2024-07-18 14:00:00
Eighteen months after one of the most serious incidents of human rights violations in Peru’s recent history, in which 50 people and a policeman died and more than 1,400 were injured while announcements that take place between December 2022 and March 2023the evidence points to the possible criminal responsibility of the president In Boluarte and may prove important in ongoing investigations, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.
The report, Who pursues the order? Chain of responsibility for deaths and injuries in protests in Peru explains the key decisions made by the president as the supreme commander of the armed forces and the police of Peru, which supports the prosecutors to evaluate his individual criminal responsibility in the ongoing investigations.
“Peru’s president, ministers, police chiefs and military made decisions that ultimately had fatal consequences. Hundreds of victims and survivors are waiting for answers about what the top leaders knew, or should have known. you know, and what did nothing to stop the murders, “said. Ana Piquer, American director at Amnesty International.
“Hundreds of victims and survivors are waiting for answers about what top government officials knew, or should have known, and what they didn’t do to stop the killing.“
By the way President Boluarte denied under oath before the Prosecutor’s Office that he had direct relations with the authorities and minimized his role in the repression of the government, the report shows that, during the three months that the protests took place throughout the country. He met several times with military and police chiefs, which gives him many opportunities to judge the widespread illegal use of force and order a change in the procedures on the ground. However, instead of using his frequent meetings with ministers, police and military commanders to this end, he continued to publicly praise the security forces while referring to the protesters as “terrorists” and “criminals,” without providing proof of this. Furthermore, instead of being accountable to his subordinates, he decided to promote key officials to higher positions, even though they were directly in charge of police and military operations that resulted in many deaths.
In the case of National Police of Peru (PNP), police chiefs signed work orders that described the protesters as “terrorists,” They sent armed special forces to confront them, allowed the use of lethal force, and repeated the same orders for months, despite mass killings. Furthermore, the PNP was unable to provide Amnesty International with details of there is no disciplinary action against the officers involved, since he has filed at least 18 open disciplinary investigations against police officers. After overseeing and signing all operational plans that had deadly consequences during the protests, President Boluarte promoted the police general responsible for these plans to the PNP General Manager.
Amnesty International reviewed the PNP’s internal operational plans and found that, in addition to maintaining public order while roads and public facilities were blocked by protesters, the police took arbitrary and widespread orders, such as ” remove the human barriers” To this end, we provide the police with guns and plans to allow units with these deadly weapons to fire under the command of an operational director. The consent process for lethal force violates both Peruvian law and international human rights law, which states that weapons are not appropriate for human control. The operational plans also make it clear that those higher up the chain of command are always informed and aware of what is happening.
Police operations are deadly from the first days of their deployment in protests. Inside Andahuaylas, on December 12, 2022, the special police fired live ammunition from the roof of a hill where many people were watching a clash between the police and protesters about twenty meters below. The police shot and killed two young men on the hill and injured others. Amnesty International found that the authorities handling the operation were only two blocks away from where the incident took place.
Although the deployment of special military units in Andahuaylas was fatal, the presidents continued with the same tactics for months, without stopping the excessive, irregular and unnecessary use of force by their commanders. A month after the first deaths in Andahuaylas, senior PNP leaders decided to send the same special forces chiefs to oversee operations at the Juliaca airport, where there were protests on January 9, 2023. Eighteen people died that day in Juliaca and more than 100. hurt
This work was carried out despite the fact that many international human rights organizations condemned the actions of the Peruvian security forces at the time. The soldiers have already been deployed in an operation in another city, weeks before, in the field of Ayacucho, which leaves 10 a day. However, senior PNP officials decided to re-intensify the military in the joint military and police operation at the Juliaca airport.
Amnesty International also analyzed the chain of command and operational plans related to the deployment of armed forces in Ayacucho. The commanders of the armed forces have classified the protesters as “hostile groups,” which would have provoked a response from the soldiers in action on December 15, 2022, which caused 10 deaths and many people were injured. Records obtained by Amnesty International show that soldiers fired at least 1,200 bullets that day, responding to “verbal orders” from their commanders.
In Ayacucho, shooting against defenseless protesters and villagers continued for seven hours on December 15, 2022, despite personal telephone calls from the Ombudsman to the head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and the Minister of Defense ask for a termination.
Although there is a lot of evidence that the army’s actions were excessive, reckless and unnecessary, President Dina Boluarte said that his actions were legal in a press conference two days after the deadly operation in Ayacucho. Four days later, he appointed the defense minister as the head of his entire cabinet.
In the months following the operations in Ayacucho, the military only took internal disciplinary measures against eight soldiers for “minor offenses,” despite extensive evidence that soldiers fired at unprovoked protesters. armed, who in many cases ran away from them or stopped to help injured passers-by. -by.
The Prime Minister’s cabinet also failed to take steps to hold the relevant people in the security forces accountable. The Ministry of the Interior responded to a public information request from Amnesty International in which it confirmed that no disciplinary action was taken against the general in charge of police operations during social protests. The organization also received letters sent by the Minister of the Interior to the General Manager of the PNP regarding the January 2023 announcements, in which the 18 people killed in Juliaca during police operations were not taken into account.
Eighteen months later, criminal investigations into human rights violations committed during the protests are making slow progress. Despite the fact that the president and ministers have been questioned on several occasions, according to the available information, the prosecutors seem to have carried out systematic investigations so far: simply going through the procedures without taking into account the facts, including the possible criminal activity of each individual. The president as the head of the police and the military.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have made some progress in identifying many police and military officers as suspects in criminal investigations, but they continue to ignore key officials in the chain of command, even a key PNP chief, according to Amnesty International. stand out in your traffic.
“Peru cannot allow serious human rights violations to go unpunished. Many victims are from indigenous communities and peasant communities, whose voices have not been ignored in history. must face justice, regardless of high status them,” said Marina Navarro, executive director of Amnesty International Peru.
Spanish Arms in Peru
Amnesty International calls on the Spanish government to maintain a moratorium on the export of riot control equipment to Peru, announced in February 2023, until there is significant progress in the investigation against those responsible for the violence that caused the death of 50 people and took place. Something that still does not happen today, which perpetuates the atmosphere of innocence.
Amnesty International is concerned that the Secretary of State for Trade, appearing before the Security Committee of the House of Representatives last March, opened the door to review, analyze or modify the decision to stop the export of such materials to Peru despite the fact that there is no progress in studies.
In a letter to the Interministerial Commission authorizing arms exports, Amnesty International reiterated its request that The ban on riot control equipment has been extended to the sale of any type of firearms and firearmswhich can be used by the Peruvian security forces to commit serious human rights violations, a fact that the organization has been alerting the Spanish Government since 2017.
Amnesty International also called on the Government to conduct an independent investigation into the use of Spanish weapons in the deadly repression of these protests. We remember that the Amnesty International Evidence Laboratory concluded in his investigation that in the suppression of demonstrations that took place between December 2022 and March 2023, anti-aircraft guns and rubber bullets produced by Spanish company Maxam Outdoor.
According to official data, the value of the arms license orders to Peru between 2017 and June 2023 is 187 million euros, of which almost 40 million according to the instrument of the control of chaos. Regarding the exports made at the same time, Amnesty International expressed concern about the exports of firearms worth 4.7 million, ammunition for 2.4 million and anti-traumatic equipment for almost 1 million. Europe.
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