By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LONDON, United Kingdom-The high court in London is going to hear testimony from subsistence farmers from Peru who claim that they were detained and severely tortured after a protest at a British-owned mine. The multi-million pound suit was filed against Monterrico Metals for damages arising from the alleged torture.

The allegations of torture stem from a protest in 2005. By law mine construction is allowed only with consent of two-thirds of the local population. Local farmers were protesting because construction began without local consent. Protesters were confronted by police at the mine.

Under the direction of mine managers, the police fired teargas at protesters. Twenty-eight of the protesters say that they were detained, hooded with hands tied behind their backs, beaten with sticks, and whipped. Detainees claim that noxious substances were sprayed in their faces before they were hooded, beaten with sticks and whipped. Two of the protesters were women who say they were sexually assaulted and threatened with rape.

Three protesters were shot and wounded by police, and the protesters claim one of those shot was left to bleed to death at the mine site. A postmortem examination found that he took about thirty-six hours to die.

A journalist who was apprehended with the protesters was given photographs of the arrest that were taken by a Monterrico supervisor. The photographs show bloodied protesters with their hands bound other show groups of blindfolded or hooded protesters being removed from police property. Some of the photographs show grinning police officers waving the female protesters’ underwear. Melanio Garcia, a protester is photographed in one picture alive, though severely injured and then in another photograph he is shown dead thirty hours later.

Richard Meeran, a lawyer with Leigh Day, the London law firm bringing the case, has obtained an injunction freezing five million pounds of Monterrico’s assets in the UK.

Monterrico claims that the arrests occurred because a protester shot a police officer. All claims of abuse are said to be “without merit.” Monterrico further says that it had no control over the police operation. However, lawyers for the protesters have taken statements from eyewitnesses alleging that the mine’s manager was directing the police, and say that two of the corporation’s executives had been in the area shortly before and after the police operation.

Monterrico is building Peru’s second largest copper mine at Rio Blanco in the Northwestern region of Peru. Monterrico has been in conflict with local farmers since its arrival in the region in 2001. The mining concession covers 18,858 acres, much of it covered by forest that collects rainwater and feeds it into rivers flowing into the agricultural basins below. Farmers and environmentalists fear that mining would lead to pollution and depletion of rivers, damage eco-systems, and endanger farmlands.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph-Claims Police Tortured Peruvian Protesters Outside British-Owned Mine-19 October 2009

The Guardian-Abuse Claims Against Peru Police Guarding British Firm Monterrico-18 October 2009

The Guardian-British Mining Company Faces Damages Claim After Allegations of Torture in Peru-18 October 2009

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO,Chile-President Michelle Bachelet created a new agency this week to protect human rights in Chile. A special committee from the institution will investigate claims for compensation based on Pinochet-era abuses.

The National Human Rights Institute will be able to recommend charges in cases where human rights are found to have been violated. Leaders of the National Human Rights Institute can be removed only by the Supreme Court, giving the institute “considerable independence.”

An official tally estimates that over 28,000 people suffered under the Pinochet government. In 2003, thousands of people received government compensation after proving they or their relatives went missing, were executed, or tortured under the Pinochet regime. Those who failed in their claims will now have a second chance to prove their case.

The agency will be given six months to build on the work of the 2003 investigative efforts. It is unclear whether torturers will be publicly identified, something that victims and their families have lobbied for. Furthermore, under the new law, victims have no right to effect prosecutions- only to seek compensation.

Estimates of Pinochet-era abuses include 3,197 political killings by the government. Of those, 1,192 people were disappeared, less than eight percent located or identified after twenty years of democracy.

President Bachelet stated that Chile needs the agency to defend its democratic institutions and prevent a repeat of Chile’s “painful history.”  Batchulet stated that the goal is to “promote a culture of peace and education about human rights principles in present and future generations.”

For more information, please see:

Brunei News-New Claims of Compensation Arise from Pinochet Era-24 November 2009

Taiwan News-Chile Creates Human Rights Watchdog Agency-24 November 2009

Radio Netherlands-Pinochet’s Victims Get Second Chance to Claim-24 November 2009

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia-Jaime Uscategui, a retired general, was sentenced to forty years in prison on Wednesday for his involvement in a massacre by right wing paramilitaries. A court ruled that Uscategui, who was a commander of the eighth brigade in 1997, was complicit in the murder of forty-nine civilians by paramilitaries.

In July of 1997, over 100 armed members of a right wing paramilitary groups entered the village of Mapiripzán, despite being officially banned from activity. The paramilitaries commenced a five-day killing spree, where civilians were tortured and murdered.

The military failed to stop the massacre or stop the paramilitaries at one of the many checkpoints on their way into the village. A pair of chartered planes full of right wing gunmen landed and were dispatched to oversee the mass killings form Uscategui’s area.

During the five-day massacre, the town’s judge, Ivan Cortes, repeatedly called Uscategui for help, with no response. Bodies were “hacked up and many were thrown into a river.” Hundreds of suspected leftist rebel sympathizers were killed during the 1990s.

The court overruled an earlier acquittal, finding that Uscategui abandoned the people and had knowledge that some of his officers were collaborating with paramilitaries. The forty year sentence is the highest ever to be imposed in Colombia on an officer of Uscategui’s ranking. Uscategui was also ordered to pay a fine of 10 million pesos.

