By Margaret Janelle Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

 LIMA, Peru – President Ollanta Humala has announced that the State Prosecutor will appeal a 3-2 ruling handed down by the Supreme Court last Friday which reduced prison sentences for the country’s former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and members of a paramilitary death squad known as the Grupo Colina.

The Colina group, wearing masks, machine-gunned 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, in the courtyard of a tenement building in Lima’s Barrios Altos district in 1991 and kidnapped, tortured and murdered nine students and one professor at La Cantuta University in 1992.

Other crimes of which they were accused included the murder in May 1992 of 10 small farmers in the Santa Valley, north of Lima, allegedly at the personal request of General Hermoza, and the assassination in December 1992 of Pedro Huillca, the influential leader of the national workers’ union, CGTP, who had called for a national strike against then President Fujimori’s privatization efforts.  The death and dismemberment of intelligence agent Mariella Barreto also was attributed to members of the squad.

In 2004, investigative journalist Ricard Uceda published Muerte en el Pentagonito, a well-documented report on the human rights violations by the military intelligence service in their fight against terrorism between 1982 and 1993, with key details of the death squads kidnappings, torture and incineration of victims in the basement of the military headquarters in the San Borja district of Lima.

Released in 2011, a meticulously detailed documentary, La Cantuta en la Boca del Diablo, traces the work of investigative journalist Edmundo Cruz into the death of the university students and professor, who were pulled out of their dorm rooms at the Chosica campus before dawn and never seen again.  Some of their scattered remains were found near the water treatment plant in east Lima and more remains were found between the hillsides on the road to Cieneguilla.  In some cases, confirmation of their whereabouts was only made by matching keys to their dorm lockers, found buried among the pieces of lime-bleached bones in the desert.

The Supreme Court’s argument to annul the qualification of crime against humanity was that the squad was acting as part of a chain of command within the army and that they were fighting terrorists.

At the time, Peru was locked in a bloody conflict with the Shining Path, a Maoist-inspired insurgency that sought to topple the government system.

The president of the Supreme Court, Javier Villa Stein, said that while the killings were human rights crimes, they are not necessarily crimes against humanity.

Peruvians have reacted with widespread anger and are voicing their opposition in the streets of Lima. In a video victims’ family members spoke out against impunity. One woman interviewed said: “[The judge] says that it is not crime against humanity. But what about my son? He was eight years old and they shot him with seven bullets in his body and one in his face.”

The President’s wife, Nadine Heredia tweeted: “Crimes of the Colina group and their leaders should not be forgotten. This ruling stains the honor of our country!”

“To kill a child is a terrible crime but that doesn’t convert it into a crime against humanity,” Stein said.

Human rights attorney Gloria Cano, who represents 14 victims of the Colina group, said the ruling contradicts a 2001 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that deemed the killings crimes against humanity.

“In our country, the military are in prison while the terrorists are already out,” Stein said.

Writing for the court, Judge Javier Villa Stein said the men could not be made to serve sentences for crimes against humanity because the prosecutor in the case had not specifically sought to convict them on that charge. The prosecutor refutes that, however, as do court documents filed in 2005.

In 2009, ex-President Alberto Fujimori, who took office in 1990, was found guilty on charges for sanctioning the death squad.

The Supreme Court’s decision trimmed the prison sentences of 15 former military men as well as Mr Montesinos, who as national security adviser to Mr. Fujimori helped him maintain power through violence, bribery and intimidation.

The court also overturned the aggravated murder conviction and 15-year sentence of Montesino’s army intelligence chief, Alberto Pinto, for providing financial and logistical support to the Colina group.

Pinto was released from prison on Tuesday.

Defendants convicted of crimes against humanity in Peru are not eligible for parole. Those convicted of murder are eligible after serving two-thirds of their sentence.

Mr. Montesinos himself will not be eligible for parole any time soon. He has been convicted of a series of other crimes including running guns to Colombian rebels.

Peruvian courts have found that the Colina group committed 53 murders of supposed left-wing rebel sympathizers and other civilians from 1991 to 1996 with the knowledge and aid of high-ranking officials who gave the group state funds, medical insurance, cars, weapons and training.

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Peru: Outrage over death squad decision – 26 July 2012

Fox News Latino – Peruvians Outraged Over Possible Release of Death Squad – 25 July 2012

Morning Star – Court Ruling Court Free Peruvian Death Squad Members – 25 July 2012

Peruvian Times – Humala Says State Attorney to Appeal Supreme Court Ruling that Lightens Sentence of Death Squad and Montesinos – 24 July 2012

By Margaret Janelle Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – Four Nasa Indians who had taken up arms with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC appeared before a group of roughly 1,000 elders and residents of Nasa reserves in the embattled southwestern province of Cauca over the weekend.  The defendants, one minor and three adults, were convicted of attacking civilians and disrupting the “harmony” of the community. The minor was sentenced to 10 lashes and each adult received 30 lashes.

