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TITLE: PERU HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995
PERU
Peru is a multiparty republic with a dominant executive branch
headed by President Alberto Fujimori. Following the
President's April 1992 seizure of extraconstitutional powers,
he called elections for a new Congress, which drafted a new
Constitution approved in a 1993 referendum. The President's
party controls the 80-member unicameral Constituent Congress.
The next Congress will have 120 members elected at large in
April 1995. An independent tribunal has reviewed the most
senior judicial appointments, but two-thirds of the judges and
prosecutors remain provisional, chosen by the President.
The military and police share public security duties. Since
1980 much of their efforts have been directed toward defeating
Sendero Luminoso and other antigovernment guerrillas. As
government counterinsurgency policies became increasingly
effective, the threat from Sendero greatly declined, and the
human rights situation improved. Nonetheless, the military and
the police continued to be responsible for serious human rights
abuses and, except in rare cases, continued to act with
impunity.
Peru's mixed economy combines free market capitalism with state
ownership of some major industries. Minerals extraction and
processing account for nearly half the foreign exchange
earnings. The Government pursued a market-oriented economic
stabilization and structural adjustment program, including
privatization of state-owned firms. The economy continued to
recover from an economic crisis, with gross domestic product
rising 12 percent and inflation falling to 15.3 percent.
However, the 1993 census showed that over half of Peruvians
live in poverty, and nearly half of those in extreme poverty.
Most of the human rights problems in 1994 continued to be
related to the guerrilla war, in which over 27,000 Peruvians
have died due to actions and abuses by both sides. The
Government lifted emergency zone status, which provides for the
suspension of certain constitutional guarantees, in six
provinces in November, but this status continued in Lima and
other provinces, affecting 48 percent of Peru's 22 million
people. While the number of human rights abuses such as
extrajudicial killings and disappearances are down considerably
from previous years, the military and the police continued to
be responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings, arbitrary
detentions, torture, rape, and disappearances. The Sendero
Luminoso and other terrorist groups were responsible for much
greater numbers of serious abuses, including assassinations,
massacres of indigenous people, torture, and the use of random
and specific acts of terror to intimidate the populace.
Perpetrators of human rights violations in general continued to
act with impunity. There was no effort to investigate the 1991
Barrios Altos or 1992 Huancayo killings. Congress passed a
special law to prevent the trial in the La Cantuta case (in
which army personnel abducted and killed nine students and a
professor from "La Cantuta" University in 1992) from going to a
civilian court. While a military tribunal convicted a general
and eight other officers and sentenced them to jail terms,
there was no rigorous investigation of accusations of
involvement by higher officials.
The administration of justice continued to be slow,
inefficient, and frequently subject to charges of corruption,
although significant reforms are in progress. The Government
established two groups to review cases of individuals who had
suffered prolonged detention without trial or who had been
wrongly arrested or convicted. It also repealed the Terrorist
Repentance Law, the abuse of which led to large number of
arbitrary detentions based on false accusations, but it did not
address the fundamental problem of lack of due process. Prison
conditions remained poor, although the Government did improve
some facilities.
By the end of 1994, Congress had not yet created the office of
the "Defender of the People" (which would serve as an ombudsman
on human rights issues) as called for in the new Constitution.
However, it passed legislation in October to reopen the offices
of human rights prosecutors, which the Attorney General had
closed in June when an executive decree restructured the Public
Ministry. The Congress also created the National Judiciary
Council to provide an independent review of current provisional
judges and prosecutors, but it was not staffed or functioning
by year's end. It postponed implementation of a new Criminal
Procedures Code subject to a congressionally mandated review
commission. The Government continued to criticize harshly
local human rights groups, and the President publicly rejected
what he termed "foreign interference" in human rights and
democracy issues. The dialogue between the Government and the
Coordinadora, an umbrella organization for human rights groups,
stalled over a number of issues. Despite a generally free
press, some journalists were occasionally threatened and
harassed. Peru's large indigenous population was subject to
widespread discrimination. Violence against women remained
pervasive.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
Since 1980 Peru has suffered a bloody guerrilla war waged by
the terrorist groups Sendero Luminoso and the Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). This war has caused over 27,000
deaths and numerous human rights abuses by both guerrillas and
security forces; Sendero Luminoso committed more killings than
the security forces.
The Coordinadora estimated that military forces were
responsible for at least 32 extrajudicial killings, the rural
self-defense forces known as rondas were responsible for 2, and
the National Police for 4. Killings by the military could be
even greater, since according to credible reports, the army
killed an unknown number of civilians in Huanuco department in
April (the Coordinadora counted 25). The reported level of
killings by government forces was slightly higher than in 1993,
but still substantially lower than previous years. At the
height of the insurgency in 1992, the Coordinadora estimated
that security forces were responsible for 114 extrajudicial
killings. Most of the 1994 killings took place in the Upper
Huallaga valley, where the level of conflict was highest, and
occurred in the course of a military sweep operation in Huanuco
department in April (see Section 1.g.).
On January 20, military police detained university student
Victor Raul Espinoza after he reportedly instigated an
altercation with military personnel near the presidential
palace in Lima. They turned Espinoza over to the National
Police, who took him to a nearby police station where police
reportedly tortured and killed him. Several hours later, the
police took Espinoza's bruised body to a local hospital.
Following an investigation, a judge found sufficient evidence
to indict 14 officers. According to the attorney for
Espinoza's family, all 14 police indicted in the case remained
on active duty at the end of the year; the case remained open
but had not yet progressed beyond the investigative stage by
the Attorney General's office.
However, civil authorities neither investigated fully most of
the remaining killings by security forces, nor subjected the
perpetrators to judicial sanctions. In those cases that were
taken up, the armed forces relied on provisions of the Military
Justice Code and the Constitution, the effect of which was to
preempt independent civilian investigation and prosecution of
cases involving military abuses. Although administrative
sanctions and dismissals may have been decided in some cases,
this process often accorded impunity to the perpetrators of
human rights abuses. It was unclear how long even those who
were convicted would stay in jail, in light of credible reports
that Captain Telmo Hurtado, who had confessed to and was
convicted for the 1985 Accomarca massacre, had reappeared on
active duty.
In January when a civilian judge indicted several army
personnel for the 1992 abduction and execution of nine students
and a professor from La Cantuta University, the army refused to
turn the soldiers over to civilian authorities, asserting that
the military court system had jurisdiction. While the army
kept the indictees under military detention, the authorities
appealed the jurisdiction issue to the Supreme Court in early
February. Before the Court could muster the required two-vote
margin in favor of either civilian or military trial, the
government majority in Congress passed a bill, subsequently
signed into law by President Fujimori, that permitted the
one-vote majority in favor of prosecution in closed military
court to be sufficient. The military court convicted nine in
the case (a general and eight other commissioned and
noncommissioned officers) and imposed sentences ranging from 4
to 20 years in prison (one was later acquitted on appeal).
However, there was no rigorous investigation of allegations
that higher-level officials had either ordered the killings or
had covered them up. Nonetheless, this was only the third time
since the onset of Sendero terrorism in which any court
convicted military officers for extrajudicial killings, and
included the highest ranking officer thus far convicted for
such offenses.
Sendero Luminoso continued to assassinate civilians, including
peasants, farmers, villagers, indigenous people, civil
authorities and public servants, as well as 40 members of the
security forces. However, the number of people murdered by
Sendero declined significantly from 516 in 1993 to 215 in 1994,
as the security forces continued to capture terrorist leaders.
