Beginning in the 1980’s, an armed conflict has raged in Peru. The CIRI Human Rights Data Project has classified Peru as having a consistently high level of conflict and violence from the 1980’s through the post-2000 era. In a comparison set they developed of 15 different countries in Latin America, only 3 other countries ranked as high as Peru. The conflict in Peru has revolved around two oppositional sides: the government and citizens of Peru and the terrorist group Shining Path, whose ideals are centered on Maoist Communism. Although there was another terrorist group involved in this conflict, know as the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), membership was lower than the Shining Path, and their influence not as prevalent. As of the mid- to late- 1990’s the activities of the MRTA faded.
Both the Shining Path and the MRTA committed brutal human rights violations. There were countless times where these terrorist groups would bomb large, populated areas. They would threaten, harass, and murder journalists who reported on their acts of violence, intimidating them into not practicing their right to freedom of speech, or freedom of the press. They would also threaten, or assassinate elected officials of the state in attempt to intimidate, and thereby limit their reaction to the threat of terrorism. The most chilling thing about these terrorist groups was not the acts themselves that they committed, but rather the indiscriminant nature of those acts. No woman, child, or non-combatant was safe from the punishment they meted out for any number of things. Just complying with government regulations under duress was enough for them to murder a person. Particular targets for mass murder were villages that formed civil defense patrols. One example given by the Human Rights Watch in 1992 cites that the Shining Path “killed thirty-seven persons in Santo Tomas de Pata, Angaraes, Ayacucho, ostensibly because they had formed a civil patrol.”
As illustrated by much scholarship on the subject – including works by Mary Ann Glendon, and Paolo Carozzo – there is a definite dedication on the part of Latin Americans to promulgate human rights. Yet in spite of concerted efforts, violations of human rights in Peru are glaring. One of the most surprising violators is the Peruvian government, military, and police. The institutions most responsible for the welfare of its citizens have been one of its largest violators.
Posted are some pictures of people attending a college in Peru, and a gathering of women and children. Two of the most well known acts of violence committed by the government against its citizens involved college students, women, and children. The first of which were the murders and disappearances of 9 students and a teacher at La Cantuta University in 1992. Also in 1992, 16 people – including women and children – were murdered at a barbecue in Lima. President at the time, Alberto Fujimori, was eventually charged for both of these massacres.
Along with these two specific cases were thousands of smaller, yet not any less significant, human rights violations. The Fujimori administration forced villages to form civil defense patrols, which they knew would make them targets of the Shining Path and MRTA. The military and police killed countless innocents in apparent attempts to subdue terrorists. New laws were put into effect that took away many basic rights. Anyone could be arrested as a terrorist because of the vague definition the new laws gave on terrorism. If they weren’t, there were barely any restrictions on torturing someone to get information, which resulted in many forced confessions. Citizens could be held for long periods of time without being charged for a crime. If charged, you went before a court of faceless judges whose decisions were swift and beyond reproach. Citizens had little options to defend themselves. Amparo and habeas corpus were abolished. These are but a few of the specific examples of human rights violations committed by the state.
Some may want to ask why the state violated these human rights. It would appear that they were several contributing factors. First of all, Peru was in the middle of an internal conflict. The country also didn’t have a functional democracy for a period of this conflict, in which Alberto Fujimori made himself dictator. Peru also had a high level of poverty. The threat against national security (terrorist groups) was used by the state as justification for their actions, thereby giving themselves permission to commit these human rights violations. The international reaction to these human rights violations also contributed to their continued violations. The US specifically was giving aid to the Fujimori administration while these acts were being committed.
All in all we can see a definite trend in human rights violations in Peru. The government has taken advantage of its position, during an internal conflict, to commit human rights violations to “protect” it’s citizens against terrorist groups also violating human rights. We can only hope that the continued scholarship on this subject can lend more insight on the events and what caused them, so that we might prevent it happening again in the future.
Sources: http://www.hrw.org, http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_PER.html, http://ciri.binghamton.edu, From Conquest to Constitutions by Paolo Carozzo, The Forgotten Crucible by Mary Ann Glendon
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