By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Chile – The Brigada Ramona Parra (BRP) is an artistic collective that focuses on painting murals. The BRP was founded in 1968 by a group of young Chilean communists. The group was named after Ramona Parra, a nineteen-year old woman who was shot dead by Chilean police during a protest in the capital city of Santiago in 1946.

Inspired by the revolutionary essence of the late 1960s, the members of the BRP would head out to paint in the streets of Santiago. They saw murals as a way of brightening up the city’s walls and as a way to encourage radical social change.

In 1970, BRP propaganda helped launch the Socialist presidential candidate, Salvador Allende, into power. However, in 1973 their movement suffered a huge blow. General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a military coup and the Communist Party was outlawed.

As the coup unfolded, the BRP split. Several young communists wanted to take on the military in open combat while others thought it was too dangerous. The BRP and thousands of other Chilean leftists went underground moving between safe houses to avoid detection, but continued to paint in defiance of the dictatorship. BRP activists were tortured and driven into exile, and the military government painted over their murals.

“We worked clandestinely,” says Juan Tralma, a founding member of the BRP. “It was impossible to paint big murals so we would just paint a simple letter R, ringed by a circle with a star next to it. The R stood for resistance, the circle was a sign of unity and the star a symbol of the BRP.”

Reflecting on the coup now, Mr. Tralma says the BRP was right to retreat rather than confront General Pinochet’s forces. “It was a powerful, brutal dictatorship,” he says. “It would have been a massacre. We would have sent kids out onto the streets with paint brushes to confront men with machine-guns.”

“We had to keep our eyes peeled all the time,” recalls Beto Pasten, another veteran member of the BRP. “The police could turn up at any moment. They’d come and kick over our paint pots, throw paint on our murals and arrest us. We’d do a mural at the weekend and by Monday they’d painted over it in black. Then the following week we’d come back and paint again, on top of their black paint.”

With the return to democracy in 1990, the BRP came out of hiding. Presently, the BRP still paints murals in Chile, supporting contemporary causes such as workers’ and indigenous rights and the campaign for education reform. Striking murals of the BRP can be found at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center, the main cultural center in Santiago, and at the headquarters of the Worker’s United Center of Chile, the country’s main trade union federation.

On September 11^th, Chile will mark the 40th anniversary of Pinochet’s military coup.

For more information please see:

El Commercio – Los muralistas chilenos que desafiaron a Pinochet – 8 September 2013

MSN Latino – Los muralistas chilenos que desafiaron a Pinochet – 8 September 2013

BBC – The Chilean muralists who defied Pinochet – 5 September 2013

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

ASUNCION, Paraguay – Eight Paraguayan bus drivers have nailed themselves to crosses in a protest against being laid off from their jobs two months ago. They have vowed to continue their protest until they are reinstated.

They protested in mid-July outside the offices of the Vanguardia bus company, their former employer. After realizing they were not going to be reinstated they crucified themselves three weeks ago across the street from Vanguardia’s headquarter in the Paraguayan city of Luque, a town north of the capital, Asuncion.

The protesters are on their backs, nailed to wooden crosses laid out on the ground. Large nails pierce their hands at the base of the fingers.

The bus company says it has done everything in its power to try to find a solution to the labor conflict. The general manager of the Vanguardia bus company, Aufredi Paredes, said five of the drivers would be re-hired and the other three would receive legal separation payments and assistance in finding employment.

Paredes stated “we have done a little bit of everything to find a solution, including calling on the human rights commissions from the (Paraguayan) Senate and the Lower House. We have also met with the workers several times, but their leadership has been inflexible. We have followed labor regulations and will continue to abide by the law.”

However, Juan Villalba, one of the drivers crucified said they would not give up their protest until they all are reinstated. Villalba told Paraguayan media that his group is willing to take the protest “to the very end,” regardless of the consequences. Villaba, is also the secretary of the Paraguayan Federation of Transportation Workers.

Villalba alleged they were fired after asking for overtime pay, medical insurance and state pension contributions. “The drivers are tired of being exploited,” he said. Some of the drivers’ wives are taking turns being nailed to crosses alongside their husbands.

Damián Espinola, communications director with the Luque municipal government, has stated that the bus drivers are “also on hunger strike and some of them are in critical condition. They only drink water. They don’t consume any solid food. Their hands are perforated.”

There have been several meetings between representatives of the bus drivers, the company and mediators, but they have been unable to reach a resolution. The protest by the eight is part of a larger labor action by some drivers for Vanguardia. There are currently a total of 50 bus drivers on strike, but there has been no interruption of service.

For more information please see:

CNN – Fired Paraguayan bus drivers crucify themselves in protest – 31 August 2013

Reuters – Fired Paraguayan bus drivers have themselves nailed to crosses – 30 August 2013

The Telegraph – Sacked Paraguayan bus drivers crucify themselves in protest – 30 August 2013

ABC News – Laid-off Paraguay Bus Drivers Crucified in Protest – 28 August 2013

BBC – Sacked Paraguay bus drivers stage crucifixion protest – 28 August 2013

LIMA, Peru – Two top commanders of Peru’s Shining Path group were killed during a clash with government troops in southeast Peru according to President Ollanta Humala.