Watch: FARC rebels flogged by Colombian tribe. (Video Courtesy of Al Jazeera)

The trial, part of a push by the indigenous tribe to get both FARC rebels and government forces off their land, is lawful under Colombia’s 1991 constitution, which promises autonomy to the nation’s 102 indigenous ethnic groups.

The Nasa, also known as the Paez, do not consider the sentence to be a “punishment”, but rather see the flogging as a “solution” that allows the defendants to restore balance to their relationship with the community and with their spirit.

Marcos Yule, the governor of the Toribio reservation, explained that the solutions that are normally imposed under the indigenous law are the “cepo,” a wooden structure that presses on the legs or hands, temporary burial where only the head is above ground, the “whip to beat the illness, counseling and even … exile.”

The four FARC fighters were whipped on the lower half of their bodies, causing serious wounds on the backs of their legs that were treated by community medics.

“The adults received the 30 (lashes) but the minor could not take the 10 and it was lowered to half that, because … he is 16,” Yule said.

The four had been held since last Wednesday, when members of the Nasa Indigenous Guard apprehended them in the mountains near Toribio with rifles and explosives.

The trial is the latest chapter in Colombia’s half-century old internal struggle.

Many Colombians have felt far removed from the armed conflict between the government and the FARC.  In truth, much of the violence plays out in remote regions, having the greatest impact on the most marginalized members of society.

At least 33 indigenous people have been murdered this year in Colombia, compared with 118 in all of 2011 with Nasa Indians of the southwestern province of Cauca accounting for the largest number of fatalities.

When Nasa Indians stormed a military communications base in the southwest province of Cauca late last week, the reality of the fighting was again brought to the forefront.

President Juan Manuel Santos, feeling the political ramifications of the Nasa’s actions, alleges that some of the 115,000 Nasa are allied with rebels of the leftist FARC, which authorities say purchases the high-quality marijuana that many indigenous grow.  On July 18, President Santos released an intercepted email supposedly written in May by a local FARC commander, which called for the “spread of propaganda in the municipalities of northern Cauca so that locals demand the withdrawal of security forces.”

Contradicting the government’s characterization of the protestors is the fact that they seem to be staying true to their stated desire to rid Toribio of all armed actors, legal or not. In addition to the recent trial and sentencing of the four FARC rebels, demonstrators claim to have dismantled a FARC campsite in the area.

For further information, please see:

Fox News Latino – Indigenous Leader Slain in Colombia – 24 July 2012

In Sight – Questioning Ties Between Colombia Indigenous and FARC Rebels – 23 July 2012

Al Jazeera – ‘FARC rebels’ flogged by Colombian tribe – 22 July 2012

Fox News Latino – Colombian Indigenous Court Sentences Rebels to Flogging – 22 July 2012

The Miami Herald – Indian upheaval bares Colombia’s nagging conflict – 21 July 2012

By Heba Girgis
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—A video was released last week revealing six police officers torturing two young men in the northern city of Salta. The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows two men, wearing only their underwear, as water is poured over them. The men were surrounded by several others wearing civilian clothing and who were—apparently—the officers implicated in this case. One of the young men had a bag placed over his head until he began suffocating.

The victims were being held on a patio where a high concrete wall is seen in the background. At one point during the video, an interrogator asked one of the suspects a question. The victim answered fearfully, “I swear to you that I don’t know anything about it.” He repeated this several times. The interrogator then covered the young man’s head with a plastic bag and tied it around his neck. The suspect began violently shaking and yelling until he fell to the floor. The interrogator then took the bag off of his head and the victim continued laying on the floor gasping for air.

The video outraged many people in this South American country. Activists noted that the real tragedy here is that Argentina’s police routinely use torture against crime suspects. Maria del Carmen Verdu, director of CORREPI, a watchdog organization against institutional and police repression said, “This is news because someone put the video on the Internet. If these images didn’t exist, these two kids would be part of the army of police station torture victims that nobody worries about and has no social impact.”

Authorities responded to the video’s release on Thursday by detaining five of the officers seen in the video. The sixth officer was arrested a day later. The latest officer who was arrested is suspected of having taped the video on his cellular phone. However, it is not clear whether he was also the one to upload the video on the Internet.

In the 1970s and 1980s stories of police torture and abuse were resonant in Argentina when security forces used torture under the country’s military rule. Daniel Segura, the head of the police station where the tortures allegedly occurred stated that it will be “lamentable that we’ll be known for this.” He said also, that simply wearing a police uniform does not mean that a person has a true calling for the profession.

