RIGHTS-PERU:
Aprista Party Members
Under Investigation for
’80s Crimes
By Ángel Páez
LIMA (IPS) - The
Peruvian justice system
is to prosecute members
of the governing
American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance
(APRA, or Aprista Party)
for creating the Rodrigo
Franco Commandos (CRF),
a paramilitary unit
alleged to have murdered
five people during the
first administration of
current President Alan
García (1985- 1990).
IPS was given exclusive
access to the case file.
Summonses and arrest
warrants are to be
issued in two weeks’
time.
APRA denies the
existence of the illegal
paramilitary unit, named
after respected Aprista
leader Rodrigo Franco
Montes who was killed by
Maoist Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path)
guerrillas on Aug. 27,
1987.
But prosecutor Julio
César Cordero has found
proof of the existence
and operation of the CRF.
The CRF is accused of
killing at least five
suspected guerrillas,
allegedly in reprisal
for crimes against
leaders and officials of
the governing party
committed by insurgents
in the late 1980s.
After assessing the
results of the
prosecutor’s
investigation, Judge
Teófilo Salvador decided
that there was
convincing evidence of
the organisation of the
CRF and its illegal
activities. The case
file was opened on May
28.
Salvador accuses Agustín
Mantilla -- who was
personal secretary to
García, responsible for
organising APRA, deputy
minister, minister of
the interior, and chief
of the party’s
presidential campaign in
2000 -- of being an
accessory to five
murders.
Seven other Apristas, a
former police officer
and an ex-agent in the
Army Intelligence
Service (SIE) are
similarly accused.
According to prosecutor
Cordero’s report and
Salvador’s prosecution
order -- which were seen
by IPS -- there is no
doubt that the CRF was
created by Mantilla, who
took advantage of his
position as deputy
minister and minister of
the interior to organise
the commandos for the
purpose of eliminating
presumptive guerrillas
belonging to the Shining
Path and Túpac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).
The CRF is alleged to
have murdered Manuel
Febres, the lawyer
defending Osmán Morote,
a founder and leader of
Shining Path, in 1988;
Saúl Cantoral, the head
of the miners’ union
which was holding a
national strike, in
1989; and Cantoral’s
partner Consuelo García,
an organiser who worked
with the miners’ wives.
CRF is also being
prosecuted for
kidnapping and murdering
Miguel Pasache and
Javier Porta in 1989,
two students and alleged
MRTA activists who were
negotiating a ransom for
an air force general
captured by that
guerrilla group.
According to the judge
and the prosecutor,
Mantilla recruited a
group of loyal Apristas
to carry out these
criminal operations, and
put them in touch with
police and army
officers, with whom they
committed the murders.
The Apristas used to
meet with Mantilla in a
house in the San Isidro
district in Lima that
had been used as
García’s electoral
campaign headquarters in
1985. Former CRF members
have confirmed this.
The independent Truth
and Reconciliation
Commission, established
to help clarify human
rights violations
committed during the
1980-2000
counterinsurgency war,
recommended in its final
report in 2003 that
those responsible for
the CRF -- still active
in spite of plenty of
evidence on the
identities of its
leaders -- be
investigated and
punished.
Also in 2003, a
Congressional
investigative
commission, headed by
lawmaker Ernesto
Herrera, concluded that
the CRF was closely
linked to APRA after
hearing testimony from
former members and
ex-police officers about
the murders.
But even today, APRA
leaders deny or express
doubts that the Rodrigo
Franco Commandos ever
existed.
"I never knew about the
CRF, or ever supposed it
existed," said lawmaker
Mercedes Cabanillas, a
former Aprista
presidential candidate
and former minister. "I
do not know, nor have I
ever known, anything
about a death squad
supposedly made up of
Apristas. And I have
nothing more to say on
the matter."
The prosecution document
by Salvador states that
the CRF was "a vertical,
rigid, disciplined and
clandestine organisation…
There is sufficient
evidence to show that a
strong hierarchical
structure was at the
service of Agustín
Mantilla… It was made up
by a group of young
Aprista members or
sympathisers."
According to Salvador,
"Mantilla, as deputy
Interior minister,
managed economic
resources and had access
to privileged
intelligence
information, as well as
power to allocate
salaries, weapons,
vehicles and other
materials in the course
of his work."
The operational chief of
the CRF was Miguel Ríos,
a man Mantilla trusted,
who managed the house in
San Isidro where CRF
members stayed and where
Mantilla held meetings
with them.
Salvador was also
convinced by evidence
that the CRF members
received "pay equivalent
to public institution
salaries," in the guise
of advisers’ fees.
The CRF itself claimed
responsibility for the
murders of Febres,
Pasache and Porta.
The police blamed the
killings of Cantoral and
García on Shining Path,
despite denials by the
guerrillas. While
leading a strike by
Peru’s National
Federation of Miners,
Metalworkers and
Steelworkers, Cantoral
received death threats
and then was abducted
and held for eight hours
by members of the CRF,
the judicial
investigation says.
"The judicial branch and
the prosecution have not
proved that the Rodrigo
Franco Commandos really
existed, or that Agustín
Mantilla was the head of
such an organisation,"
Aprista lawmaker Javier
Velásquez told IPS.
"Opening an
investigation does not
mean that Mantilla has
been tried and
convicted. An
investigation has begun,
and it must be allowed
to finish. Then it will
be established whether
or not Rodrigo Franco
Commandos existed and
whether it committed the
murders," he said.
Velásquez refused to
sign the report of the
2003 congressional
investigative commission
on the activities of the
CRF.
"The report contained
enough evidence about
the actions of the CRF,"
Ernesto Herrera, the
former head of that
commission, told IPS.
"We heard testimony from
very reliable witnesses,
some of them members of
the police, who spoke
about their
participation in the CRF
and the murder of, for
example, miners’ leader
Saúl Cantoral. I hope
the justice system will
clear up this case and
present the truth about
this sinister APRA
personality, Agustín
Mantilla, to the
Peruvian people," he
added.
On Feb. 27, 2001, the
authorities released a
video, taped in March
2000 by Vladimiro
Montesinos -- then
adviser to President
Alberto Fujimori (1990-
2000) -- showing
Montesinos giving 30,000
dollars to Mantilla for
APRA’s presidential
campaign.
Both Montesinos and
Fujimori are in prison
and on trial for
corruption and crimes
against humanity.
APRA has expelled
Mantilla, although it is
common knowledge that he
maintains ties with the
party.
One of the accused who
has turned state’s
witness, former Army
Intelligence agent Juan
Pampa, provided the CRF
with information on the
movements of lawyer
Febres, who became one
of their victims.
At the time, Pampa had
infiltrated the
Association of
Democratic Lawyers, a
group of defence lawyers
for Shining Path
guerrillas. Later he
would become a member of
the Colina Group, an
illegal paramilitary
squad that carried out
the massacres of Barrios
Altos and La Cantuta in
1991 and 1992, under the
Fujimori regime.
Pampa is therefore a
link between the CRF and
the Colina Group, many
of whose members have
already been convicted
and sentenced.
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