Document #1191876
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
Attached please find documents that provide
information on which groups and persons are frequent victims and
targets of politically-motivated violence in Peru.
The attached report from Americas Watch,
produced with assistance from the Andean Commission of Jurists and
other Peruvian human rights organizations, is the most detailed
recent report on the human rights situation in Peru currently
available to the DIRB. The document states that Sendero Luminoso's
"principal targets since 1988 have been representatives of the
state, leaders of campesino and labour organizations, and peasant
communities in areas where it has sought to establish or maintain
control" (Americas Watch 1992, 64). The report adds that "Sendero
Luminoso systematically undermines the presence of the state in its
areas of action, targeting especially mayors, governors, and the
personnel of development programs," and states that "persons not
holding public office but known to be active in their political
party are also victimized" (Ibid., 64-65). Americas Watch
cites at least one case in which members of Sendero took over a day
care centre and threatened to kill the children of local members of
the APRA party and politicians (Ibid.).
Americas Watch reports that Sendero's
campaign against representatives of the state peaked in the period
leading up to the November 1989 municipal elections, stating
that
Sendero assassinated mayors, mayoral candidates and their immediate
relatives, and local electoral officials. Although candidates of
all major parties were victimized, Sendero appeared to concentrate
on representatives of the United Left coalition, which it considers
a rival for the loyalties of organized labour and campesinos
(Ibid.).
The Americas Watch report also describes
how Sendero Luminoso "has offered justice of a moralistic kind,
such as its punishments of drunkards and adulterers" (Ibid.,
59). The report adds that during 1989 Sendero "increased its
attacks on the campesino population in areas where villagers
resisted" its presence, and adds that "as civil-defense patrols
expanded during 1990, Sendero concentrated attacks on their members
as representatives of the state's military policies" (Ibid.,
61). Americas Watch also states that Sendero has executed leaders
of peasant organizations and other popular "sectors" such as unions
that have resisted Sendero penetration, as well as people in rural
areas who did not comply with Sendero's orders (Ibid., 62,
66).
In addition to its numerous attacks on
policemen and military personnel, both on- and off-duty, the group
has reportedly murdered captured and disarmed policemen and
journalists (Ibid., pp. 67-68). Sendero has also attacked
and threatened candidates and voters at various elections, killed
persons who remained at home in villages where much of the
population had left to vote at another location, and attacked
owners of agricultural businesses (Ibid., p. 68). Sendero
has also directed "some of its hostility at foreigners and church
workers," and "Japanese have become particular targets, no doubt
because of [president] Fujimori's extraction" (Ibid.,
71).
The attached section from Sendero
Luminoso and the Threat of Narcoterrorism also provides
information on the subject. A chart shows the proportion of police,
civil servants, military personnel and civilians among the dead and
wounded in terrorist incidents from 1980 to 1988
(Tarazona-Sevillano 1990, 40). The document also states that
Sendero Luminoso has targeted those to whom Abimael Guzm n refers
as bourgeois "elites": "wealthy merchants, landowners, high
government officials, and others who cooperate with these people"
(Ibid., 41). The source also states that the group's targets
can be separated into two categories: personal and collective, with
the former including specific assassination attempts and personal
"warnings" (Ibid.). High-ranking members of the armed forces
reportedly constitute "especially attractive targets for Sendero"
(Ibid.).
The same report states that "attacks on
people who are associated with a particular economic, social, or
political group are a common Sendero tactic," adding that
"retribution is also levied against members of the Peruvian
subclasses that ally themselves with those Sendero considers
enemies" (Ibid., 46-47). Furthermore,
elected officials who refuse to resign or turn over power to
Sendero upon request are routinely executed, often in front of the
towns that elected them. The insurgency has been known to attack
entire communities, committing brutal murders and destroying
property, because the townspeople obeyed Peruvian law by
participating in government anti-Sendero programs. Others have been
raided simply for expressing reticence about supporting the
insurgency, if only for economic reasons (Ibid., 47).
The attached report from Latin America
Weekly Report discusses the protection available to "a large
number of people who have become Sendero's targets in Lima," adding
that "businessmen and politicians seek the protection officialdom
cannot offer" through private security businesses (5 Mar. 1992).