In addition, the Coordinadora reported the MRTA responsible for
22 political assassinations and unidentified subversives
responsible for 8. Terrorist bomb attacks killed another 14
people. In 17 other deaths, the Coordinadora was unable to
deduce from available evidence whether the security forces or
subversives were responsible. The number of killings committed
by each side doubtless is underreported because of the
remoteness of many of the incidents and widespread distrust of
the authorities and the judicial system.
b. Disappearance
The number of reported disappearances in 1994 was the lowest
since 1982. The Coordinadora registered only 25 unresolved
disappearances attributable to the security forces. This
apparent reduction resulted from the Government's decision to
end in late 1992 the tacit reliance on security forces' use of
disappearances that characterized the previous two governments'
counterinsurgency practices. Most of the disappearances
occurred in areas where the insurgency was most active: Eight
in Ucayali department, six in San Martin department, four in
Lima department and the rest in four other departments.
However, with disappearances occurring in areas where the
Coordinadora does not have a permanent presence, these numbers
are subject to change. For example, human rights observers
associated with the Coordinadora discovered that the provincial
human rights prosecutors based in the cities of Huanuco and
Huancayo had reported to the Attorney General a higher number
of 1993 disappearances in their jurisdictions than had been
previously believed. The Coordinadora deduced that there may
have been as many as 168 unresolved disappearances in 1993
(previous estimates had ranged from 44 to 59). During the
latter part of 1994, the Coordinadora was investigating and
attempting to confirm these reports. The closure for most of
the year of Public Ministry human rights offices made it more
difficult to track disappearances in 1994 than in previous
years.
As in the past, the majority of complaints about disappearances
in 1994 implicated members of the security forces in the
emergency zones. Testimony from witnesses and survivors
indicated that the most common scenario was for groups of men
in civilian attire to abduct individuals and take them to
military bases for interrogation. They later turned some over
to the police for eventual terrorism trials, released others,
but some never reappeared.
On January 16, Orlando Lopez Villalobos was changing money at a
hotel in Pucallpa, Ucayali department, when navy personnel
forced him to give them his money and identity documents. He
reported this act to the local Catholic vicar's office, then
went to the navy base to try to recover his money and papers.
Lopez was never seen or heard from again. In another case in
Pucallpa, navy personnel detained Segundo Fernandez Ferrari on
March 20 at his home in front of relatives. He never returned
home, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Acting on provisions of a decree law issued by President
Fujimori, Attorney General Blanca Nelida Colan shut down the
Public Ministry's office of the Special Prosecutor for Human
Rights, which, among other responsibilities, tracked
disappearances on a full-time basis. Government officials
justified this decision by citing the Constitution's creation
of a "Defender of the People" office that would also monitor
human rights. By year end, the government-controlled Congress
had not passed enacting legislation for the new office, but it
did reopen the office of the human rights prosecutor on an
interim basis in November until the office of the Defender of
the People is established.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
Although the Constitution prohibits torture and inhuman or
humiliating treatment, torture and brutal treatment of
detainees are common. Eyewitnesses and human rights monitors
reported that government security forces routinely tortured
suspected subversives at military and police detention
centers. Justice Minister Vega acknowledged in November at a
United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva that
torture had not yet been eradicated in Peru but asserted that
reports of torture had declined.
Torture most often takes place in the period immediately
following detention. The law permits police to hold a
terrorism suspect incommunicado for 15 days, and for another
15-day period in cases of treason (aggravated terrorism). The
incidence of torture is high during this time, partly because
the detainee is not allowed access to family or an attorney
except when giving sworn statements to the public prosecutor.
The Government asserts that the more liberal access it
previously granted resulted in alleged miscarriages of justice
in favor of detained terrorists. The law requires that the
authorities interrogate persons detained for terrorism in the
presence of a Public Ministry prosecutor, but they frequently
violate these standards, especially in the emergency zones. A
1992 decree law eliminated the requirement that an attorney be
present during the initial stages of detention and
interrogation in terrorism or treason cases. A modification to
that law, passed in 1993, permits a lawyer to be present when a
detainee signs any written document, including his or her
formal statement.
On September 13, the police arrested Maria Elena Foronda, an
environmentalist working in Chimbote, on suspicion of terrorism
after a so-called repentant terrorist taking advantage of the
amnesty law made an accusation against her. After visiting her
in jail, Foronda's mother publicly claimed that police had
beaten Foronda and subjected her to psychological torture in an
attempt to force her to confess that she was a terrorist.
In early 1994, a Coordinadora delegation visited Picsi prison
near Chiclayo and interviewed dozens of detainees. Virtually
all those interviewed complained that the police had tortured
them during the interrogation phase of their detentions;
several women claimed police had raped them. The Coordinadora
noted that the incidence of torture was very high at police
stations but had declined at the prison itself.
Besides beatings, common methods of torture included electric
shock, water torture, asphyxiation, and hanging detainees on a
hook from a rope attached to hands tied behind the back.
Common forms of psychological torture included sleep
deprivation and death threats against both the detainee and his
or her family members. Interrogators almost always blindfolded
their victims during torture so they could not later identify
their abusers.
There continued to be credible reports that members of the
security forces raped women, especially in the emergency
zones. Following the alleged army indiscriminate killings of
civilians in Molluna and Moena in April (see Section 1.g.),
survivors claimed to have witnessed army personnel committing
numerous rapes of local women and girls. In one scene shown on
television news, a man entered Molluna without the knowledge or
authorization of the military authorities, accompanied by
journalists, to search for his 16-year-old daughter after
troops had left the area. The state of his daughter's remains
corroborated the testimony of a witness who told him several
soldiers had raped her. Several members of a commission
sponsored by Congress's human rights committee, including
representatives of the Consejo por la Paz (Peace Council) and
the Coordinadora, visited the area and concluded that soldiers
had carried out at least two rapes. The authorities took no
action to investigate or punish military rapists. According to
eyewitnesses, on September 22, security forces raided the
village of Paraiso in San Martin department and raped a woman
and a 14-year-old girl. Several days later, the lieutenant who
conducted the raid reportedly admitted in front of Paraiso
villagers and his commander in Tocache that he ordered the
rapes, but he has not been charged in this crime.
Many victims of Sendero terrorism also show signs of having
been tortured. Sendero groups normally held a brief "people's
trial" in the presence of onlookers as a means of intimidation
before torturing their victims. There were credible accounts
that Sendero tortured people to death by means such as slitting
throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning. Mutilation of
the body was common; in the Monterrico massacre, Sendero
members cut up the bodies of their victims with machetes and
axes (see Section 1.g.). In August Sendero sympathizers
tortured four people they accused of cooperating with the
police in the town of Llihuari, Huanuco department, for 3 days
before killing them.
Conditions for many prisoners continued to be poor, although
the Government made a costly and extensive effort to improve
existing penal facilities, construct new penitentiaries, and
ameliorate the physical conditions of detention. Nonetheless,
prisoners in many facilities continued to experience unsanitary
facilities, poor nutrition and health care, and occasionally
harsh treatment by both prison staff and fellow inmates. Picsi
prison near Chiclayo, for example, holds twice the number of
inmates for which it was designed and has no running water.
Illegal drugs, tuberculosis, and AIDS are at near-epidemic
proportions in Lima's Lurigancho prison, the country's largest,
containing nearly 25 percent of the male prison population.
The prison in Huancayo is prone to flooding, and electrical
wires are exposed in various parts of the building. Detainees,
held temporarily in windowless cells in Lima's palace of
justice, are not allowed outside for exercise and fresh air and
are taken to the bathroom only once a day.
Since prison authorities reestablished control in 1992 in
prisons formerly managed in all but name by Sendero,
prisoner-on-prisoner violence and abuse of inmates by prison
officials appears to have declined. However, corruption
continued to be a problem among prison staff, who were
implicated in offenses such as sexual blackmail, selling
narcotics and weapons, and arranging escapes. Prisoners often
have to bribe guards to get a mattress and report that guards
subject inmates to beatings, torture, and degrading treatment.
The Government showed a greater willingness to clamp down on
corruption than in past years. Prison authorities fired some
officials at Lima's San Jorge facility for charging money to
permit relatives to give food and medicine to some inmates. In
late September, the authorities removed from duty the warden
and a number of corrupt police guards at Lurigancho prison.
