Photo Essay: A Final Adíos, the La Cantuta Massacre 16 Years Later

(Click here to see this blog entry accompanied by Jonathan Moller's photographs.)

Lima, Peru--On July 18, 1992 agents from a secret detachment of military intelligence officers, known as the Colina death squad, entered the La Cantuta University campus in a midnight raid and abducted 10 supposed "subversives"--9 university students and a university professor. The death squad agents loaded the captives into two 4x4 vehicles registered to the Ministry of Defense, took them to a field off of the highway on the outskirts of Lima, and murdered them execution style. In an effort to conceal the crime, the death squad members buried them in a shallow grave and covered their bodies with lime, a caustic substance famous among the Colina agents for "eating the flesh" of their victims.

Still nervous that the hasty execution and burial had left incriminating evidence of the massacre, the Colina agents twice returned to the scene of the crime: once to rebury their victims and a second time to disinter their remains, incinerate their bodies, and deposit their ashes in two pits dug from the desert moonscape of Lima's surrounding foothills.

This past Fiday, 16 years to the day of their disappearance, the remains of the La Cantuta victims finally returned home for burial from a forensic laboratory in France, where they have undergone extensive analysis as evidence in the prosecution of Alberto Fujimori, Peru's ex-president and former dictator who stands trial as a principal architect of Colina and an enthusiatsic enabler of its murderous heyday.

From July 15 to 24, an 11-member delegation from the Denver Justice & Peace Committee will participate in the Fujimori trial as international observers and attend the funeral services for the La Cantuta victims at the invitation of their family members, who have fought tirelessly and heroically to bring their loved ones' perpetrators to justice for the horrific crimes committed against them.

Under international law, widespread and systematic human rights violation, such as those committed by the Fujimori regime, constitute crimes against all of humanity, not just a single individal, community, or even nation. In offering our solidarity and accompaniment to the La Cantuta family members, we aspire to give purposeful meaning to this important legal principle and send a clear message to the Peruvian government--indeed to all governments, including our own--that the practice of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and torture will never again be tolerated or excused as an isolated incidents against anonymous, faceless victims.

When crimes against humanity occur, they imperil the rights and security of everyone. Their impact is universal. In adding our voices to the clamor for justice in Peru, we hope to demonstrate that the condemnation of mass violence is equally widespread.

--Photos by Jonathan Moller, text by Hayden Gore

Click here to see this blog entry accompanied by Jonathan Moller's photographs.

(Photos taken at the 16th annual commemoration of the La Cantuta Massacre--Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, "La Cantuta University". July 18, 1992.)

Photo Essay: DJPC Delegation Attends the Fujimori Trial

Lima, Peru--Yesterday, the delegation attended the Fujimori trial during the testimony of General Nicolás Hermoza Ríos, the powerful ex-Commander General of the Armed Forces during the Fujimori regime.



In his testimony, Hermoza Ríos dismissed the prosecution's suggestion that human rights violations--in particular torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings-- formed a fundamental part of the military's counterinsurgency strategy. He insisted that the military's primary objective in the fight against the Shining Path and the MRTA was to win over the population and that massive human rights violations were antithetical to that goal.



He then denied that the doctrine for military intelligence had changed in the early 1990s from an exclusive focus on intelligence gathering to one that included the "elimination of subversives". In reponse, the prosecution asked him to read from the military´s 1991 anti-subversion operational handbook, which clearly details the new mission: "prevent, detect, locate, identify, neutralize, and/or eliminate subversive leaders." Interestingly, Hermoza Ríos skipped over "and/or eliminate" in his reading. The court promptly corrected his omission, saying that he had receivede a blurry copy of the manual.

The general then explained that "in a war, eliminate does not mean 'to kill people.'" Rather, he said eliminate meant "remove the subversives from their context" so that a compotent tribunal could charge them for their crimes.



Asked whether military intelligence had committed excesses while implementing this strategy, he said that war itself was an excess and added a wonderful bit of dictum about hoping that "one day war would be unnecessary and that we could all solve our problems through diplomacy."

Military intelligence officers executed 25 people in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta Massacres for which Fujimori stands trial. Hermoza Ríos is currently serving out a prison sentence for corruption and embezzzlement; he will faces charges for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta Massacres this fall.

--Photos by Jonathan Moller, text by Hayden Gore

Welcome to DJPC's 2008 Delegation Blog!

Next week, an 11-member delegation from the Denver Justice & Peace Committee will travel to Lima, Peru to participate as international observers in the human rights trial of ex-President Alberto Fujimori and accompany the family members of the victims in the 16th annual commemoration of the La Cantuta Massacre, one of the two massacres for which Fujimori stands trial.

While in Lima, we will publish updates on our experiences through the DJPC 2008 Delegation Blog, and we invite you to accompany us by visiting the blog, reading the postings, and sharing your comments. If you have a specific question about the trial, or if you would simply like to pass a message of solidarity along to the family members who have fought tirelessly (and successfully!) to bring Fujimori to justice, we will happily serve as your medium. As we attend the trial and meet with the principal protagonists of Peru's human rights movement, our goal is to keep you directly connected to this important moment in history.

Additionally, if you would like to learn more about Fujimori's repressive decade in power in the 1990s or about the charges he currently faces, we have included detailed information about both under the "important links" section of the blog.

Thank you once again for your continued interest in DJPC's human rights work in Latin America, and we hope you will follow us as we undertake this historic delegation!

--Hayden Gore

Unearthing Peru's Largest Mass Grave in Ayacucho

The BBC published a story last week about the unearthing of Peru's largest mass grave from the 20-year internal armed conflict. The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) is carrying out the exhumation in Putis, an abandoned Andean village in the province of Ayacucho. While in Ayacucho, we will meet with EPAF to learn about their work documenting the atrocities from the armed conflict and their efforts to return the remains of the victims to their families. Click here to read the article.

--Hayden