Archive for the ‘Insurgency’ Category
Monday, February 11th, 2008
A retired Peruvian major has begun a civil trial in the United States for his alleged role in the 1985 massacre of 72 peasants in a remote Andean village during Peru’s internal conflict with leftist guerrillas. Major Telmo Hurtado is facing a lawsuit brought against him by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, CAJ, in a U.S. Federal Court in Miami.
Hurtado is accused of carrying out the killings under the orders of General Wilfredo Mori Orzo. The massacre occured on Aug. 14, 1985 in the village of Accomarca, located 240 miles southeast of Lima in Ayacucho Department, daily La República reported.
All the victims were children, village elders and Indian women, who were raped before being killed. The young men had fled the village, which the military suspected of cooperating with the Shining Path insurgency during their campaign to overthrow the government and install a communist state. (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice, Insurgency | No Comments »
Friday, February 8th, 2008
A lack of justice for human rights violators during Peru’s 20-year armed conflict is a leading human rights concern in the Andean country, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. Despite the human rights trial of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori, HRW’s 2008 World Report says most perpetrators of human rights abuses continue to evade justice.
HRW attributes the impunity to a lack of military cooperation with investigations of massacres and disappearances by the state from 1980 to 2000, when government forces fought Maoist Shining Path and MRTA guerrillas. “The military has often failed to provide information needed to identify potentially key witnesses who served in rural counterinsurgency bases during the conflict,” says HRW. “It has also declined to identify military officials known to witnesses only by their aliases.” (more…)
Posted in Criminal Justice, Insurgency, Law | No Comments »
Monday, December 10th, 2007
Peruvian Police siezed more than 2,000 pounds of explosives in two different operations yesterday. According to daily La República, authorities in La Libertad Department found 1,771 pounds of ammonium nitrate, 3,800 dynamite sticks and 5,000 meters of slow match fuse in the possession of a 52-year-old suspect. Police tests say the explosives were manufactured in Lima factories owned by EXSA and UEE-FANEXA.
In southern Peru, police also apprehended Vicente Tapara Carrasco and Ángel Ricardo Quispe Ccoa. They were caught allegedly transporting 568 dynamite sticks and 2,200 common explosives in Puno Department.
Authorities believe the explosives were intended for either informal mines or guerrilla activity. Lawyer Vicente Raúl Del Solar told La República the men will face a minimum of 10 years in prison if the material was intended for mining. They could face up to 35 years in prison if it was destined for insurgents.
Posted in Criminal Justice, Insurgency, Mining | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
President Alan Garcia is preparing a bill that would require all Peruvians who have served prison sentences for terrorism to periodically report in with authorities for the rest of their lives, Cabinet Chief Jorge Del Castillo said Monday.
“What we are seeking is a law that says, ‘You have been sentenced for terrorism, have murdered people, so you have the obligation for the rest of your life to report to authorities where you live, what you are doing and what you are up to,’” CPN radio quoted Del Castillo saying. (more…)
Posted in Insurgency, Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
Jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori is scheduled to face his first human rights abuse trial Dec. 10 to answer for his regime’s brutal excesses to tame the Shining Path insurgency during his 10-year rule.
Coincidently, members of his political party spent all last week trying to muster support for a vote of censure against President Alan Garcia’s Cabinet chief, Jorge Del Castillo. They accuse Del Castillo of failing to stem attacks on police by suspected Shining Path guerrillas, now in the employ of cocaine traffickers.
Guerrillas armed with grenades and machine guns stormed a police outpost last month in a remote Andean village in Apurímac, killing one officer. Two weeks later, four more officers were killed in an ambush on a jungle road in Huancavelica.
“On this issue, our presence signifies the clearest and healthiest intention to seek an accord between all political groups to act in unity to combat subversive violence, the violence of terrorism, the violence of narcotics trafficking, or of narco-terrorism,” Del Castillo said in an address to Congress.
“No one should try to seek political points on this issue, let alone over the bodies of dead police,” he added. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Insurgency, Media, Politics | No Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007
President Alan García plans to publicly identify hundreds of Peruvians who received pardons for terrorism convictions during Peru’s internal armed conflict — a move many say is a smoke screen to distract attention from mounting attacks by guerrillas in league with drug traffickers.
“I’m going to make public a list of 1,800 terrorists so people know exactly who their neighbors are and what they are doing,” García told reporters. “We can’t allow these ex-convicts to leave jail and begin causing problems in the streets by radicalizing protests and recreating semi-terrorist or terrorist groups. As much in the highlands as in some universities.”
But human rights groups say Garcia is only trying to stoke public opinion to obscure his government’s failure to stem the growing drug trade in Peru’s Amazon jungle, where remnants of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency have allied themselves with cocaine traffickers.
Recent roadside ambushes and a brazen attack on a police station by guerrillas claimed the lives of five officers. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Insurgency | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro rejected claims that a new insurgency is responsible for the attack on an Ocobamba police station in Peru’s southern Apurímac department. “The existence of a new terrorist group is pure speculation,” he told daily Peru.21. “The intelligence services have rejected this possibility.”
Officers at the station said 70 to 80 people attacked them on November 1, killing police Lt. Colonel Héctor Zegarra, and wounding three others. Authorities maintained the attack was orchestrated by drug traffickers trying to recuperate 180 pounds of cocaine paste confiscated days earlier. (more…)
Posted in Coca, Cocaine, Insurgency | No Comments »
