Document #1334720
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
The following information is found in
various sources currently available to the IRBDC:
A number of provinces of the department of
Ayacucho, including that encompassing the department's capital city
of the same name and its outskirts, have been placed under State of
Emergency regulations and military control since December 1982.
State of Emergency has been extended and remains in effect in most
of the southern highlands, including the department of Ayacucho.
Although various sources pointed out that human rights abuses
apparently decreased during the first years of the García
administration, a rise in such abuses has been reported for the
last years. Armed confrontations between SL columns and patrols of
the armed forces or peasant communities in Ayacucho have been
reported many times throughout the abovementioned timeframe.
Selective attacks on individuals by SL have taken place in the city
of Ayacucho and other surrounding areas, and raids against villages
in Ayacucho accused by SL of collaborating with the armed forces or
the peasant patrols have been carried out with increasing frequency
in recent months.
Suffering setbacks in the area of Ayacucho,
Sendero was reported to have concentrated its operations in the
Upper Huallaga valley, the cocaine-producing area of the high
jungle, cooperating with drug-trafficking organizations; this
cooperation, according to Sendero Luminoso, is due to the group's
defense of coca-growers' income, but it is reported the Sendero
receives weapons and a percentage of the traffickers' income,
allegedly in exchange for keeping security forces out of the area
(Latin American Weekly Report, 2 March 1989, p. 4; "Drugs,
guerrillas a potent combination in Peru", "With the Shining Path").
The armed forces launched a major counter-insurgency offensive
throughout the Upper Huallaga valley in July 1989, resulting in the
death of hundreds of guerrillas and renewed army control of the
region (Andean Newsletter, 8 August 1989, pp. 5-7). The army
command responsible for the area has been accused of abuses and
cooperating with the drug business, but its leadership has stated
that fighting coca growers without giving them the opportunity to
commercialize other crops would only play in the guerrillas favour,
and has reportedly advocated crop substitution programmes ("The
general and the cocaleros").
A recent Amnesty International report on
Peru accused government forces of torturing and killing suspects as
part of its counter-insurgency operations. Although the government
categorically denied Amnesty International's accusations
("Government denies Amnesty charges"), information gathered by the
United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary
Disappearances indicated that 288 cases of disappearance were
denounced between January and August 1989 (Andean
Newsletter, December 1989, p. 6). Disappearances have been
blamed mostly on the military, particularly in the Ayacucho area
(Annual report of APRODEH). Though many persons, reported to have
disappeared, turned up alive afterwards, the bodies of
disappearance victims are rarely found (Country Reports
1987, p. 589, and Americas Watch, Tolerating Abuses. p.
40). Others reported disappeared have been found dead soon after
their arrest by military personnel (Amnesty International,
Amnesty Report 1987: Peru).
The most serious threats to freedom of the
press occur in the emergency areas where insurgency and
counter-insurgency operations are carried out, with restrictions or
banning being imposed on reporting, and murders or disappearance of
journalists over the last years being attributed to guerrillas,
military personnel and, on one occasion, a peasant community
(L'Information dans le Monde, p. 445). A serious problem
since 1987 is the virtual barring, by the military, of travel in
the countryside of the Ayacucho and other emergency zones,
apparently in response to a 1986 media exposé of human
rights violations there (Country Reports 1987, p. 594;
Country Reports 1988, p. 689) .
Various sources indicate Sendero Luminoso
(SL) does not usually reivindicate its actions, although some
sources attribute it acts based upon characteristics of the
attacks, areas of operation and coverage in either El Diario
or Cambio magazines, linked respectively to Sendero Luminoso
and the MRTA (As stated, for example, in Tolerating Abuses,
p. 55, in "Aprovechando el P nico", and in "MRTA: Nuevo Azote").
One such source is the Peruvian weekly newsmagazine Caretas,
which publishes a weekly report on terrorist and guerrilla
activities of both Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA. The following is
an IRBDC translation of such reports referring to Sendero Luminoso
activities in Ayacucho from some of the latest issues of that
magazine currently available to the IRBDC (28 December 1989 and 15
January 1990).
28 December 1989 issue, p. 22:
Monday 18 (December 1989)
(Unless otherwise stated, first name refers to the Department in
which actions took place)
*Ayacucho: SL bombs the house of the rector of the University of
Huamanga.
Thursday 21
*Huanta (Ayacucho department): SL kills a businesswoman in the
Huanta-Ayacucho highway.
Friday 22
*Ayacucho: SL kills 11 peasants in the Pallca annex for having
attended the municipal elections.
15 January 1990 issue, p. 24:
Monday 8 (January)
*Ayacucho: SL downs electric transmission towers and leaves without
electricity the provinces of Huanta and Huamanga.
Thursday 11
*Ayacucho: SL burns San Francisco's district council, causing
considerable loss.
Friday 12
*Ayacucho: SL kills governor and assaults Popular Cooperation (a
government development agency) office.
What follows are a few examples of attacks
attributed to SL, except for the first one listed, in Ayacucho in
1988:
-13 October 1988: two marines are shot on a street of Ayacucho
(authorship of the crime not indicated in the source)(Latin
America Daily Report, FBIS 19 October 1988, p. 40);
-On October 21, 1988, a rebel group attacks the house of APRA
secretary general in Ayacucho, injuring its occupants. (Latin
America Daily Report, (Washington, Foreign Broadcast
Information Service), 25 October 1988, p.42)
-On October 27, Shining Path killed a community leader in front
of his relatives and local residents, in Huanta Province, Ayacucho
Department. (Latin America Daily Report, 28 October 1988.
p.30)
-On November 19, a day after leaving his town because of threats by
Shining Path, APRA mayor of Tocctos is killed together with his
daughter.(Latin America Daily Report, 21 November 1988,
p.42)
-On November 21, on the road to the jungle area of Ayacucho,
Shining Path blows up a bus carrying 40 passengers, killing 12
instantly. (Latin America Daily Report, 22 November 1988,
p.42)
-Rebels murder a town mayor, his secretary and driver on their way
to Ayacucho, December 15. (Latin America Daily Report, 19
December 1988, p.43).
Regarding threats against those who have
collaborated with the armed forces, specific reports on threats
against individuals who have worked with the military could not be
found among the sources currently available to the IRBDC. However,
the following information may be of interest.
Sendero is reported to have routinely used
force and intimidation, in particular assassination, to impose its
control over certain areas (Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices for 1987, p. 587). People who have been identified as
"traitors" by Sendero are targets for harassment, intimidation and
murder and, in the cities, Sendero has reportedly committed
assassinations more for propaganda purposes than strategic or
ideological reasons (Ibid). The same source indicates that
since 1986 Sendero has increased its attacks on individuals,
assassinating policemen, armed forces personnel, government and
ruling party officials, as well as non-supporting peasants. Members
of labour organizations and legal parties who have refused to
collaborate with the organization have also been reported to be
targeted for reprisal by Sendero (Amnesty International Report
1988, pp. 132-133).
Bibliography:
-Latin American Weekly Report,
(London, Latin American Newsletters), 2 March 1989, p. 4;