Letter to President-elect Alan García
Washington, D.C., July 26, 2006
Dr. Alan García
President-elect of Perú
Lima, Perú
Dear President-elect Alan García:
I am writing to share Human Rights Watch’s concerns regarding one of the most important challenges that you will face during your new term as president of Peru: ending impunity for past human rights violations and strengthening the rule of law in Peru.
When you last served as president, thousands Peruvians lost their lives, victims of atrocities committed by armed insurgent groups and by government forces. The armed groups deliberately and ruthlessly targeted civilians, often from the most vulnerable segments of the community. Government forces, in their response, executed suspects or made them “disappear.” Indeed, the number of forced disappearances in Peru during these years was, according to the United Nations, higher than in any other country in the world. The trauma caused by these atrocities was compounded by Peru’s failure to bring the perpetrators to justice. In the case of abuses committed by insurgent groups, instead of providing justice, the state resorted in the 1990s to trials that lacked the basic procedural guarantees needed to ensure that the people convicted were in fact the ones who committed the crimes. In the case of government abuses, no serious effort was made to investigate and prosecute those responsible.
Today the problem of political violence is largely a thing of the past. But the problem of impunity is not. As a matter of international law, Peru has an obligation not only to prevent human rights abuses, but also to punish those who commit them. Even in the cases of atrocities committed two decades ago, this fundamental obligation remains as urgent today as it was when you left office.
More:
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/26/peru13838.htm~~~~~~~~~~~Peru: five killed in trade protests
Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 02:51.
Campesinos and farmers started an open-ended strike in eight Peruvian departments on Feb. 18, holding marches and blocking highways to demand government measures to ease the impact of a free trade agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) with the US. The action was called by the National Convention of Agriculture (Conveagro), the National Council of Irrigation Users (JNUDR) and the National Agrarian Confederation (CNA). According to JNUDR president Enrique Malaga, the FTA, which is to lift tariffs on heavily subsidized US farm products, will harm more than 1.75 million Peruvian farms.
One protester was killed in Barranca, north of Lima, on Feb. 18; police said he was shot by an angry motorist. Three more protesters were killed on Feb. 19: two were shot dead when police fired into a march in Ayacucho department in the central Andean region; another protester fell to his death as he was fleeing police tear gas near the Pan-American Highway in the southern department of Arequipa. At least 150 people were arrested. The government declared a state of emergency in the eight departments on Feb. 19, and by the end of the day the organizers had suspended the strike and resumed negotiations with the government.
Also on Feb. 19, teachers marched on Congress in Lima to protest a decree by social democratic president Alan Garcia on the hiring of teachers with university degrees in the public schools.
Despite the suspension, campesinos continued the strike through Feb. 20 in the southern departments of Cusco, Arequipa and Ayacucho to protest the four deaths in the preceding days. According to CNR radio, a fifth protester, Edgar Huayta Saccsara, was killed during the Feb. 20 strike. He was reportedly shot in the head during disturbances in Huamanga, capital of Ayacucho; some 73 other people were injured. Also on Feb. 20, US ambassador Peter Michael McKinley spoke out in favor of the trade pact, which the US Congress approved in December. It would "establish modern systems of trade regulation and design a discipline which will improve Peru's competitiveness and promote its prosperity," he said. (Bloomberg News, Feb. 21; Earth Times, Feb. 20; TeleSUR, Feb. 19; EFE, Feb. 20; Prensa Latina, Feb. 20)
More:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5154~~~~~~~~~~Repression intesifies in Peru
7 March 2008
~snip~
Campesinos are being crushed by increases in living costs aggravated by the miserable prices they receive for their products — as well as lack of credit, higher fertiliser prices, etc.
What the government has brought in practice (as a result of the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, which subsidises its agriculture) is an agrarian policy that makes Peru an importer of agrarian produce at the expense of Peruvian producers.
The campesino strike was answered with violent repression. The police fired at the heads of the demonstrators. Victims’ bodies revealed two or three bullet holes in the nape that indicate that the shots came from behind.
But interior minister Luis Alva — who is politically responsible for the killings — says, with no proof at all, that the demonstrators died from shotgun fire, and that in other cases demonstrators seized arms from the police to kill each other.
We know that despite their lies, they won’t be censured. The majority of the parliamentary chamber members, no matter what party they’re from, are agreed that everything must be done to defend the big multinational firms against grassroots protests. The main thing for them is the political and legal defence of the multinational mining companies against the Peruvian population.
The government also has a project to take away the lands of campesino communities. It is called “the law of the jungle”. It aims to privatise the Amazon region without respecting in any way the populations living there.
The government wants to privatise water, the ports, put down the teachers, and renege on signed promises to increase public service wages. It is beginning to privatise our archeological patrimony.
Faced with complaints against the rising cost of living, the government claims that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is to blame for hunger in Peru.
More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/743/38439~~~~~~~~~Politics | 10 March, 2008 < 16:30 >
Polls show Peru's President Alan Garcia more unpopular than ever
(LIP-ir) -- A poll conducted by CPI polling firm revealed that President Alan Garcia's disapproval rating had reached 64.7 percent while only 28.2 percent of the people polled supported the Andean nation's president.
Among the population's major complaints were the fact that Garcia's administration had not fulfilled the promises made while running for president and a recent increase in the prices of certain food products.
More:
http://www.livinginperu.com/news-5923-politics-polls-show-perus-president-alan-garcia-more-unpopular-than-ever
Peru's President Alan Garcia goes to Washington
Alan Garcia dancing