Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

PERU: Human Rights Violators Find Ready Employment

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Mar 9 2007 (IPS) - Governing party supporters accused of committing human rights violations during the first administration (1985-1990) of Peruvian President Alan García, who was voted back into office in 2006, today hold high-level public posts, despite criticism from the opposition.

Several former members of the paramilitary Rodrigo Franco Commando, which murdered people suspected of belonging to the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), are now working for lawmakers of the governing Peruvian APRA Party.

Omar La Cunza Tantarico, who is under investigation by prosecutor Julio César Cordero for belonging to the paramilitary commando, is a security adviser to the head of the APRA bench in parliament, Javier Velásquez.

Daniel Vílchez, brother of Aprista Congresswoman Nidia Vílchez, works for Velásquez as well, even though he is also being investigated by Cordero for allegedly belonging to the paramilitary group. The prosecutor has taken statements from both of the Vílchezes.

A former member of the Rodrigo Franco Commando, Miguel Exebio Reyes, testified for the prosecution that the Vílchezes were members of a commando cell based in Huancayo, in the central region of the country.

“I’ve had meetings with both of them, in Lima and in Huancayo. Daniel Vílchez provided intelligence information about terrorist and opposition activities in the central region of the country to our operations centre, in the San Isidro district of Lima,” Exebio told IPS. “That’s what I said in my statement to the prosecutor.”

The Vílchez siblings say that Exebio is lying. “We’re going to bring legal action against him,” Nidia Vílchez announced.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the Rodrigo Franco Commando’s head of operations was Agustín Mantilla, who served as interior minister during Alan García’s first administration.

Formerly García’s private secretary and national organising secretary of APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), Mantilla was expelled from the party in 2001, when a video came to light showing him receiving 30,000 dollars from Vladimiro Montesinos, then President Alberto Fujimori’s intelligence chief, to finance APRA’s electoral campaign.

Mantilla is also being investigated by Cordero, who has been mandated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to identify those responsible for the crimes perpetrated by the paramilitary group.

The Rodrigo Franco Commando allegedly murdered Manuel Febres, a lawyer who defended Osmán Morote, a prominent Sendero Luminoso leader.

The paramilitary death squad is also accused of killing the leader of the mineworkers’ trade union, Saúl Cantoral, MRTA members Javier Porta and Miguel Pasache, who had kidnapped a mine owner with links to García’s government, and several students at the National Central University in Huancayo.

Enrique Melgar Moscoso, a known member of the Aprista paramilitary organisation with close ties to Mantilla, is now head of security for the state Peruvian National Television channel. Melgar is also being investigated by Cordero.

The governor of the Tacna region, Julio Alva Centurión, who belongs to APRA, hired Óscar Urbina Sandoval, a former member of the Rodrigo Franco Commando, to be his liaison officer in Congress.

The García administration has also appointed other very close associates of Mantilla to key positions, like Carlos Arana Vivar, organiser of APRA rallies in the most recent election campaign, who today is head of the Water For All programme.

Arana Vivar, who manages a budget of 500 million dollars, Mantilla, and his brother Jorge Luis Mantilla are the best of friends. In fact all three are business partners.

Visits by Arana Vivar and Ricardo Pinedo, President García’s current private secretary, to Agustín Mantilla when he was behind bars from 2001 to 2004 in a Lima prison are a matter of record, and are further evidence of their close relationship.

Agustín Mantilla, now under house arrest, has publicly offered his services to the García administration.

“APRA activists allegedly involved in human rights violations and corruption are flocking into government jobs,” spokesman for the Peruvian Nationalist Party parliamentary group Juvenal Ordóñez told IPS.

“APRA was always opposed to investigating the Rodrigo Franco Commando, and insisted that it never existed, in spite of the report by the Truth Commission and the investigation carried out by Congress in 2004, which APRA legislators refused to approve,” he said.

Ordóñez is in favour of “taking the investigations further and identifying those responsible for the APRA paramilitary commando. It’s not right that people linked to serious crimes should get state jobs because they’re governing party activists.”

In the opinion of the secretary of Amnesty International’s Peruvian branch, Ismael Vega, instead of complying with the Truth Commission’s recommendations, the García administration is embracing people who are under investigation.

“The government must be asked to face up to the country’s tragic past responsibly. That’s the only way to create a favourable climate to prevent any repetition of the abuses. The government has a duty to cooperate and ensure that those responsible are brought to trial, especially since the crimes were committed during the first APRA regime,” Vega told IPS.

“It’s not good for democracy, or for the state, for governments to appoint as confidential aides people who have charges pending for human rights violations. It creates a blanket of mistrust and is detrimental to the government itself,” Vega said.

“APRA members can’t be treated as lepers,” said Congressman Velásquez at a press conference. “No one is banned from working if they haven’t been convicted.”

But former anti-corruption prosecutor Antonio Maldonado told IPS that García’s government is making a mistake in employing APRA members under investigation by the prosecutor’s office, or linked to corrupt leaders like Agustín Mantilla.

“The Rodrigo Franco Commando existed, and none of its leaders or members have been punished by the criminal justice system. This is impunity,” Maldonado said.

“I say it existed, because I participated in the investigation carried out by a Chamber of Deputies commission. The members of the commando were embedded in various levels of the first APRA government. The state is obliged to investigate and bring to justice members and leaders of that paramilitary group,” he said.

“If the president doesn’t show effective leadership by dismissing the people involved in the paramilitary commando, he will be sending an extremely negative message to Peruvian society,” Maldonado said.

“The state cannot provide shelter for those who belonged to criminal organisations involved in state terrorism, who for no matter what reason were not punished in the past,” he concluded.