 

For further information, please see:

CNN – Argentine Police Officers Accused of Torture That Appears on Video – 21 July 2012

Ventura County Star – Argentines Outraged Over Police Interrogation – 21 July 2012

BBC – Argentine Police Arrested Over Salta ‘Torture Video’ – 20 July 2012

United Press International – Torture Video Posted, 6 Police Arrested – 20 July 2012

The Nasa tribe in Colombia has long been caught in the crossfire between government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attacks. As the fighting has increased in recent months, the tribe has asked both sides to leave the area, a known corridor for drug smuggling.

The Colombian government has based much of its security strategy around territorial control and protection of populations. Security gains in recent years have come due to increased security presence in population centers. They believe that removing the military from the area would cede ground to the FARC and be a step back in terms of security.

Intense fighting in Cauca between government forces and leftist FARC guerrillas has driven more than 2,800 indigenous and mestizo people from their homes in the past two weeks.  The Association of Indigenous Governments of North Cauca, or ACIN, had set a deadline of midnight Monday for all “armed actors” to vacate the 14 Indian reserves in the region.

“We profoundly regret having to use force to restore our constitutional rights. This could have been avoided if the army heeded our request in due form and the government had ordered them to leave,” the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca said in a statement to the Associated Press.

The military personnel that faced attacks on Tuesday were lauded for not resorting to the use of force against the Nasa.  Many soldiers engaged in non-violent resistance strategies in an attempt to prevent their removal from the post.

Unfortunately, events took a turn on Wednesday.  Riot police firing tear gas and shotguns retook the strategic communications outpost located on a hill in Colombia’s turbulent southwest.  Eight Nasa Indians were injured, though none seriously.

In an unrelated incident in the same region Wednesday, soldiers shot and killed a man when he ignored orders to halt at a military roadblock, Toribio’s chief of security told The Associated Press.

The man was not an Indian, said the official, Carlos Pascue, but a group of Nasas angered by the killing seized 30 soldiers and held them for 10 hours before releasing them.

Critics have scolded President Juan Manuel Santos for failing to protect troops.  Colombia’s constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous peoples and their right to exercise control over their designated territories.  However, Santos said the government would not remove soldiers from the area, but it was open to dialogue even though pulling troops out from the region was not negotiable.

It is unclear whether this incident will have an appreciable impact on Colombia’s 2014 presidential elections.

For further information, please see:

 AJC – Colombia’s military retakes hilltop from Indians – 18 July 2012

BBC News – In pictures: Indigenous Colombians expel soldiers – 18 July 2012

Christian Science Monitor – Armed with sticks, Colombia’s Nasa Tribe attacks a military base – 18 July 2012

Reuters – Colombian forces clash with indigenous group, blame rebels – 18 July 2012

Fox News Latino – Indigenous People Confront Army In Colombia – 17 July 2012

By Heba Girgis
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LIMA, Peru—Manuel is one of many young Latin American boys who wake up around four in the morning to help his family with the harvest before setting off for an hour-long walk to school. Manuel is one of 215 million children around the world who faces this type of lifestyle—sometimes he doesn’t go to school at all.

In Latin America, one in ten children and adolescents work like young Manuel, and mostly in agriculture. The majority of them grow up in poverty, and while this problem percolates throughout Latin America, the International Labor Organizations notes that it is the most serious in Peru. In Peru, about 28% of children have a job—often in dangerous jobs such as mining and construction.

Last week, on Wednesday July 11, 2012, Peru’s labor ministry announced a $13 million project to improve access to education in rural areas of the country. The $13 million grant given by the United States will also help parents by augmenting their incomes and crop yields so that they become less dependent on their children for labor.

United States Ambassador to Lima, Rose Likins, welcomed the grant and said, “This pilot project will speed up the reduction of child labor, encouraging girls and boys to go, and stay, in school.” She also noted that education is the key to ending the cycle of poverty in Peru.

This Project will fund training and assistance for rural families to increase incomes without the use of child labor and expand opportunities for vocational training for Peruvian children. The Project also aims to help at-risk communities to partner with government institutions to organize and improve public services.

The Project Director, Maro Guerrero, said that the project may not end child labor altogether, as Peru is not opposed to children working, however, their work should not interfere with school and should never involve dangerous activities.

Some children and young adults oppose this Project, arguing that it will take away their right to work. Peruvian children have worked in the fields since Inca times, and Manthoc, a Peruvian organization representing child workers, believe this tradition should continue as part of the normal development of the Peruvians.

The Peruvian government hopes to persuade rural families not to send their kids to work. Government officials know that it will not be easy unless they can improve income and employment opportunities for the millions of Peruvian who live in poverty.

 

For further information, please see:

The Guardian – Peru Takes its First Step in the Eradication of Child Labor – 16 July 2012

Angola Press – Peru Launches Project to Fight Child Labor – 12 July 2012

International Business Times – Peru Launches Anti-Child Labor Project With $13M US Grant – 12 July 2012

BBC News – Peru Launches Project to Fight Child Labor – 11 July 2012