The Government built a number of prisons around the country and
completed renovation of two of the largest facilities for
terrorism convicts and detainees, Castro Castro in Lima and
Yanamayo in Puno department. These projects helped alleviate
the severe overcrowding in the prison system and improved the
physical conditions in which many inmates must live.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The Constitution, the Criminal Code, and antiterrorist
legislation delineate the arrest and detention process.
However, a number of constitutional protections are suspended
in emergency zones. For example, security forces do not need
an arrest warrant; they may legally hold incommunicado those
detained for treason or terrorism and deny them access to an
attorney during the interrogation period, except when giving
formal statements.
In areas not subject to a state of emergency, the law requires
a judicial warrant for arrest, unless a perpetrator is caught
in the act. In addition, the Organic Law of the National
Police--in contradiction of the Constitution and other laws--
permits detention of an individual for any investigation. The
authorities must arraign persons arrested within 24 hours (but
they frequently violate this legal provision, according to
informed observers), except in cases of terrorism, drug
trafficking, or espionage, for which the limit is 15 to 30
days. If the military is the detaining authority, it must turn
over detainees to the police within 24 hours (or as soon as
practicable in remote areas). The military disregarded this
law in many cases.
Detainees have the right to choose their own attorney, or the
Government must provide counsel at no cost. Often this does
not occur in practice, and human rights monitors report
instances in which court clerks (or in one case, an army cook)
were deputized to stand in as public defenders. There is no
functioning bail system, although a form of provisional liberty
is theoretically available for persons not accused of
terrorism, espionage, or narcotics offenses. A 1993
modification to antiterrorism legislation authorized
first-instance and superior court judges to order the
unconditional release of terrorism defendants if there is
insufficient evidence to bring a case against them. However,
judges have not applied this law in practice; rather, persons
accused of terrorism sometimes must wait until their cases have
been reviewed and dismissed by the Supreme Court before they
are freed, a process that often lasts more than a year after
the defendant's arrest.
Juan Mallea, an evangelical pastor who drove a taxi to help
support his family, was arrested in July 1993 when he drove a
customer to a house that was being raided by antiterrorism
police. The passenger turned out to be a member of Sendero
Luminoso; the police accused Mallea of drawing a map found
inside the house. They presented him publicly in striped jail
clothes; Mallea later claimed that the antiterrorism police
tortured him. Although independent handwriting experts
testified that Mallea could not have been the author of the
map, and despite being acquitted by a circuit court judge, the
authorities did not free him until April, when the Lima
superior court finally ruled in his favor.
Another 1993 modification to the antiterrorism laws restored a
detainee's right to a prompt judicial determination of the
legality of the detention ("habeas corpus"). In practice,
however, this has proven to be ineffective; according to human
rights attorneys, judges have denied the vast majority of such
requests.
The Public Ministry inaugurated a National Registry of
Detainees to track cases of persons arrested for terrorism
offenses. Both the police and the military must report the
names of anyone they detain within 24 hours. The Government
also formalized the registry statutorily (it had been
established provisionally in 1992) and created an interagency
committee to oversee its operation and correct any problems.
The Registry opened to the public in Lima in February; branch
offices were inaugurated in Tarapoto, San Martin department, in
September and in Ayacucho in November. Some registry users
have commented that it is incomplete and that the military and
police frequently do not provide informations on detainees in a
timely fashion.
Apart from an interruption of its access in northern Huanuco
department in April (see Section 1.g.), the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) operations proceeded
normally. The authorities permitted ICRC representatives to
visit detainees in any place of detention, including prisons,
jails, police stations, and military bases.
According to Justice Minister Vega, 80 percent of the country's
prison population, or 16,000 of the 20,000 prisoners, consisted
of accused persons awaiting trial. The special terrorism
prosecutor's office reported that 4,888 persons awaited trial
for terrorism or treason as of August 31. The average delay
between arrest and civilian trial on criminal or terrorism
charges was between 26 and 36 months. However, those tried on
treason charges by military courts generally wait no longer
than 40 days between the time of detention and the beginning of
the trial.
Persons accused of terrorism must remain in custody while
awaiting trial, no matter how little evidence there is against
them. During this time, only immediate family members may
visit them for a total of 15 minutes per month. Since the
antiterrorism decrees took effect in 1992, there were numerous
instances when the authorities arrested and detained people
with very weak or no evidence against them. The police
arrested Jesus Alfonso Castiglione, the owner and operator of a
radio station in Huacho, in April 1993 when some of his
possessions were found in an apartment in another city where a
known terrorist was captured. Castiglione had been a tenant in
the apartment a year before; he had left some of his belongings
there as a security deposit and was unaware that the owner had
decided to rent the apartment to someone else after he moved
out. Despite the lack of evidence linking him to terrorism, a
court convicted Castiglione in August, and he began serving a
20-year sentence while awaiting action on an appeal to the
Supreme Court.
Although government regulations to end public displays of
detainees were issued in January 1995, there were numerous
cases in 1994 in which police or the military presented
detainees in striped jail clothes to the media as terrorists.
Occasionally such detainees were acquitted because they were
innocent or for lack of evidence; many of those acquitted
charged that they had been stigmatized by these public displays.
There were a number of arbitrary detentions as a result of
abuse and misapplication of the Terrorist Amnesty Law, which
Congress repealed effective November 1. Under its provisions,
terrorists could have their sentences reduced or suspended if
they gave authorities the names of terrorist leaders. This
plea-bargaining option led many terrorists to accuse innocent
people of being subversives, and the authorities detained
hundreds of people around the country solely on the basis of
such accusations.
The police first arrested journalist Javier Tuanama in October
1990 and accused him of belonging to MRTA. After a long
judicial process, the courts finally acquitted Tuanama in March
and released him from prison. However, just after he walked
out of jail, the police rearrested him on another outstanding
warrant: a "repentant" terrorist had accused Tuanama of
recruiting young people for MRTA in Amazonas department in
December 1990 (when he was in jail). A court acquitted Tuanama
of two charges, but then sentenced him to 10 years in prison
based on a third charge that he had given refuge to repentant
MRTA members, despite retractions by the two terrorists who
accused him. Tuanama has spent 4 years in prison.
The Government created two separate commissions to review cases
of people unfairly detained for long periods. An executive
branch commission, formed in February and consisting of several
lawyers, reviews cases of individuals detained on terrorism
charges. A second commission, established by the Congress in
June and installed in December, will review both terrorism and
criminal cases and recommend presidential "grace" for detainees
who have waited long periods without a trial and who appear to
be innocent.
Inconsistencies in the application of the terrorist amnesty law
were also apparent. In October, in contravention of the
anonymity clause in the law, President Fujimori publicly named
a university rector and a superior court judge as repentant
terrorists. The authorities detained the rector, Abner Chavez,
and the judge, Luis Galindo, for 1 month after Fujimori's
statement. After their release Chavez and Galindo denied
having been Sendero supporters and announced plans to seek
restitution for having been falsely accused.
Although the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit it, the
Government did not practice involuntary exile of its citizens.
Several public figures, however, remained in voluntary exile to
escape what they perceived to be political persecution.
Although others claimed they were in exile, they apparently
fled from what appeared to be legitimate criminal charges.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The Peruvian system of criminal justice is generally based on
the Napoleonic Code. A Public Ministry prosecutor investigates
arrests and criminal complaints and then submits an opinion to
a first-instance judge, who decides whether to indict.
Following study of the case, the judge renders a verdict, which
is then reviewed by a superior court prosecutor. The superior
court prosecutor then submits an opinion on the case to a
superior court judge, who holds a trial. Terrorism cases, on
the other hand, are tried by anonymous superior court tribunals
made up of three judges. Virtually all civilian court
convictions are appealed to the Supreme Court.
