedro Richter Prada is also included.
According to Radio Programas radio, the arrest warrant includes 140 people who allegedly participated in Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression aimed at eliminating left-wing influence in South America’s Southern Cone during the 1970s and 1980s.
Following news of the warrant, Morales-Bermúdez told Radio Programas radio “Peru was never part of Operation Condor, neither as a country nor as a government.”
Morales-Bermúdez seized power in 1975 after a military coup deposed General Juan Velasco and is widely recognized for returning the country to democratic control. He held power until 1980 when Peru held national elections after twelve years of military rule. (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice, History | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Peru police have reportedly seized 800 kilograms, or about 1,760 pounds, of coca leaves in La Convención province, in Cusco department.
According to Agencia Andina, the leaves were confiscated during operations along the highway between Cusco and Quillabamba between Dec. 23 and Dec. 26. Police allegedly found the leaves hidden among luggage and crates of fruit in different buses and cargo trucks. Authorities believe they were destined for cocaine production. No one has been arrested.
The coca leaf has a significant role in Andean culture, but it is also the raw material for manufacturing cocaine. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Peru’s dry coca leaf production potential in 2006 was 105,100 metric tons, making it the world’s second largest producer of dry coca leaf after Colombia.
Chemical products used to manufacture the coca leaf into cocaine have also been recently seized by Police. About 15 tons of calcium hydroxide was confiscated from a 42-year-old man on a highway in Junín department on Tuesday. According to Agencia Andina, the man claimed to be delivering it to a Buenaventura mine. However police became suspicious when he lacked proper transportation documents.
Posted in Coca, Cocaine | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Peru owes nearly $9 million in compensation payments ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and agreed to before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
According to Agencia Andina, recipients of the outstanding payments include congressional workers who are owed $3,890,000 stemming from their unlawful firings following former President Alberto Fujimori’s April 5, 1992, “self-coup,” when he shut own the legislature and courts. Another $2 million is owed to the families of nine students and a professor who were killed at La Cantuta university by the state-sponsored Colina group paramilitary death squad.
The director of the National Human Rights Council, Luis Alberto Salgado, told Agencia Andina, that paying the outstanding compensations is one of the challenges for next year. Salgado added that Peru has already allocated $17,000,000 in human rights compensations, which were determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The outstanding payments are expected to increase by $8 million to $10 million with the sentencing of the Castro Castro case. The compensation will be paid to victims of the 1992 massacre at the maximum-security Miguel Castro Castro prison.
“It’s true there is a budget problem” said Salgado. “But we have to look for a way to fulfill our commitment or continue fulfilling it without being declared a State that challenges or questions our international commitments.”
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The Missouri-based Doe Run Company is facing legal action in the United States for contamination at its poly-metallic smelter in the Peruvian town of La Oroya, in Junín department. According to daily La República, two American missionaries filed suit against Doe Run, citing a 2005 environmental study at the University of Missouri - St. Louis that documented lead contamination in 137 children from La Oroya.
In 2006 and 2007 the Blacksmith Institute named La Oroya one of the ten most polluted places in the world. A 1999 survey by Peru’s Health Ministry claimed the average blood lead level among local children between was triple the World Health Organization limit. According to La República, the 2005 study by the University of Missouri – St. Louis revealed blood lead levels four times higher than the WHO limit. (more…)
Posted in Environment, Mining | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The former commander general of Peru’s Air Force, Eslevan Bello, and the former head of Peru’s intelligence service, Humberto Rozas Bonicelli, were found guilty today of helping jailed ex-presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos escape to Panama amid a bribery scandal in 2000. According to daily La República, the Third Anticorruption Court sentenced Bello and Rozas to six years in prison. Federal prosecutors had requested an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of 300,000 soles, or about $100,000.
Montesinos fled to Panama after a videotape was released of him bribing an opposition congressman in September 2000. He was later arrested in Venezuela and extradited to Peru in 2001, where he faced charges ranging from drug-trafficking to murder. Montesinos is currently imprisoned at the Callao maximum-security naval base.
The videotape was the first of the infamous ‘vladi-videos’ to be broadcast. They revealed a web of corruption that implicated politicians, businessmen and media owners and led to jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori’s resignation.
However numerous videotapes allegedly disappeared when Fujimori, 69, sent military officers posing as prosecutors with a fake search warrant to seize videos from Montesinos apartment. On Dec. 11, 2007 Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison for abusing his authority.
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Monday, December 24th, 2007
Peru police have begun a search for gunmen who ambushed a police patrol this morning. About 20 to 30 people armed with grenades and machine guns ambushed the patrol in Huanta province, in Ayacucho Department, killing officers Alberto Quispe Argumedo and Julio César Solano Cipriano and injuring officer Elías Pahuacho Córdova.
The director of the National Police, David Rodríguez, told Agencia Andina the ambush occurred when officers stopped a truck about three miles from the town of Luricocha.
According to CNR radio, the truck was traveling to the town of Huanta from the Apurímac and Ene river valleys, VRAE, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates some 30 percent of Peru’s coca is cultivated, the raw material used to make cocaine.
“We know that it is an area where drug trafficking is being fought,” said Rodríguez. “The investigations will have to advance before we know if they were traffickers or common criminals.”
This is the third attack on police in less than two months. About 70 to 80 guerrillas brazenly attacked a remote police outpost in Apurímac department in early November, killing one police officer. Two weeks later, four more officers were killed in an ambush in Huancavelica department. Both attacks were attributed to remnants of the Shining Path insurgency now employed by drug traffickers.
Posted in Coca, Cocaine, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Peru President Alan García has proposed the creation of an Environment Ministry to meet the environmental provisions included in the free trade agreement with the United States.
During the ceremony of four new cabinet ministers yesterday, García said “the free trade agreement has brought a fundamental call to attention, that we owe to our Democrat friends in the U.S. Congress, to strengthen labor rights and the defense of the environment.” García added: “I’ll propose to Congress, or perhaps using the authority that was given kindly and democratically by Congress to the Executive, the creation of an Environment Ministry.”
The president of the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy, Ysaac Cruz Ramírez, told daily Correo there is little reason for an Environment Ministry. Cruz said it would overlap with responsibilities in existing State organizations, like the National Environment Council, CONAM, which is responsible for planning, coordinating, and promoting environmental projects.
But environmentalist Antonio Brack Egg, told daily El Comercio “CONAM is simply a council, it doesn’t have any real authority to carry out or direct the programs that it proposes.” “Finally,” he added, “ the environment is becoming an important political priority in policy decisions.”
The U.S.-Peru FTA was ratified by President George W. Bush on Dec. 14, after being passed by the House and Senate. U.S. and Peru authorities need to enact legislative changes before the agreement can be fully implemented. They expect the changes to take approximately eight months.
Posted in Environment, Politics | No Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Families of the victims from the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres rejected the apology offered by jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori today.
During interrogation at his human rights trial, Fujimori said “yes, I ask forgiveness, now that we are in this process, from all of the victims, including those victimized by the armed forced as much as those by the MRTA and Shining Path. It hurts my soul, how many cases I’ve personally seen.”
“There is no way we can accept this hypocritical gesture from the former president,” Gisela Ortiz, a representative of the families of the victims, told Radio Programas radio.
“Fujimori had 15 years to ask forgiveness, but he didn’t do it and on the contrary he rewarded the authors of the killings by giving them a pardon law,” she said, referring to the 1995 Amnesty law. (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice | No Comments »