The report adds that some of the big unions have been "forced to
set up their self-defence units to protect themselves from
senderista attacks" and states that many of the mayors and deputy
mayors of municipalities around Lima have recently become targets
(Ibid.).
The Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru
(MRTA) has reportedly focused on "high-profile assassinations,
kidnappings, and indiscriminate bombings that endanger civilian
life" (Americas Watch 1992, 63). This group has also had "a
moralistic streak" attributed to its murdering for example
homosexuals in Tarapoto and other persons "whom they considered to
be bad social influences" (Ibid., 63, 72). The group has
reportedly circulated flyers in Tarapoto and Pucallpa "condemning
to death all homosexuals, drug addicts and prostitutes"
(Ibid.). The MRTA has also threatened popular leaders,
native villagers, a retired army general, a Lima judge and
kidnapped businessmen (Ibid.). It has also "placed bombs in
places with heavy civilian traffic" and has targeted certain
foreign entities, such as the local franchises of Pizza Hut,
Kentucky Fried Chicken, several Mormon churches, the Italian and
United States embassies and the U.S.-Peruvian Institute
(Ibid., 72-73).
Government forces, despite having varied
their counterinsurgency tactics, have continued to victimize the
civilian population (Ibid., 77). Americas Watch states that
"the bulk of human rights violations by official and officially
tolerated forces have occurred in the emergency zones, but there
have also been serious abuses in other areas," adding that "the
victims, though still predominantly campesinos [peasants], included
labour leaders, students, and professionals" (Ibid.,
78).
The same source states that massive
detentions by army, police and combined forces often lead to
disappearances, and "particularly vulnerable are refugees from
areas of conflict, who attract the suspicion of the authorities by
virtue of their origin" (Ibid., 82). Americas Watch adds
that "these families commonly flee their homes without identity
documents, as Sendero destroys local registries; or the armed
forces tear or break or fail to return identity documents when a
displaced person is held and questioned." They further point out
that "the lack of documents makes them obvious criminal suspects"
and that "anyone coming from a zone of conflict is immediately
suspected of sympathizing with Sendero" (Ibid.). Finally,
Americas Watch states that "labour activists, professionals, and
students have been victims of disappearance," and that "most of the
disappeared in 1989 ... were adult male campesinos, and
disappearances took place in the context of army sweeps or military
operations in rural areas" (Ibid., 91). Treatment of the
civilian population in many areas reportedly depends "on the
character and personal philosophy of the zone commander, as well as
on the role that his area plays in any current crisis"
(Ibid., 97).
Americas Watch also discusses paramilitary
groups, and indicates that in 1989 the Comando Rodrigo Franco was
responsible for at least eleven killings and "bombings and
innumerable threats against persons it considered sympathizers of
Sendero or the MRTA" (Americas Watch 1992, 101). The source also
states that according to a Peruvian congressional commission
monitoring violence, 164 murders were carried out by paramilitary
groups in 1989, and of these 153 were attributed to unidentified
groups. The same commission attributed 284 deaths in 1990 to
unidentified groups, and in 1991 a group operating in Ayacucho was
held responsible for threats against local journalists and for the
murder of another (Ibid., 102-103).
For details on the above, please refer to
the attachments to this Response. Additional information on the
requested subject can be found in the various reports on human
rights in Peru which are available at your Regional Documentation
Centre: these include the annual reports of Amnesty International,
the United States Department of State and the Lawyers Committee for
Human Rights Critique, among others.
Americas Watch. 1992. Peru Under
Fire: Human Rights Since the Return to Democracy. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Latin American Weekly Report
[Lima]. 12 March 1992. "Fujimori to `Privatise' War by Arming Urban
Self-Defence Groups." London: Latin American Newsletters.
(NEXIS)
Tarazona-Sevillano, Gabriela and John B.
Reuter. 1990. Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of
Narcoterrorism. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Americas Watch. 1992. Peru Under
Fire: Human Rights Since the Return to Democracy. New Haven:
Yale University Press, pp. 57-103, 148-151.
Latin American Weekly Report
[Lima]. 12 March 1992. "Fujimori to `Privatise' War by Arming Urban
Self-Defence Groups." London: Latin American Newsletters.
(NEXIS)
Tarazona-Sevillano, Gabriela and John B.
Reuter. 1990. Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of
Narcoterrorism. New York: Praeger Publishers, pp. 32-49.