Defendants have the right to be present at their trial,
although there were instances of trials in absentia of
fugitives (however, a 1993 modification to antiterrorism laws
eliminated convictions in absentia). Although there were
trials in absentia, they did not lead to convictions, but to
acquittals or judgments in reserve until the defendant was in
custody. Defendants have the right to counsel, but the
Government often does not provide the indigent with qualified
attorneys. Following an investigation and filing of charges, a
judge renders a verdict. Sentences may be appealed to a panel
of judges.
The judicial branch rarely has been fully independent of the
executive. However, the 1993 Constitution contains a number of
provisions, including an improved system for naming judges,
that provides for a significantly more independent judiciary.
President Fujimori provisionally appointed some two-thirds of
the incumbent judges and prosecutors after he seized
extraconstitutional powers in 1992. In 1993 the new Congress
appointed an independent tribunal to review the 1992 dismissals
of hundreds of judicial officials, to examine the
qualifications of President Fujimori's appointees, and to
replace those found to be unqualified. By December this
tribunal completed its review of all the judges and prosecutors
in Lima. The tribunal found a large number of provisional
judges and prosecutors unqualified and replaced them. Human
rights groups and independent observers applauded many of the
changes, and reports of corruption decreased with respect to
the reformed jurisdictions. At year's end, judicial officials
outside Lima had not been reviewed.
The legislative and executive branches openly interfered with
an ongoing judicial branch action when, in February, they
approved a law that imposed a new voting formula on Supreme
Court decisions concerning civil versus military jurisdiction.
This law in effect gave jurisdiction over a sensitive human
rights case (the La Cantuta case--see Section 1.a.) to the
military court system.
There continued to be widespread charges of corruption and of
suborning of judges, prosecutors, police, and witnesses at all
stages of the judicial process, although the number of
complaints in Lima decreased significantly after permanent
judges were named to the Supreme and superior courts.
Government efforts to reduce corruption included a salary raise
for judges and a more active judicial branch control mechanism
to investigate allegations of bribes. This office of control
dismissed 19 career judges and 33 provisional judges for
misconduct during the year; it fined another 215; and it
admonished 439 for various irregularities. The Government's
1995 budget allocations include a 70 percent real increase in
funds for the judiciary and a 149 percent real increase for the
Public Ministry, whose responsibilities will dramatically
increase once the long-delayed new Criminal Procedures Code is
brought into force. The high cost of litigation limited access
to the judicial system, as did the lack of public judicial
services in many isolated areas of the country.
Civilian courts made limited progress in tackling the judicial
backlog, a product of inefficiency, lack of infrastructure and
personnel, archaic case law and criminal procedure law, and the
high number of terrorism cases. According to the National
Prisons Institute, there were 13,791 detainees awaiting trial
throughout the country on June 30. Meanwhile, a backlog of 800
to 1,000 cases challenging the constitutionality of laws or
official actions remained pending in the absence of actions to
establish the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees provided
for in the new Constitution.
Sendero and MRTA threats and intimidation of judges were one of
the justifications for President Fujimori's overhaul of the
antiterrorism trial system in 1992. Civilian courts now try
terrorism cases in anonymous tribunals made up of three
"faceless" judges. An August 1992 decree law classified many
terrorism cases as treason and therefore triable by military
courts; the lesser cases are heard by civilian tribunals. In
November Justice Minister Vega announced that he had proposed
an end to the use of faceless judges to try civilians accused
of terrorism, an end to military tribunal jurisdiction over
civilians, and an end to the trial by faceless judges of minors
charged with terrorism. These proposals were before the
Council of Ministers at year's end.
Between September 1992 and August 1994, according to the
official government newspaper, the military courts remanded 122
cases to civilian jurisdiction after finding that there was not
enough evidence to try some individuals for treason. Informed
observers believe that antiterrorism police in effect decide
which cases are tried in military courts and which are tried in
civilian courts. According to various human rights observers,
approximately 80 percent of treason trials in military courts
resulted in convictions; civilian terrorism tribunals, in
contrast, convict only around 60 percent. Treason convictions
carry sentences from 30 years to life in prison; there were 217
persons serving life sentences for treason at the end of 1994.
Proceedings in military courts do not meet internationally
accepted standards for due process. Military trials are closed
to the public and carried out in secrecy. Defense attorneys do
not have access to the evidence, nor can they interview police
or military witnesses (to protect their identities) prior to or
during the trial. Military judges rarely have any legal
background; they are active duty line officers. However,
military justice system officials say they are making efforts
to increase the number of judges with legal backgrounds.
Military tribunals in theory must pass judgment within 10
days. A case may be appealed to the War Council, which has 10
days to make a decision. A final appeal to the Supreme Council
of Military Justice must be acted on within 5 days. However,
this calendar is subject to delays in a number of cases. Human
rights groups charge that military trials have railroaded some
defendants and sentenced them before their lawyers were even
notified that the trial had begun.
Statistics for military prosecutions of civilians suggested
greater care and selectivity in the application of treason laws
to the most serious cases. In 1994 military courts prosecuted
civilians in 356 treason cases compared to 315 in 1993, but
imposed life sentences on 72 persons, compared to 117 in 1993.
Although the proceedings in military courts for all practical
purposes are summary, not all those prosecuted are convicted.
The military courts acquitted defendants in 7 cases and
remanded 53 cases to civil authorities. The Government has
publicly recognized that military trials of civilians are a
temporary, extraordinary measure out of step with international
norms, to be reformed as soon as the situation in its judgment
permits. The authorities also began a review process of
military trials. In late 1993, this review process absolved
Miguel Ruiz-Conejo, who had been wrongly convicted of treason
in a military court, and ordered his release. In 1994 a
special military tribunal annulled five life sentences after
discovering procedural and other errors in reviewing those
trials.
In late April, the Government postponed indefinitely
implementation of a new Criminal Procedures Code that was to
have taken effect on May 1. The new Code would have instituted
accusatorial investigative and trial procedures. Instead, the
Government established an interagency commission to "reconcile"
the Code with the 1993 Constitution and present the Congress
with a plan for the gradual application of the revised Code.
Informed observers claimed that the Government postponed the
Code's implementation because the National Police were unhappy
with provisions that would grant more investigative authority
to prosecutors; because the armed forces opposed a provision
that would mean prosecution of military personnel in civilian
court for crimes such as murder that do not come under the
Military Code of Justice; and because the Public Ministry was
not prepared in terms of budget or personnel to put the new
Code into practice.
In 1993 an international panel of distinguished jurists visited
Peru and studied the legal and judicial system to determine
whether or not there was adequate due process, particularly in
terrorism trials. The panel recommended eliminating military
trials of civilians and reintroducing precepts of due process
suspended by the 1992 antiterrorism decrees. When the jurists
made their report public in April, President Fujimori and his
Justice Minister rejected it as interference in Peru's internal
affairs. The Government maintained that further changes in the
law and procedures used in treason and terrorism cases must be
linked to progress in pacification, as well as to reform of the
judicial branch. The jurists' report stimulated a serious
public debate.
The new Constitution provides for several new judicial
institutions to help create a more effective and independent
system of justice: an Office of the Defender of the People (a
human rights ombudsman); a Tribunal of Constitutional
Guarantees (which would rule on the constitutionality of
legislation and government actions); the National Judiciary
Council (a permanent, independent entity in charge of testing,
naming, confirming, and periodically evaluating and
disciplining the country's judges and prosecutors); and a
Judicial Academy (to train judges and prosecutors). The
Congress passed legislation to define the structure and
functions of only the last two institutions; it had not
established the other entities by the end of the year, but did
create the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees in January
1995.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The Constitution requires security forces to have a judicial
warrant to enter a private dwelling, but this requirement is
suspended in the emergency zones, and security forces in those
areas routinely conduct searches of private homes without
warrants. The law requires that a Public Ministry prosecutor
be present during searches. There were plausible reports that,
on occasion, police planted subversive pamphlets in the homes
of persons they suspected of terrorism but could not otherwise
arrest for lack of evidence. There were frequent credible
reports of illegal telephone wiretaps. In August and
September, several prominent journalists, opposition
politicians, and retired military officers made credible claims
that the Government's intelligence services followed them,
videotaped them, and recorded their private conversations.