The killings were committed predominantly by the Self Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU), a paramilitary group organized by landowners. Another former army general, Rito Alejo del Rio, is in jail until a civilian court tries him on charges of murder for death squad killings during the mid-1990s.

Uscategui was initially arrested in 1999 and tried by a military court, where he was sentenced to forty months in prison for “omission.” A battalion commander who did not stop the Mapiripán massacre was convicted of murder in 2007 and sentenced to forty years in prison.

For more information, please see:

AP-Court Convicts Ex-General in Colombian Massacre-26 November 2009

The Guardian-Former Colombian General Jailed for Rule in Maripiripán Massacre-26 November 2009

BBC-Colombia Jails Death Squad General Over Massacre

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

DEPARTMENT OF ALTO PARANÁ, Paraguay-217 indigenous Guarani were sprayed with pesticide last week after refusing to vacate their ancestral land. The government confirmed that there were no crops present where the pesticide spraying took place.

A formal eviction of the indigenous people was set for the same day, but a district prosecutor canceled the mandate right before execution. The local government’s refusal to evict the Guarani apparently led the soy growers to take matters into their own hands.

Over fifty men claiming ownership of the land arrived on November 6th and tried to remove the Guarani by force. The people resisted, using their bows and arrows. Later that day, an airplane sprayed pesticide directly above their homes. The pesticide is thought to be the same as that which is regularly used on soy crops. Over 200 people reported sickness and fainting. At least seven people were taken to the hospital. One person remains in critical condition.

Amnesty International has condemned the “use of apparently toxic pesticides to intimidate an indigenous community after they resisted being forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands.” Amnesty International noted the “worrying precedent” set by the Human Rights Commission of the Paraguayan State, who rejected a draft bill returning ancestral lands to another indigenous group, leaving ninety families homeless.

Amnesty International finds that even the most isolated indigenous groups are at risk due to deforestation. Satellite imagery shows that deforestation in the north of Paraguay occurs uninterrupted despite government regulation.

Paraguayan indigenous groups complain that they are not sufficiently protected against private commercial interests. An expert from the University of Maryland stated that the “economics and politics of Paraguay make sustained improvement unlikely.” Paraguayan researchers for Amnesty International say that “indigenous peoples’ lives are being put in jeopardy by those who should protect them,” calling the acts against the Guarani, “predictable.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Paraguay to return ancestral lands to two indigenous communities. It is not clear whether that order has been carried out. Amnesty International has urged Paraguay to recognize international human rights standards, which recognize the right to traditional lands as crucial to indigenous peoples because they are a vital element of their sense of identity, livelihood, and way of life.

For more information, please see:

Global Voices-Paraguay:Indigenous Group Sprayed Aerially with Pesticides-12 November 2009

CNN-More than 200 Paraguayan Villagers Thought Sprayed with Pesticide-11 November 2009

Amnesty International-Paraguay Indigenous Community Threatened by Illegal Eviction and Pesticide Attack-10 November 2009

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CONCEPCIÓN, Chile-Imprisoned Mapuche activists told members of the press that they were torture, framed, and discriminated against by police and persecuted by prosecutors. The activists were arrested under a national security and anti-terrorism law adopted during the period of military dictatorship in Chile.

Charges against the activists range from “terrorist association” to attempted homicide against the prosecutor and two detectives who formed part of a team that entered a Mapuche community in 2008. One prisoner claims that the prosecutor tortured him to make him confess that he was the leader of the ambush where the two detectives were killed.

The Chilean government denies all allegations of wrongdoing. President Bachelet, who lived in exile during the military dictatorship said, “nothing, absolutely nothing justifies violence in the region of La Araucania.” The Mapuche has staged land seizures, burned vehicles, and agricultural machinery in protest of what they consider to be unauthorized land use. One government official pointed out that the violence has resulted in a significant decrease in foreign investment.

Since center-left government of Michelle Bachelet took office, thirty five percent of the disputed land has been returned to the Mapuche. However, many say that not enough progress has been made in the restoration of the ancestral land, which was taken in a government offensive that began in the late 19th century.

A 2007 international mission by the Observatory for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights found dozens of complaints of abuses, such as violent raids of Mapuche homes where police destroyed household goods and objects of cultural value, mistreated elderly people, women and children, and made racist epithets. This was allegedly done in search of activists wanted by the justice system. The Mapuche gave UNICEF the names of thirty-seven children they say were asphyxiated by tear gas.

There are nearly one million Mapuche living in Chile. Non-governmental organizations estimate that there are more than fifty Mapuche political prisoners in different prisons in Southern Chile. In September the Ethical Commission Against Torture put that number closer to 100.

The Mapuche resisted over 300 years of Spanish rule and then oppression by the Chilean state, until they were defeated militarily and cornered in the South. In the last few months, conflict has increased between the Mapuche communities and the state. This was primarily fueled by a new wave of land occupations, leading to confrontations with police.

For more information, please see:

Mapu Express-Hablan Presos Mapuche Desde la cárcel del Manzano, Concepción-19 November 2009

IPS-CHILE: Mapuche Voices from Prison-16 November 2009

Univision-Chile Utiliza Ley de la dictadura para juzgar a mapuches-16 November 2009