TRUTH COMMISSION CONCLUDES HEARINGS IN TRUJILLO Testimonies concerning 26 cases of torture, arbitrary arrests, assassinations and disappearances were heard.

After two days of intense sessions that heard 26 cases of persons who suffered various human rights abuses, the President of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Salomón Lerner closed the last public hearing schedules by the Commission.
”It is sad to know all that has happened in our country but forgetting these facts will not help us in overcoming this sad reality,” said Lerner after regretting that there are still some who condemn these forums where people who could not make themselves heard from many years can now speak up.

During the hearings, all the witnesses showed great courage and moral stature because despite their experiences they unequivocally asked for solutions to the problems of other people who were perhaps going through similar experiences.

Peasant leaders among victims

The fourth and final session of the public hearings in Trujillo heard six cases. The first concerned 11 grassroots leaders from San Ignacio who were unfairly arrested on June 27, 2002 by a group of inebriated policemen. They were accused as terrorists and tortured to get their confession as Sendero Luminoso members. They had been actively involved in the defense of the San Ignacio forests, which led to serious confrontations with the Incafor wood company. Incafor was attacked the day after the leaders of the San Ignacio Forest Defense Committee were sworn in. The peasant leaders were accused of the attack. Wigberto Vásquez Vásquez, Plácido Alvarado Campos and Víctor Morales presented this case. After giving the details of all the humiliations and tortures they suffered, they asked the Truth Commission to help them in having justice made. One of the policemen who took part in the arrest and torture of these peasants had recourse to the Amnesty Law passed in 1992 and was promoted from Major to General despite the evidence against him.

"All we want is to find the corpses of our relatives"

”I am only asking the Lord to give me a life long enough to find my son’s corpse”, said haltingly Jorge Noriega Cardoso (74) who continues his indefatigable search for justice after the assassination of his son Jesus Manfredo Noreiga Rios who was arrested together with another eight peasant farmers in the Santa province on May 2, 1992.

In the early morning of that day, a group of masked men who were identified by the witnesses as members of the Colina Group broke into several homes in the shanty towns of La Huaca, San Carlos and Javier Heraud in Santa province and took away Federico Coquis Vásquez, Dennis Castillo Chávez, Pedro López Gonzáles, Gilmar León Velásquez, Roberto Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Tarazona More, Jorge Tarazona More and Jesús Noriega Ríos. Their relatives never had any further notice about them.

“We have been looking for them for more than 10 years. Two of their parents have died already in this long march but we still don’t find any justice,” said Maribel Barrientos, sister to two of the missing men. Maribel herself was arrested together with another of her brothers two months after this despicable event and was released after five years of unfair detention.

”I have come here to demand justice. We want the corpses of our relatives. Aren’t they happy with what they have done to us already?” asked Maribel Barrientos who could not hold her tears back when she recalled all her suffering since her brothers disappeared.

Poor people caught in the crossfire

The highlands of Ancash were hard hit by violence. Whole populations lived between two fires. Both the Shining Path and the members of the National Police attacked defenseless populations.

Maria Lopez presented the third case that afternoon. She told how on June6, 1993, a group of Shining Path members broke into her home in the Tarica district in the province of Huaraz. When she and her husband realized the masked men were there, they managed to hide but the subversives caught her son Walter Camino Lopez who was sleeping in another room, and when he opposed resistance, they hit him with the butt of a rifle in the head, and he passed out.

Half conscious, Walter was tied and dragged out in the street where he was killed together with another person identified as Francisco Loli. Walter Camino left two children who are raised by their grandparents. Maria Lopez asked for financial assistance to continue the children’s education because of her dire economic condition.

Like Walter Camino’s children, the children of 5 peasants in the Huaripampa Community in Huari province are now orphans. Presciliano Sánchez Serpa and Melba Espinoza Trevejos who asked for justice after the murder of their wife and husband, respectively, in San Marcos district in 1992 at the hands of policemen.

Leaders of three communities in the district of San Marcos marched to the Chavin police station to denounce the raid by members of the police from that precinct against their community to rescue a cattle rustler. When they got there, the policemen threw tear gas canisters at them and shot the peasants. Paulina Ramírez Mejia, who was carrying her baby on her back, and Vilma Ramírez Medina, who was seven months pregnant, died. Peasants from Rancash and Huaripampa who arrived at the police station later suffered the same fate at the hands of the police. The final balance of this massacre was 5 dead and 21 shot.

Relatives of policemen also among victims

Although in most instances defenseless people told of incidents where the forces of law and order were the perpetrators of human rights abuses, there were also members of the police and armed forces who through their actions honored their organizations.

Non-commissioned officer Roberto Flores is one such case. He was killed on duty on April 4, 1993, during the Palm Sunday festivities. While traveling to Quesqueda, in Huamachuco, together with 12 other policemen and five soldiers, several mines planted by Sendero Luminoso terrorists on the road exploded and killed the policemen and soldiers, including the courageous policeman.

His widow Lucy Vera Salvatierra told of the hard times she went through because of those events. She was pregnant and her son never knew his father. “My son wants to know his father, he cries and is sad because he never knew him” the young mother said in tears. “All my dreams and my illusions were shattered. I was only 16.”

"I was 16 and studied fourth grade high school when one day a group of policemen broke into my house and arrested me. I didn’t know what was happening,” recalled Graciela Espinoza Monteza who on October 29, 1992 was arrested by members of DINCOTE from Chiclayo. During her arrest she was tortured and sexually harassed by policemen who wanted her to confess she was a terrorist.

“They told me that I was a students and a woman and so I had to be a terrorist. I was innocent but they gave me 20 years all the same,” said Graciela to an audience moved by her testimony

In 1995, when Graciela had lost all hope to get her freedom back, a civil courtroom absolved her. Today she is free and goes to school. She plans to go to law school to help the many people who suffer from the lack of justice. Despite her hard experiences, she has no harsh words and says she gathered her courage to tell her story so these things would not happen again.

This was the last testimony during the two days of public hearings where men and women, peasant farmers, peasant community members, grassroots leaders, teachers, students, policemen and local authorities who suffered the consequences of the violence Peru went through in the last two decades.

The city of Trujillo provided the stage for the last public hearing scheduled by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Future hearing will be topic-based and will be a forum to learn how organizations, institutions and society’s groups faced the consequences of violence.

Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación
Oficina de Comunicaciones e Impacto Publico