PERU: Former Death Squad Member Implicates President Garcia

By Ángel Páez Reprint | | Print |

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Jan 30 2007 (IPS) - “They already kidnapped, tortured and shot me once for informing on the (paramilitary) group that was made up of militant members of the APRA party, like me. Now that the party is once again in power, I have no doubt that they might try it again,” Miguel Exebio Reyes told IPS in a clandestine interview.

“They already kidnapped, tortured and shot me once for informing on the (paramilitary) group that was made up of militant members of the APRA party, like me. Now that the party is once again in power, I have no doubt that they might try it again,” Miguel Exebio Reyes told IPS in a clandestine interview.

Exebio Reyes is an informer and a former member of the Rodrigo Franco Commando, a death squad that operated in Peru during President Alan García’s first term (1985-1990). But despite the information he has provided since 2003 as a key protected witness, the case on crimes committed by the paramilitary group has made basically no progress.

“I was given police protection, but it was removed shortly afterwards,” he said. “And since García took office for the second time in July 2006, the threats have increased. I’ve received written messages like ‘You’re a dead man’, ‘You already smell like a corpse’, and ‘You’re dead, fink, if you keep testifying’. But I’m not going to change my story.”

Exebio Reyes, who received intelligence training during his time in the Navy, is a friend of Miguel Ríos Sáenz, better known as Chito Ríos, a militant “Aprista” (member of APRA), who worked under the orders of APRA leader Agustín Mantilla, who was García’s personal secretary and later interior minister in García’s first administration.

Chito Ríos recruited Exebio Reyes to form part of the Rodrigo Franco Commando, which was named after an Aprista leader presumably killed by the Maoist insurgent group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) on Aug. 29, 1987.

“At first, the idea was to gather intelligence information to identify the terrorists, and later the police or armed forces would do their part by eliminating them. But then the commando began to take justice into its own hands under the orders of Mantilla, with the president’s full knowledge,” he added.

“Chito Ríos brought me into the group because we’re from the same town, Ferreñafe (in northern Peru), and we had known each other for years and were active in APRA. Mantilla hired Italian instructors for our intelligence work. In this photo here you can see me with Chito Ríos and part of the Rodrigo Franco Commando. I was part of the group, but I wasn’t an operative. My task consisted of collecting and evaluating information,” he said.

García’s first administration officially denied having any ties to paramilitary groups or death squads.

On Jul. 15, 2003, García denied that the Rodrigo Franco Commando existed, and said it was a figment of someone’s imagination.

But that year, Mantilla himself admitted to a congressional commission that “several paramilitary groups were apparently set up, but they appeared and disappeared very quicklyàthe only one that apparently continued to be active in Lima and other parts of the country was reportedly the Rodrigo Franco Commando.”

No police investigation has determined who formed part of the commando during the first García administration, even though the press published photos at that time of Mantilla surrounded by armed men who did not belong to any security body; they were young Apristas who had received training and weapons on Mantilla’s orders.

Nor was any investigation carried out under president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), despite the fact that the Rodrigo Franco Commando was blamed for the murders of a number of members of Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA, and for the Feb. 13, 1989 killing of a leader of the mineworkers’ union, Saúl Cantoral.

Because no probe was conducted into the murder of Cantoral, his relatives turned to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which accepted the case.

Sources at the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court told IPS that everything would seem to indicate that the Peruvian state would be found responsible for the murder. If that is the case, the ruling would not only affect Mantilla, but also García himself, because as president he kept Mantilla on his cabinet despite evidence that he was involved in the killing.

“Cantoral was killed by the Rodrigo Franco Commando because he was leading the strikes by mineworkers against the García government. I heard Chito Ríos talking about the preparations for the murder, and later he told me how he had killed him,” said Exebio Reyes.

“Alan García protected Mantilla, that is the plain truth,” he asserted.

“The Fujimori government did not want to investigate the case either, because Mantilla was a partner of Vladimiro Montesinos, that president’s intelligence adviser,” he said. “I know this, because when the García administration came to an end, Chito Ríos, invited by Mantilla, went to work for the National Intelligence Service (SIN),” which was run by the all-powerful Montesinos.

“Mantilla put Chito Ríos at Montesinos’ disposal. Chito Ríos called me later to carry out operations with SIN, which was known as ‘The Factory’,” he added.

On Jun. 14, 1995, the Fujimori regime granted an amnesty to members of the military and civilian officials facing human rights violations, including Mantilla.

