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Peru Probable Cause Evidence Implicating Fujimori This 22-page report focuses specifically on information implicating Fujimori in five criminal cases currently pending in Peru, including human rights violations as well as acts of corruption that undermined Peru’s democratic institutions. HRW Index No.: B1706 December 21, 2005 Also available in 
Download PDF, 305 KB, 24 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Peru: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers There are indications of under-18s in government armed forces, including some who have been forcibly recruited despite legislation to the contrary. Armed groups used child soldiers extensively in past conflicts. June 12, 2001 Peru: Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Key developments since March 1999: In April 1999, the "Program for Demining Assistance in Ecuador/Perú" (PADEP) was established by the OAS. In August and September 1999, UNMAS and the OAS conducted independent assessments of the mine problem in Peru. An inter-ministerial Working Group on Antipersonnel Mines was formalized in September 1999 to oversee implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty. Perú has served as co-rapporteur of the Mine Ban Treaty Standing Committee of Experts on Mine Clearance. Stockpile destruction is underway. More than 30,000 landmines were cleared and destroyed in 1999 and early 2000. August 1, 2000 Torture and Political Persecution in Peru In the past few years, the human rights panorama in Peru has brightened considerably because of the decline in the massive "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions that has accompanied reduced political violence. Despite this positive trend, however, serious human rights violations continue, chief among them the use of torture. With the success of the Alberto Fujimori administration in substantially crippling the armed opposition groups' military capacity, counterinsurgency efforts are now conducted principally through a system of special anti-terrorism courts and military tribunals, backed by a ubiquitous intelligence apparatus. Institutionalized torture plays a key role in this system. Torture is also routine in the interrogation of suspects in cases of common crime. The army has even used torture against its own members who came under suspicion of endangering national security. Two armed opposition groups, the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path (Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso, PCP-SL), known as the Shining Path, and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, MRTA), both consistently breach basic principles of international humanitarian law. The Shining Path commits selective assassinations of its civilian opponents and carries out indiscriminate attacks, killing and maiming civilians. The MRTA, on a lesser scale, has also resorted to executions and indiscriminate attacks, and has kidnaped civilians and taken them hostage for lucrative ransoms or to force the government into releasing imprisoned cadres. Both organizations have resorted to torture, usually as a prelude to execution. December 1, 1997 Purchase online Presumption of Guilt: Human Rights Violations and the Faceless Courts in Peru The incarceration of hundreds of innocent prisoners charged or convicted of terrorist crimes they did not commit is now an open secret in Peru. While there may be disagreement about the numbers unjustly prosecuted by Peru's "faceless courts," no one in Peru, including the architect of the court system, President Alberto Fujimori, denies that the problem exists. Those caught up in the system are presumed guilty and have minimal opportunities to demonstrate their innocence. In recent years, the Minister of Justice, the former prosecutor for terrorism, Fujimori himself, and many lawmakers have proposed the creation of special mechanisms such as a review commission to remedy defects in the trials, at least in those cases where there are compelling reasons to believe in the defendant's innocence. Yet nothing has been done to establish any such mechanism. In the meantime, faceless military and civilian courts, conducting secret trials behind prison walls, continue to sentence Peruvians to decades of imprisonment in life-threatening conditions without offering them the basic judicial process guarantees required by international human rights law. August 1, 1996 Children in Combat Throughout the world, thousands of children are used as soldiers in armed conflicts.1 Although international law forbids recruiting children under fifteen as soldiers, such young children may be found in government armies and, more commonly, in armed rebel groups. Armed forces, both governmental and non-governmental, often claim that the children in their camps are there for their own protection and welfare. In fact, however, the involvement of the children in the conflict puts them in grave danger and is detrimental to their physical and mental health and development. This report concerns the ways in which children are recruited, the possible reasons for their recruitment and participation, the roles children play in combat and in violence against civilians, and their treatment by the groups that recruit them. It does not deal with all of the countries in which child soldiers are used, but only with countries in which Human Rights Watch has investigated the practice. Legal standards for the prevention of the recruitment of