RIGHTS-PERU:
Unburying the Evidence
of Biggest ‘Dirty War’
Massacre
By Ángel Páez
LIMA, (IPS) - It
was not hard to find the
remains of the victims,
some of whose bones were
actually exposed to the
elements. But it took 24
years for the people of
the highlands village of
Putis in southern Peru
to get a response to
their insistent requests
for exhumation and
identification of the
remains.
In 1984, 125 men, women
and children were shot
to death by army troops
after being tricked into
digging their own mass
grave.
The biggest single
massacre of civilians in
Peru’s 1980-2000 civil
war is just now coming
to light, thanks to the
unflagging efforts of
the victims’ families.
Since May 17, 60 bodies
have been found,
including those of 10
children between the
ages of six and 10.
On a visit to the area
in November 2006, this
reporter found that the
relatives were going
from one public agency
to another, asking them
to exhume the victims of
the massacre of Putis,
located in the district
of Santillana in the
southern province of
Ayacucho.
The death toll for
Peru’s two decade armed
conflict was put at
70,000 by the
independent Truth and
Reconciliation
Commission (CVR). But in
order to qualify for the
reparations provided for
by law, victims’
families must prove that
their loved ones were
murdered by the
guerrillas, the army or
paramilitary groups.
In 2006, IPS spoke to
Gerardo Fernández, one
of the survivors.
Desperate because the
victims were merely
ignored and forgotten by
the authorities, he
began to draw up a list
of people who were
killed or "disappeared",
including his mother and
his three-year-old son.
Fernández was one of the
local residents who
helped the forensic team
locate the unmarked mass
grave this month.
"The excavation in Putis
is a very special case,
because of the
humanitarian aspect: no
one listened to the
locals, who are mainly
(indigenous) Quechua
speakers. The
exhumations are not even
being carried out by a
state body, but by civil
society - the Peruvian
Forensic Anthropology
Team (EPAF)," said the
head of the
non-governmental Peace
and Hope Association,
Norberto Lamilla, who is
coordinating the work.
"It is the Institute of
Forensic Medicine (IML)
that should be carrying
out this task," said
Lamilla, whose group
works with the families
of victims of the civil
war. "But, due to the
lack of cooperation and
the IML’s refusal to do
it, we had to turn to
EPAF."
"The IML said they did
not have the funds or
the time, and in the end
they came out with the
pretext that it was a
distant, dangerous area
and that they needed an
intelligence report
before they could
travel. They didn't care
that it was the biggest
mass grave in memory,"
he said.
"The remains were
visible, and with the
passage of time, they
had begun to be lost and
destroyed," said Lamilla.
"The local peasant
farmers needed closure
to their mourning, and
needed to identify the
bodies of their
relatives and give them
a Christian burial. But
to see the bones just
exposed to the elements,
while the state did
nothing, affected them
psychologically," he
said.
The Putis massacre is
described in the CVR’s
2003 report, which
recommended that the
bodies be exhumed and
that the killings be
investigated and the
perpetrators brought to
justice.
The only thing known
about the military
operation is that it was
led by officers with the
aliases "Captain Baretta",
"Commander Óscar" and
"Lieutenant Lalo".
(Officers involved in
the counterinsurgency
war did not go by their
real names). At the
time, the military chief
in Ayacucho was General
Wilfredo Mori Orzo.
The victims, who were
villagers fleeing the
Maoist Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path)
guerrillas, were lured
to Putis by the army
with false promises of
protection, forced to
dig a ditch, and later
shot by the troops in
December 1984, says the
CVR report.
"In 1984, there was an
upsurge in subversive
activity. The highlands
of Santillana had become
an area where Sendero
Luminoso had an active
presence, with the
guerrillas constantly
entering the area and
seeking support among
the peasants, and urging
them to participate in
their armed struggle.
Given that situation, a
military base was
installed in Putis,
which began to operate
in November 1984," says
the report.
The massacre occurred
the following month.
The army accused the
villagers of supporting
Sendero. But locals
actually lived in fear
of the insurgents
because they regularly
killed people who
refused to join their
group or who they
accused of collaborating
with the military.
Facing harassment on all
sides, many villagers
fled their homes and
took refuge in other
hamlets and villages, or
lived in hiding in the
hills. But the army
convinced them to go to
Putis, where they would
supposedly be under
military protection.
"The army suggested that
they take up residence
below the village,
saying they would thus
enjoy better protection
from subversion. But
actually, in the eyes of
the military, many of
them were suspected of
cooperating with the
subversives," the report
says.
"Tired of living in the
hills and being caught
in the crossfire,
harassed by the
subversives on one hand
and by the security
forces on the other, the
villagers accepted the
proposal and moved to
Putis, bringing with
them all of their
belongings.
"The security forces
received the villagers
and gathered them
together in the school,
along with local
residents that the
soldiers had called out
of their homes. The
military told them that
as of that moment they
would give them
protection and help them
in different projects to
improve their quality of
life," the report
continues.
"Under that pretext, the
military ordered all of
the men, at gunpoint, to
dig a large ditch; some
were told it was for
building a fish farm, to
raise trout, while
others were told that
houses would be built
there."
"When the supposed
fishpond was ready, the
troops brought together
the roughly 100
villagers around the
pit, including men,
women and children, and
without further
explanation, shot them
to death," it adds.
The troops then seized
and sold the victims’
farm animals. To cover
up the murders, they
leaked to the press an
account of a supposed
armed confrontation in
which 15 "guerrillas"
were killed.
During the exhumation,
the EPAF forensic
experts have found
bullets and casings of
the kind used by
military rifles.
In 2003, the CVR asked
the Defence Ministry and
the army for the list of
officers who were posted
in the area in 1984. The
response was that such
information was not
available.
"From witness testimony,
we know the killings
were committed by army
troops from a
counterinsurgency base
that was set up for a
period of two or three
years in Putis, and that
answered to the
garrisons in San José de
Secce, in Santillana,
and in Castropampa, in
Huanta, which in turn
answered to the
Political Military
Command in Huamanga,
Ayacucho," said Lamilla.
General Mori Orzo was
named head of the
Political Military
Command in Ayacucho in
August 1984. "We are in
the process of tracing
the chain of command, in
order to establish which
officers were
responsible," said the
activist.
The head of the Ayacucho
human rights
prosecutors’ office,
Rubén López, is in Putis
overseeing the
excavation work, which
is complicated because
the grave is in a
remote, difficult to
access area. The first
day alone, they found
the remains of 25
different people, along
with 15 shell casings.
The relatives are
helping identify the
bodies by their
clothing, jewelry, shoes
or other personal
objects.
"The poverty in Putis is
extreme," said Lamilla.
"These people don’t even
have enough to eat and
obviously can’t afford a
coffin, so we are
calling on everyone who
is interested to help
them bury their loved
ones."
"In Putis, they killed
entire families: the
Condona Quispe, the
Centeno Chávez, the
Gamboa Ccente, the
Madueńo Curoi, and the
Condoray Huallasco
families," Fernández had
told IPS in Santillana,
back in 2006. "Who is
going to stand up for
them if they are all
dead?" |
|
|
|
|
|