Among the incriminating videos that Montesinos secretly shot showing government ministers, legislators, judges and others receiving bribes in his office, the discovery of which triggered the collapse of the Fujimori regime, was the recording of a secret Mar. 13, 2000 meeting between Montesinos and Mantilla in the intelligence chief’s office in SIN headquarters.

Mantilla, one of APRA’s top leaders and the head of the presidential campaign of his party’s candidate, Abel Salinas, asked Montesinos for 100,000 dollars to finance the candidate’s publicity expenses. But in the video, he could be seen receiving just 30,000 dollars from Montesinos, who told him he would give him the rest later.

At that time, APRA was supposedly opposed to the Fujimori regime. But the recording showed that Mantilla personally negotiated with Montesinos behind the scenes.

As a result of the video, Mantilla was tried for corruption. He was also charged with illicit enrichment, after bank accounts in his name, holding around six million dollars, were discovered in the United States.

He alleged that the funds were from parties with ties to APRA, which García and other APRA leaders denied.

Mantilla sat in prison from November 2002 to December 2005, which he said was a “sacrifice” made by APRA. During his time in prison, he was visited several times by Chito Ríos.

He is now on parole, and his attorneys have argued before the courts that the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes with which he is charged. If the courts accept that argument, it will be impossible to find out the true origins of the money he was hiding in the United States.

Exebio Reyes said “Mantilla directly coordinated things with García, which is why I have urged the prosecutor who is investigating the Rodrigo Franco Commando case to call the president to testify.”

A report on the human rights cases released in December by Peru’s ombudsman’s office says the justice system has been negligent and slow in investigating and punishing those responsible for the crimes committed by the Rodrigo Franco Commando.

Since Exebio Reyes began to act as a witness in 2003, the prosecutor on the case has been changed four times. The current prosecutor was named in October.

“For nearly four months, the case had no designated prosecutor,” states the ombudsman’s report. “Furthermore, the constant shifting of the case files between prosecutors’ offices also affected the progress of the investigation,” it added.

“Sometimes I think they’re just waiting for me to be killed,” said Exebio Reyes. “Now that the Inter-American Court sentence on the Saúl Cantoral case is imminent, which will force the state to investigate the case in the courts, they’ll want to see me dead because I have been a member of the group and because I’m a witness.”

In the Cantoral case, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the Inter-American Court to “declare the (Peruvian) state responsible for the violation of articles 7, 5, 4, 8, 25 and 16” of the American Convention on Human Rights, which protect the right to personal liberty, free association, physical integrity and life, and which guarantee due process.

The death squad is also blamed for other killings, like the murder of lawyer Manuel Febres Flores, who defended people accused of belonging to Sendero Luminoso, like Miguel Pasache Vidal and Javier Porta Solano, alleged members of the MRTA, and several university students from the Universidad del Centro.

In 2003, a congressional commission concluded that the Rodrigo Franco Commando did indeed exist, and that it had operated as a death squad. It also recommended that the case be investigated by the office of the public prosecutor.

But two of the legislators sitting on the five-member commission did not sign the report: Javier Velásquez Quesquén, currently the head of the APRA lawmakers in Congress, and Rafael Rey, who is now ministry of industry.

In its final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) that investigated the political violence that shook Peru from 1980 to 2000 mentioned the impunity surrounding the crimes committed by the Rodrigo Franco Commando.

The CVR stated that there was sufficient evidence to reasonably presume that Mantilla was one of the members of the commando.

The CVR report also said the commando was a “paramilitary organisationàapparently directed by then deputy minister and later interior minister Agustín Mantilla. Its chief of operations was reportedly Miguel Ríos Sáenz, (alias) Chito Ríos.”

Exebio Reyes also served as a witness in the CVR investigation.

The commando “apparently emerged to combat subversion, because of the sensation of frustration shared by some Aprista symphathisers and members over the incapacity of the institutions of the state to fight terrorism, and to respond to the murders of APRA militants and authorities, as well as to eliminate a few political opponents,” the CVR said in its final report.

Given the number of accusations implicating García in the Mantilla and Rodrigo Franco Commando cases, IPS asked the chairman of the congressional constitution commission, APRA lawmaker Aurelio Pastor, what stance the president would take if he were summoned to testify.

“The president cannot be accused during his term,” he explained. “He can only be summoned to testify in an extreme case, and only if it is strictly necessary.”

“I know he will be happy to cooperate, but the president cannot be interfered with for just any reason,” he commented.

Nor did Pastor rule out the possibility that “a summons to testify could be politically motivated.”

“In any case, other witnesses would have to testify before the head of state,” he said, alluding to Mantilla, who in a meeting with friends – which was recorded on video – said he had served his time in prison “for following orders.”