In Lima and other urban areas, the army conducted "sweep"
operations in which soldiers surrounded and sealed off targeted
neighborhoods to conduct house-to-house searches. They
detained persons wanted for a crime and held for questioning
those found with unregistered weapons, subversive material, or
without identity documents. Public prosecutors routinely
accompany these operations, and citizens made few complaints of
serious abuses stemming from them.
A number of rural communities--with arms, training, and
encouragement from the army--have organized self-defense
forces, or rondas, to protect themselves against terrorist and
bandit incursions. These have had a noticeable impact on
curbing Sendero's presence in certain areas of the country. In
some parts of Peru, rondas have existed for centuries as a form
of social organization and to protect communities from invaders
and rustlers. However, military authorities organized many of
the newer rondas and sometimes coerced peasants into
participating. As a regular practice and to a far greater
degree, Sendero also forced peasants to join its military
ranks, often for extended periods, coercing their participation
in terrorist attacks and executions.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
Law in Internal Conflicts
Although the Government stated that its security forces did not
have a policy of indiscriminate violence against civilians,
army troops nevertheless killed an undetermined number of
noncombatants in the Upper Huallaga valley. Between March 29
and March 31, according to witnesses who testified before the
local prosecutor, an army patrol detained and then killed
between 8 and 12 villagers in Cayumba Chico, south of the city
of Tingo Maria in Huanuco department. The army also began to
deny access to the zone north of Tingo Maria and west of the
Huallaga river to delegates of the ICRC. In the course of a
claimed major sweep between April 5 and April 8, members of the
army, using both helicopters and ground troops, entered the
settlements of Molluna and Moena and, according to similar,
credible accounts by numerous eyewitnesses, indiscriminately
killed most of the population. In some cases rape and torture
preceded the killing. The army reportedly fired rockets from
helicopters at the settlements.
The exact number of dead was difficult to determine because the
army closed the zone to nonmilitary personnel for 7 weeks,
during which time remains could have been moved or buried, and
because many of the residents were transient farm workers whose
only relatives were unlikely to report them as missing. The
Coordinadora decided to list only 25 persons as victims of the
army operation--the only ones who could be identified by name,
based on eyewitness reports and identified remains. The armed
forces, the Congress, and the Attorney General's office
undertook investigations into these killings. In November a
special prosecutor responsible for investigating this incident
brought charges in a civilian court against an army captain for
ordering the deaths of at least eight persons. The army
subsequently undertook other large-scale operations in other
regions of the country without new claims of abuses, possibly
indicating that commanders made a conscious effort to avoid
what happened in April.
Although both the army and Sendero Luminoso violated
humanitarian law in Peru's internal conflict, the latter was
responsible for many more heinous violations than the former.
Sendero frequently used arbitrary violence against civilians
and nonmilitary targets. It continued to detonate powerful
bombs in public places, indiscriminately killing and injuring
dozens of bystanders, and persisted in its practice of entering
villages and killing residents. Many of the victims were
unarmed women and children. Terrorist bomb attacks perpetrated
by Sendero and MRTA killed 14 people and injured 86.
In April, in one of its more gruesome massacres, a Sendero
Luminoso column entered the village of Monterrico in the
Mazamari district of Junin department, burned down houses, and
tortured and beheaded 18 residents. In the same area in August
residents discovered graves of several Ashaninka Indians
believed to have been killed by Sendero (see also Section 5).
In armed confrontations, Sendero never took prisoners or
attended to the wounded; its normal aim was to kill as many
people as possible. Sendero also practiced forced military
conscription of both adults and children. The law prohibits
military conscription of children, and government forces
respected this prohibition.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and freedom of
the press. While the Government generally respected this
provision, there were many instances when government officials
or members of the security forces harassed media
representatives. The Government also used its economic power
and the legal system to exert influence over the media.
The media represent a wide spectrum of information and opinion,
with 8 television stations, 3 cable systems, 72 radio stations,
and 16 daily newspapers in Lima alone. The media regularly
criticize the Government and its policies. The Government owns
a television network, a daily newspaper, and a radio station,
none of which is particularly influential.
Opposition political parties and factions have access to the
media. Television stations, although generally progovernment,
provide regular access to opposition figures on a variety of
news and public affairs programs. The written press is defined
by extremes, with many leading newspapers and magazines either
strongly for or against the Government.
The Government took steps to eliminate the applicability to the
media of the Constitution's "habeas data" provision. This
legal mechanism gives citizens the right to demand
rectification for articles or reports they consider slanderous.
Many journalists viewed this provision as a potential tool to
censor and harass the press. As a result of these concerns,
the government majority in Congress voted 56 to 1 on August 18
to remove from the Constitution the portion of the "habeas
data" clause related to the press. Local journalists praised
this action, as did the Inter-American Press Society which
called the vote "an important step towards full observance of
press freedom." However, the measure will not become law until
the Congress approves it a second time in a subsequent
legislative session and the President signs it.
On several isolated occasions, government officials took
measures that interfered with press freedom. On April 15,
President Fujimori personally ordered a Reuter television crew
to erase video footage it had taken during his visit to a
maximum security prison in Puno, which showed Sendero Luminoso
prisoners reading a statement about their support for a then
secret peace letter. The foreign correspondents' association
protested the action but received no response from the
Government.
Also in April, the military justice system indicted six retired
generals on charges of "insulting the armed forces." The
retired officers had, in various press interviews, criticized
decisions by the army leadership. Despite their retired
status, they were subjected to court-martial. In addition, a
military court summoned a journalist for the opposition daily
La Republica in April to explain his February 13 interview with
one of the indicted generals who had criticized the army's
handling of the La Cantuta case.
On April 30, army personnel arrested and beat radio journalist
Cesar Flores in Huanta, Ayacucho department. The day before,
Flores had denounced the army's mistreatment of another
journalist. The army held Flores at the local army base for 6
days on trumped-up charges that he had not done his obligatory
military duty.
In March a Lima radio journalist began receiving anonymous
telephone calls threatening him with death if he did not stop
criticizing the Government. When the journalist complained to
police, they sent him official notices to appear for
interrogation regarding alleged terrorist actions that had
occurred in far-off provinces. The harassment stopped after
international human rights monitors expressed interest in the
case.
On September 2, the commander of the first military region,
army Lieutenant General Howard Rodriguez, ordered his staff to
expose the film of a La Republica photographer who had shot
footage showing the General handing out calendars and posters
of President Fujimori. General Rodriguez also allegedly
threatened the reporter. Although observers agreed that the
General's original activities constituted a probable violation
of the constitutionally mandated political neutrality of the
armed forces, the authorities took no action against him.
The authorities continued to detain 15 journalists for trial on
terrorism charges at the end of 1994; the courts acquitted
13 others of terrorism charges during the year. However, their
detentions did not appear to be the result of a government
policy to persecute journalists.
The Government also exercises substantial influence over the
media through the placement of advertisements. Some media
owners claim that the Government also encourages private
advertisers to boycott opposition publications and uses tax
investigations to harass the opposition media. Many media
owners are involved in other economic activities that require
government licensing or involve bidding on government
contracts. All these factors result in a degree of self-
censorship, particularly in the broadcast media.
The Government often restricted opposition media access by
refusing to send news releases and other information to some
magazines and limiting access to official transportation when
the President visited remote parts of the country or traveled
to other nations. However, after widespread criticism of the
secrecy that characterized the army's April sweep operation in
Huanuco department, the military authorities began to report
publicly on a more regular basis the results of their
operations.
