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From: hkb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2000 9:18 AM
Subject: Peru: Reports of 4,000 "Disappeared" - AP
> Activist Mailing List - http://activist.cjb.net
>
> Peru Reports 4,000 Disappeared
>=======================
>
> LIMA, Peru (AP) -- More than 4,000 Peruvians, most of
> them peasants taken away by soldiers on suspicion of
> being leftist guerrillas, disappeared between 1980 and
> 1996 and were never heard from again, according to an
> official government report released Friday.
>
> Peru's first official report on the ''disappeared''
> came after a three-year study by the human rights
> ombudsman's office.
>
> The report, signed by Ombudsman Jorge Santistevan,
> calls for a repeal of the blanket amnesty granted in
> June 1995 to all military and civilian personnel
> engaged in the fight against Peru's leftist
> insurgencies.
>
> A spokesman for Peru's Defense Ministry declined to
> comment on the report.
>
> The report said that 72 percent of the documented
> disappearances occurred in the 1980s during the
> governments of former presidents Fernando Belaunde and
> Alan Garcia. The remaining cases occurred during the
> first six years of President Alberto Fujimori's
> decade-long rule, the report said.
>
> Fujimori announced in September he would step down
> next July following special elections after a
> corruption scandal erupted around his now-fugitive
> former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.
>
> The report said 4,022 people disappeared. The
> ombudsman's office said human rights groups have
> provided names of an additional 2,342 missing people
> but their cases are yet to be verified.
>
> The report backs up charges from Peruvian and
> international human rights groups that Peruvian
> security forces made a regular practice of kidnapping,
> torturing and murdering peasants suspected of
> involvement with the deadly Maoist Shining Path
> guerrilla movement.
>
> Peru's war with the Shining Path and the smaller Tupac
> Amaru Revolutionary Movement left more than 30,000
> people dead, including rebels, members of the security
> forces and unarmed combatants slain by both sides. The
> violence dropped off sharply in the early 1990s
> following the capture of key rebel leaders.
>
> ''Disappearances'' at the hands of the guerrillas was
> relatively rare, with only 50 cases attributed to the
> rebels, the report said.
>
> Most of those who disappeared were young men between
> the ages of 15 and 34, largely Quechua-speaking
> Indians from the impoverished highland states of
> Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Junin and Apurimac, where 75
> percent of the cases were reported. Women accounted
> for 12 percent of the victims. Forty children under
> the age of four also were listed, as well as 98 cases
> involving children between the ages of five and 14.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