Alejandro Borda Casafranca, and Martin Quispe Palomino were killed by a covert force formed to track down top rebel leaders. “The intelligence sources that have participated in this action have confirmed that the dead terrorist criminals are the number one and number two of the Shining Path’s military structure,” Mr. Humala said, referring to Mr. Borda Casafranca and Mr. Quispe Palomino, respectively.

After a firefight, their bullet-riddled and burned corpses were found in a house in an isolated township of Ayacucho, south of Lima. President Humala said a third rebel believed to be Casafranca’s close colleague was also killed in the military operation.

The announcement is a victory for Humala’s administration, which has struggled to combat remnants of the Shining Path in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, or VRAEM. President Humala has made bringing peace to the VRAEM one of his top priorities since coming to office in July 2011. He has pledged to root out the Shining Path and increase the state’s presence in the region.

The VRAEM, the most densely planted coca-growing region in the world, is the last remaining stronghold of the Shining Path. The group is believed to still have 300 to 500 members in the area located in southern Peru.

Peru’s terrorism and security analyst Jaime Antezana said that the killing of the two rebel leaders was the government’s first successful blow in recent years at the top military ranks of the group. Antezana said the two men were deeply involved in the rebels’ management of coca leaf cultivation, as well as the processing and transport of cocaine.

Last year, security personnel captured one of the group’s original leaders in the Upper Huallaga Valley, Peru’s other major cocaine producing region located north of the VRAEM. He was sentenced to life in prison in June.

Shining Path’s insurgency began in 1980. Inspired by Maoism, the rebels tried to lead a “People’s War” to overthrow what they called “bourgeois democracy” and establish a communist state. They took control of Peru’s rural regions and some urban areas by the early 1990s, raising fears in the U.S. government that it might someday take power. However, its founder, Abimael Guzman, was captured in 1992 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The conflict resulted in some 70,000 deaths.

The group has largely been crushed by the army, but remnants of the group remain, and they often attack military patrols in jungle areas. Security forces say the group has allied itself with drug traffickers and now finances itself by growing and smuggling coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera– Peru says Shining Path leaders killed – 14 August 2013

Los Angeles Times – Peru commandos kill two Shining Path leaders – 13 August 2013

The Wall Street Journal – Peru President Says High-Ranking Shining Path Members Killed – 12 August 2013

Reuters – Peru says top two Shining Path rebels killed in jungle shootout – 12 August 2013

BBC – Peru’s security forces kill three Shining Path rebels – 12 August 2013

 

 

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILIA, Brazil – A jury has found 25 Brazilian police officers guilty of killing 52 inmates during the 1992 riot at Sao Paulo’s Carandiru prison. It was country’s bloodiest prison riot in which 111 prisoners died.

Judge Rodrigo Tellini de Aguirre Camargo sentenced those convicted to prison terms of 624 years each for their roles in what has been dubbed the Carandiru massacre. The officers, nine of whom are still on active duty, will also lose their jobs. Currently under Brazilian law there are no life sentences, and no convicted person can serve more than 30 years in jail. The officer’s attorney informed reporters that she would appeal the sentencing. The officers will be allowed to remain free pending the outcome of their appeal.

The lawyer for the officers, Ieda Ribeiro de Souza, argued they were only doing their duty and acted in self-defense, as many of the inmates were armed. She further stated that the fault lies with then Governor Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho, who oversaw security forces in the state.

“Who should be here is Dr. Fleury. He didn’t go [to Carandiru] himself” because he had political protection, said Ribeiro de Souza.

The riot, which began on October 2, 1992, was sparked by a fight between two rival gangs that started with a quarrel during a soccer game. It escalated into an uprising that quickly spread through the penitentiary, which was built to hold fewer than 4,000 inmates but was housing nearly 8,000. The riot went on for around three hours before more than 300 military police officers stormed the Carandiru prison. The officers gunned down more than 100 inmates within 30 minutes. No police officers were killed.

Autopsies showed the dead were riddled with an average of five bullets. The revolt ended in a massacre that exposed the harsh conditions of prisons in Brazil and it became an iconic example of how Brazil’s military police can sometimes kill with impunity.

Some survivors of the violence said police made little attempt to negotiate with the revolting prisoners. The officers entered firing, and continued to fire on prisoners who had surrendered or were hiding. Others said they hid among the scores of bodies, pretending to be dead, to avoid the gunfire.

The sentencing is the latest in a series of separate trials of police officers accused of executing inmates during the 1992 massacre. In April of this year, 23 officers were sentenced to prison terms of 156 years each for their part in killing 13 inmates during the same massacre. Another 31 officers will be tried in the coming months in connection with the slayings at the now-defunct prison.

Human rights groups have long decried conditions in Brazil’s prisons and the behavior of the military police. The Carandiru massacre gained special attention in Brazil because of its size and a popular 2003 movie.

For more information please see:

BBC – Brazil Carandiru jail massacre police guilty – 3 August 2013

Reuters – Brazil court sentences 25 police officers for prison massacre – 3 August 2013

Los Angeles Times – Brazil court sentences 25 police officers in 1992 prison massacre – 3 August 2013

The Wall Street Journal – Brazil Police Officers Found Guilty in 1992 Prison Massacre – 3 August 2013

Fox News – Jury finds 25 Brazilian police officers guilty of killing inmates in 1992 prison riot – 3 August 2013