The Government also used the legal system to keep opposition
journalists off balance. Enrique Zileri, publisher of the
opposition weekly magazine Caretas, was subject to a judicial
order to seize his possessions in July. The judge who signed
the order immediately took a vacation, leaving a substitute
judge to carry out the action. The attempted seizure resulted
from accusations by a convicted felon who objected to his name
being used in a Caretas story on drug trafficking. The case
had supposedly ended some time earlier, when the superior court
had ruled in Zileri's favor, yet somehow a second case for the
same alleged offense was initiated. Last-minute action by
Zileri and his attorney prevented the police contingent that
appeared on his doorstep from enforcing the seizure. An
editorial in the July 27 edition of the conservative daily
newspaper El Comercio said the case had "awakened suspicions"
about the "series of intimidating actions taken against"
members of the political opposition.
As with other sectors of society, the media were not immune to
Sendero Luminoso attacks. The most notorious example of
Sendero violence against the media occurred on March 14, when
the house of Patricio Ricketts, a columnist with the daily
newspaper Expreso, was bombed. The attack, which killed a
passerby and wounded Ricketts' daughter, appeared to be in
retaliation for a Ricketts column titled "Sendero is
annihilated," which had appeared in Expreso the previous day.
Officials at Channel 2, the most progovernment television
station (and the site of a 1992 Sendero car-bombing), also
reported receiving regular Sendero threats. Even opposition-
leaning Channel 9 arranged for a group of soldiers to occupy a
floor of its central office building as a form of insurance
against Sendero attacks.
The Government generally respected academic freedom as long as
it did not involve direct confrontation with security
practices. The Government usually does not interfere in the
teaching, discussion, or publication of a variety of opinions;
however, all forms of indoctrination by subversive groups are
prohibited, and teachers who express support of terrorist
ideology are subject to prosecution.
Sendero and, to a lesser extent, MRTA, have for a long time
used threats and abuse against faculty, staff, and students in
an effort to gain control of a number of universities.
However, since the military took control of campus security at
several universities in 1991 and 1992, the terrorist groups
have maintained a lower profile.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Constitution expressly provides for these rights, and the
authorities normally respect them in practice, except in areas
under a state of emergency (where the right of assembly is
suspended). Public meetings in plazas or streets require
advance permission, which may be denied only for reasons of
public safety or health. Municipal authorities usually
approved permits for demonstrations in Lima and nonemergency
zones. Unauthorized public meetings occurred, and the police
occasionally used clubs, tear gas, and water cannons to break
up marches or disperse large crowds, sometimes using excessive
force. The police interrupted both unruly and peaceful
gatherings this way in Lima, using these tactics against
striking public service workers, small political rallies, and a
march by students protesting human rights violations. In
October police fired on a union march by dock workers in the
port city of Callao, wounding two protesters.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the
Government respects this provision in practice. The
Constitution recognizes Roman Catholicism "as an important
element in the historical, cultural, and moral development of
the nation," but also establishes the separation of church and
State. Conversion to other religions is respected, and
missionaries are allowed to enter the country and proselytize.
Sendero Luminoso rejects religion and continued to threaten and
intimidate religious workers. In addition to threats, Sendero
terrorists threw a stick of dynamite at a Mormon chapel in
Chilca in June.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The Constitution provides for the right of free movement, and
there are no political or legal constraints on foreign travel
or emigration. However, the authorities can restrict people
with pending criminal and, in some cases, civil charges from
leaving the country. Freedom of movement is suspended in the
emergency zones but is generally permitted under control of the
army. Nonetheless, the authorities may detain travelers in the
emergency zones at any time. During the army's operation in
northern Huanuco department in April, the army closed a zone
north of Tingo Maria and west of the Huallaga river for several
weeks (see Section 1.g.).
The Constitution prohibits the revocation of citizenship.
Repatriates (both voluntary and involuntary) are not treated
any differently than other citizens. Peru has provisions for
granting asylum and refugee status; the procedures have been
used by small groups of persons in recent years, principally
Cubans. Refugees are not forced to return to countries in
which they fear persecution.
On occasion, Sendero tried to interrupt free movement within
the country, conducting "armed strikes" during which civilians
were told to stay home or risk reprisals. Public and private
vehicles operating during such strikes were subject to attack.
Sendero's armed strikes were significantly less successful in
1994 than in previous years.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
The Constitution provides for the right of citizens to choose
and change the laws and officials that govern them, and
citizens exercise this right in practice. Voting is mandatory
by secret ballot for all citizens between the ages of 18 and
70; however, prisoners and members of the armed forces and
police are ineligible to vote. The law bars only groups that
advocate violent overthrow of the Government from participating
in the political process. The Fujimori administration
tolerated opposition groups representing a wide variety of
opinion and ideology and did not hinder them from criticizing
the Government.
The campaign for the 1995 presidential and congressional
elections began in late 1994. Under a provision of the new
Constitution, President Fujimori will seek reelection. In
October an unprecedented 26 political groups representing a
wide political spectrum launched presidential bids, though the
independent National Elections Board disqualified nearly half
for failure to meet registration requirements.
Opposition politicians, human rights groups, and the media all
complained of the incumbent's unfettered access to government
resources to promote his candidacy. There were already a
limited number of reports of instances of irregularities in the
campaign, such as government harassment of, and spying on,
opposition members. Nevertheless, opposition candidates were
able to campaign across the country and hold rallies (including
in the government-declared emergency zones), buy
advertisements, and speak freely to the press.
There are no laws that restrict women and minorities from
participating in government and politics; both women and
minorities (including indigenous people), for example, are
represented in the Congress and some senior government
leadership positions. There are 7 congresswomen out of
80 members. Two of the 14 cabinet ministers and several vice
ministers are women, as is the Attorney General and a supreme
court justice. Four of the 26 people declaring candidacies in
the 1995 presidential campaign were women, though 2 failed to
meet election board requirements, and 1 later withdrew.
President Fujimori is from a racial minority. There are two or
three indigenous congressmen, and one recent vice president was
a Quechua speaker. There are some indigenous prosecutors, and
one of the declared presidential candidates is a Quechua
speaker from Ancash. However, it is difficult for indigenous
people to reach the highest leadership levels in both the
public and private sectors. Discrimination has often led to
exclusion of these groups from leadership positions in
government and business (see Section 5).
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
The Government allowed numerous nongovernmental organizations
(NGO's) dedicated to monitoring and advancing human rights to
operate independently, although government officials often
criticized them. The military often restricted the ability of
local and international human rights workers to investigate
human rights abuses; the Government usually ignored human
rights groups' requests for information; and it prohibited many
human rights monitors--but not the ICRC--from visiting key
prisons. Verbal attacks by the Government against both
domestic and international human rights monitors suggested a
hardening of the Fujimori administration's attitude toward the
role of NGO's (especially those associated with foreigners) in
bringing human rights abuses to public attention. Legitimate
fears of physical attack by Sendero severely limited the
ability of human rights monitors to carry out their work.
The vast majority of Peruvian human rights NGO's are
independent and generally objective in their views. Several
private human rights groups joined in 1985 to form an umbrella
organization known as the National Coordinating Committee for
Human Rights, or Coordinadora. Over 40 groups from around the
country are either voting or observer members of the
Coordinadora. The Coordinadora maintains a policy of not
mixing politics with human rights (although its individual
members may occasionally do so, but not under the
Coordinadora's name), and its members function as credible,
thorough, and impartial observers. The previously established
dialog between the Government and the Coordinadora stalled over
dissatisfaction with progress on key agenda items and Congress'
action in the La Cantuta case.
Local groups repeatedly denounced Sendero Luminoso as the
largest violator of human rights in Peru, while simultaneously
documenting the many violations by government forces. In fact,
strong documentary evidence proves that Coordinadora members
have been balanced in their denunciations of abuses by both
sides. Nevertheless, President Fujimori, other government
officials, members of the business community, and the
progovernment press often unfairly accused human rights groups
of being defenders of terrorism and of criticizing only
government abuses, not those of Sendero. For example, in
January government-party Congresswoman Martha Chavez called for
greater congressional oversight of NGO's on the grounds that
some of them were allegedly "financing terrorism." However,
she produced no evidence to prove her accusation. The
Coordinadora and other organizations responded by noting that
by law their accounting was transparent and proved that they
were not channeling funds to terrorist groups.
