Peru Under Fire

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.