children and problems in applying and enforcing them are covered as well. January 1, 1996 Download PDF, 219 KB, 26 pgs Printer friendly version Peru: The Two Faces of Justice The creation of a system of faceless courts to prosecute those accused of terrorism—justified as a temporary emergency measure—stands out as anti-democratic and in violation of basic human rights principles. Together with the impunity granted to government forces who torture, rape, and murder citizens, justice under Fujimori is two-faced: benevolent to soldiers, punitive to civilians. Not a single person charged with terrorism or treason in Peru since new laws were implemented in 1992 has received a fair trial. Of the thousands tried or convicted by so-called faceless courts, presided over by secret prosecutors and judges, hundreds are innocent, snared by planted evidence, perjury, mistaken identity, the uncorroborated and often politically motivated testimony of repented guerrillas, lost court files, political witch hunts, and even typographical errors in court documents. The arbitrary permeates every stage of the judicial process, erasing any pretense at fairness, impartiality, or legal procedure. July 1, 1995 Anatomy of a Cover-Up: The Disappearances at La Cantuta On July 18, 1992, nine students and a professor were disappeared from the Enrique Guzmén y Valle University outside Lima, widely known as “La Cantuta,” in circumstances that suggest the participation of the Peruvian army and a secret death squad operated by the National Intelligence Service. Despite a body of persuasive evidence linking this latest disappearance to the security forces, no credible effort has been made by the government to launch an impartial investigation in order to find and punish those responsible. September 1, 1993 Purchase online Human Rights in Peru: One Year After Fujimori’s Coup One year after elected President Alberto Fujimori suspended Peru’s constitution, closed down the congress, took control of the judiciary, and began to rule by decree, Peru’s already troubling human rights situation has become significantly worse. Government forces continue to carry out high levels of violent abuses — including extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and rape — with little apparent effort to punish those responsible. (Also available in Spanish) HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-098-7 April 1, 1993 Untold Terror: Violence against Women in Peru’s Armed Conflict Throughout Peru’s twelve-year internal war, women have been the targets of sustained, frequently brutal violence committed by both parties to the armed conflict often for the purpose of punishing or dominating those believed to be sympathetic to the opposing side. Women have been threatened, raped and murdered by both government security forces and by members of the Communist Party of Peru, the Shining Path. Often, the same woman is the victim of violence by both sides. This is the first Americas Watch/Women’s Rights Project report to focus on violence against women in Peru. It is part of a broader effort to focus on the role of violence against women in internal and international conflicts in other parts of the world as well, and is meant to complement local efforts to bolster reporting on abuses against women. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-093-6 December 1, 1992 Peru Under Fire: Human Rights since the Return to Democracy The people of Peru are caught in a deadly crossfire between government forces and a brutal insurgent movement, chiefly Sendero Luminoso, as they battle for control of the country. Peru’s citizens now live under a sustained state of emergency: in effect governed by the military, they lack basic protections against arbitrary arrest, incarceration, or extrajudicial execution by the armed and police forces or the paramilitary groups that are tolerated. However, although Peru now has the highest rate of disappearances of any nation worldwide, serious public debate about human rights has declined in the face of mounting economic and political turmoil. In Peru under Fire, Americas Watch shows that the nation’s elected leadership, faced with an unparalleled economic crisis, has lacked the capacity or will to combat subversion with reforms that could reduce the economic, racial, cultural, and regional divisons feeding the insurgency. HRW Index No.: ISBN 0-300-05237-5 June 1, 1992 Into the Quagmire: Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Peru The government of President Alberto Fujimori has been seriously challenged by insurgent threat from Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA); both groups having been responsible for civilian casualties and other gross violations of the laws of war. However, Fujimori and his aides appear incapable and often unwilling to put a stop to abuses by armed state agents, whose violent conduct is defended by the government as an acceptable response to the insurgency. In twelve years of conflict, not a single military officer has been convicted and sanctioned for human rights abuses in the emergency zones. In fact, some military officers responsible for such violations have been promoted by Fujimori. In this report, Americas Watch recommends that no U.S. security assistance be granted to Peru as a part of the anti-narcotics program until the human rights situation improves dramatically. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-043-X September 1, 1991
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