In April the Government's public attacks on human rights groups
stepped up as those groups denounced the reported army killings
in sweep operations in Huanuco department. President Fujimori
criticized human rights organizations, claiming they had not
denounced human rights violations by terrorists. Health
Minister Jaime Freundt publicly accused human rights NGO's of
defending Sendero Luminoso. In addition to reversing for
7 weeks the policy of allowing the ICRC access to the zone
where the operation took place, the political-military
commander of the Huallaga front, where the Huanuco killings
took place, alleged to the media in April that the ICRC was
collaborating with terrorists. Finally, on April 27, the
government-controlled Congress passed a resolution condemning
the Coordinadora for supposedly lying and exaggerating its
denunciations of the Huanuco killings and thereby "damaging the
image and prestige of Peru."
In early May, a Ministry of the Presidency official, Dora
Solari, and a government-party congressman, Hugo Zamatta,
without offering proof, accused unnamed NGO's of having links
to terrorism. Also in May executive branch officials,
including President Fujimori and Justice Minister Vega,
boycotted a visit by Pierre Sane, the Secretary General of
Amnesty International; Vega wrote to Sane before the visit
telling him he was not welcome in Peru. Executive branch
officials also refused to meet with a human rights delegation
from the New York Bar Association and would not permit the
delegates to visit any of the country's prisons. In late
September, President Fujimori again criticized international
human rights organizations, alleging that they were "defending
the human rights of terrorists and not the public." A few days
later, the Congress passed a motion authorizing its oversight
committee to investigate NGO's use of funds. In December
President Fujimori publicly labeled the Coordinadora as
terrorist accomplices for its alleged "complicitous silence."
In a spirited public rebuttal the next day, the Coordinadora
Executive Secretary pointed out that since its foundation the
Coordinadora had condemned acts committed by Sendero and MRTA.
Some human rights workers were the subject of threats and
harassment from unknown sources. One, who worked for a
Lima-based human rights group and a local radio station,
received repeated anonymous telephone calls advising him to
stop criticizing the Government or he would be killed. In
October a judge issued an arrest warrant for another human
rights monitor working for a church group in Chimbote because
he was reportedly associated with two environmentalists
detained on terrorism charges. Human rights groups affirmed
the innocence of both the environmentalists and the monitor.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
The Constitution provides for equal rights for all citizens and
specifically prohibits discrimination based on ethnic origin,
race, gender, language, religion, opinion, or economic
condition. Nevertheless, discrimination against women and
minorities is extensive. Discrimination based on sexual
preference is also frequent. According to Peru's only gay
rights group, the Homosexual Movement of Lima, gays and
lesbians are often the target of harassment by police, who
rarely investigate hate crimes against them. On August 11,
police raided a gay bar in Lima, allegedly beat some of the
patrons, and arrested 76 people without making any charges.
They held some of the customers in custody for 7 hours before
releasing them.
Women
The Constitution grants women equality with men, and laws on
marriage, divorce, and property rights do not discriminate
against women. Nevertheless, tradition often impedes access by
women to leadership roles in major social, business, and
political institutions. However, there is a small but growing
number of women in leadership positions in the Government (see
Section 3).
Violence against women, including rape and spousal abuse, is a
chronic problem, according to local women's groups and law
enforcement offices. On average there were 326 complaints of
violence against women per month, according to these sources.
In the last 10 years, there were over 59,600 reported cases of
violence against women; many additional cases, however, go
unreported. There are special women's police stations in Lima
and other major cities to deal with the rising number of
complaints of domestic violence. In addition, women's groups
have established legal aid and health centers for women.
Judicial authorities do take legal action against perpetrators
of domestic violence. However, one of the reasons that special
women's police stations were established was that regular
policemen often do not take seriously accusations by women
against their husbands. Although the Government has passed
strong legislation against domestic violence, this is not
always translated into action at lower levels, especially
outside the major cities.
Although prohibited by law, sexual harassment in the workplace
is a common problem. According to a study by the Flora Tristan
Women's Center, 62 percent of working women knew of cases of
sexual harassment in the workplace. Women's groups assert that
this problem is on the rise and is exacerbated by the country's
high rate of unemployment.
Sendero Luminoso also targeted women's organizations, claiming
that communal kitchens and the "glass of milk" program--managed
principally by women--have links with the Government.
Children
The Government does not adequately address children's human
rights and welfare. President Fujimori has on numerous
occasions emphasized the need to improve education at all
levels, but the Government does not provide sufficient funding
for the public schools. Millions of children suffer from
malnutrition and live in extreme poverty. In addition, minors
can be tried as adults for terrorism offenses (see below).
A large percentage of children are born out of wedlock; many
fathers fail to support their children. In addition, orphans
have become common, due in large part to the guerrilla war; one
newspaper estimated the number of war orphans at 55,000. It is
not unusual for indigent parents to give up their children,
either through adoption or by sending them away as house
servants. In Lima alone, there are thousands of homeless,
orphaned, or abandoned children. Many children are forced to
work in the informal economy to support themselves; according
to the Movement of Children of Christian Workers, the number of
children under the age of 16 obliged to work exceeds 200,000.
Violence against children is a serious problem. Approximately
half of all rapes are perpetrated against minors. According to
the director of Lima's children's hospital, 600,000 children
have been the victims of abandonment and physical violence.
Decree Law 25564, issued by President Fujimori in June 1992,
provides for minors aged 15 to 18 to be tried as adults for
terrorism offenses. The law was issued in response to
Sendero's frequent use of minors in acts of terrorism. Several
dozen minors are awaiting trial or serving time in various
prisons. In October 1993, the Children's Rights Committee of
the United Nations reported that Peruvian minors accused of
terrorism "do not benefit from the safeguards or guarantees
normally offered by the juvenile administration of justice
system."
Although hampered by a lack of resources, the Government has
taken some measures to safeguard children's rights. For
example, in February the Government stiffened the penalties for
rape and violence against children; conviction of rape of a
minor can now mean life imprisonment, depending on the
circumstances. The Justice Ministry administers several
children's defense centers around the country which work to
protect the rights of children and deal with cases of violence
against minors. In 1994 training for police officers included
a course on children's rights. In addition the Government
announced it would build 30 to 40 homes for orphaned and
abandoned children; it inaugurated one of these shelters in
Lima in September.
Indigenous People
The 1993 Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race
and guarantees the right of all citizens to speak their native
language. However, Peru's large indigenous population faces
pervasive discrimination and social prejudice, in addition to
suffering many of the severe human rights abuses cited in this
report. Because of geographic isolation, government
centralization, lack of organization, and social
marginalization, indigenous people are in general unable to
participate in decisions affecting their lands, cultures,
traditions, and the allocation of natural resources. These
decisions are made by the central Government in Lima.
Particularly in the jungle regions, colonists, coca
cultivators, guerrillas, and business interests steadily
encroach on native lands, many seeking to exploit natural
resources. Indigenous groups fear that Articles 88 and 89 of
the Constitution, which assign to the State any native lands
"in abandonment," will mean the loss and sale to commercial
interests of traditional land. Some Amazon groups have
expressed concern over the possible effects on their
communities and the environment of oil and gas exploration in
the Camisea area. Malnutrition and disease are rampant among
many of these tribes.
The law generally protects the civil and political rights of
indigenous people to the same extent as the rights of other
citizens. However, many indigenous groups live in isolated
areas, which affect the Government's ability to offer them
services, security, and enforcement and protection of civil and
political rights.
The largest indigenous groups are speakers of Quechua and
Aymara (recognized as official languages), but there are dozens
of smaller native language groups. Indigenous people lack
access to public services and support in their native lands,
and investment is focused largely on the coast. The
Government's lack of investment in traditional indigenous areas
has been aggravated in recent years by the presence of Sendero
Luminoso in many such places.
Sendero Luminoso remains by far the most egregious violator of
the rights of indigenous people. It continued to target
violence against the Ashaninka tribe in Peru's central jungle.
The Coordinadora estimated that between 20 and 40 Ashaninka
communities have disappeared as a result of Sendero violence,
and that more than 10,000 Ashaninkas have been displaced. As
many as 3,000 Ashaninkas may be trapped in zones under Sendero
oppression. In late August, unconfirmed reports indicated that
common graves with the bodies of Ashaninka natives were
discovered; the authorities said they believed the graves may
contain the remains of victims of Sendero violence.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Peru's population includes several small racial minorities, the
largest of which are blacks of African descent and Asians.
Blacks, who tend to be concentrated along the coast, face
particularly pervasive discrimination and social prejudice and
are among the poorest groups in Peru. This discrimination
excludes blacks from leadership roles in government, military,
and business institutions. Both the navy and the air force
reportedly have unwritten policies that exclude blacks from the
officer corps. According to Peru's two black human rights
groups, police routinely detain persons of African descent on
suspicion of committing crimes for no other reason than the
color of their skin, and police rarely act on complaints of
crime against blacks. The human rights groups also note that
blacks tend to be relegated to servants' jobs; the few blacks
who have been relatively successful financially have done so in
the sports and entertainment fields.
People with Disabilities
Although the Constitution states that disabled persons "have
the rights to respect of their dignity and to a regime of
protection, attention, readaptation and security," the
Government spends relatively little on assisting the
handicapped or preventing discrimination against them. There
is little public infrastructure with facilities for people with
disabilities, such as wheelchair ramps on streets or in
buildings, and no law mandating access for them. Disabled
persons face discrimination when seeking employment; many are
reduced to begging in the streets.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The new Constitution recognizes the right to organize a trade
union, to engage in collective negotiations, and to strike.
These rights are to be exercised democratically, and the State
is to promote the peaceful resolution of labor disputes. The
Constitution states, however, that the right to strike must
take into account broader social interests. It also states
that employers may not require membership or nonmembership in a
union as a condition of employment.
About 7 percent of the estimated 8.5 million persons in the
work force belong to organized labor unions. Up to
three-quarters of Peruvian workers work in the informal sector
of the economy, which operates largely beyond government
supervision and taxation. Existing unions represent a
cross-section of political opinion. Though some unions have
been traditionally associated with political groups, unions are
prohibited by law from engaging in explicitly political,
religious, or profit-making activities. There are no
restrictions on membership in international bodies.
Workers from organized trades, teachers, and government unions
struck more frequently than in 1993, seeking benefits in
accordance with the improved economic situation they perceive.
Reprisals against striking workers are reportedly infrequent.
Union members and officials have been targets of terrorist
assassination and intimidation attempts. The labor movement
and its leaders have been generally hostile to terrorist groups
and have fought to prevent or reduce terrorist infiltration
into the labor movement; however, the Government detained some
union officials suspected of terrorist links.
In March the International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee
of Experts' annual review of compliance with ILO conventions
criticized a number of restrictive practices and asked the
Government to take initiatives to amend its labor legislation
so as to bring it into conformity with the conventions to which
Peru is a party.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
Although the Constitution recognizes the right of public and
private workers to organize, bargain collectively, and strike,
it states that these rights must be exercised in harmony with
broader social interests. It excludes public employees
exercising management or decisionmaking authority, as well as
members of the police and military, from the right to organize
or strike. However, both judiciary branch and Lima municipal
workers conducted strikes in late 1994 to protest salary and
working conditions.
Labor regulations promulgated prior to the 1993 approval of the
new Constitution provide that workers can form unions based on
profession, employment, or geographic location. The
regulations exclude temporary, probationary, apprentice, or
management employees from union membership. They require a
minimum of 100 members to form trade unions by branch of
activity, occupation, or for various occupations; and a minimum
of 20 workers to form a union within a company. They also
limit the number of union officials, the amount of time they
may devote to union business on company time, and require them
to be active members of the union.
Labor regulations set the number of union representatives who
can participate in collective bargaining negotiations (a
minimum of 3, maximum of 12), and establish the negotiating
timetable. The management negotiating team cannot exceed the
size of the workers' team; both sides may have attorneys and
professional experts in attendance as advisers. A majority of
all workers in a company, whether union members or not, must
approve a strike by a secret ballot. A second vote must be
taken upon petition of 20 percent or more of the workers.
The law permits companies unilaterally to propose temporary
changes of work schedules, conditions, and wages and to suspend
for up to 90 days collective bargaining agreements if required
by force majeure or economic conditions, provided they give 15
days' notice to employees. If workers dispute the proposed
changes, the Labor Ministry is to resolve the dispute based
upon criteria of "reasonableness" and "economic necessity." In
such cases employers are to authorize vacation time and in
general adopt measures that avoid aggravating the employment
situation.
A conciliation and arbitration system resolves disputes in
collective bargaining impasses, but union officials complain
that their proportionate share of the cost of arbitration
exceeds their resources. They also state that increasing
numbers of companies utilize a policy of hiring workers on
temporary, personal services contracts to prevent union
affiliation. This has become an issue of contention between
organized labor and employers and is one of several concerns
that labor has raised in international forums. Employers deny
the accusation of antiunion bias and assert that labor
stability provisions of the law have made long-term commitments
to workers too expensive.
The law does not prohibit antiunion discrimination, and there
are no effective measures to resolve such complaints. No legal
provisions require employers who commit antiunion discrimination
to reinstate workers fired for union activities.
Special regulations permitting greater flexibility in
application for the Labor Code in export and duty free zones
provide for the use of temporary labor as needed, flexibility
in labor contracts, and a wage system based upon supply and
demand. As a result, workers in duty free zones are unable to
unionize.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The Constitution prohibits forced or compulsory labor, as well
as imprisonment for debt. However, there are periodic reports
of the practice of forced labor in remote mountainous Andean
and Amazonian jungle regions of the country. In response to
one complaint filed with the ILO, the Government acknowledged
the existence of such practices and asserted it had taken
measures to end abuses, such as closing down and fining
clandestine recruitment agencies and opening a labor and social
welfare office in Huaypetue, where forced labor abuses had
occurred.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
Education through primary school is compulsory and free.
However, a high percentage of school-age children work rather
than attend daytime classes, with only a small number of such
children attending classes at night. The minimum legal age for
employment is 16. Labor law contains special provisions for
workers between the ages of 16 and 21. Their apprenticeship
cannot exceed 18 months, they must be paid at least the minimum
wage, should be accorded specialized training, and can comprise
no more than 15 percent of a company's work force. Given
Peru's widespread poverty, children work in the informal
economy without government supervision of wages or conditions
from a very early age to help support their families. Child
labor is heavily used in the agricultural sector and to mine
gold, but not in other major export industries, such as
petroleum or fisheries.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The Constitution provides that the State should promote social
and economic progress and occupational education. It states
that workers should receive a "just and sufficient" wage, to be
determined by the Government in consultation with labor and
business representatives, and "adequate protection against
arbitrary dismissal." The current minimum wage is about $57
(130 soles) per month and is generally considered inadequate to
support a worker and family.
The Constitution also provides for a 48-hour workweek, a weekly
day of rest, and yearly vacation. It prohibits discrimination
in the workplace. While occupational health and safety
standards exist, the Government lacks the resources to monitor
or enforce compliance. Employers and workers generally agree
upon compensation for industrial accidents on an individual
basis. The Government introduced reforms in 1993 eliminating
the need to prove culpability to obtain workman's compensation
for injuries. There are no provisions for workers to remove
themselves from dangerous work place situations without
jeopardy to continued employment.
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