Complaint Cayara

8. Death of Justiniano Tinco García, Fernandina Palomino Quispe and Antonio García Tipe

On December 14, 1988, the truck carrying JUSTINIANO TINCO GARCIA, FERNANDINA PALOMINO QUISPE and ANTONIO FELIX GARCIA TIPE, along with some 15 other individuals, was stopped by hooded persons in the vicinity of Toccto, near a military control post and a communications station guarded by troops of the Security Police, 40 kilometers from Ayacucho. The individuals wearing hoods selected the three people named above and killed them.

Justiniano Tinco was Mayor of Cayara and was on the list taken from the anonymous letter; his wife, Benedicta María Valenzuela Ccayo, had been tortured in the District Council. Fernandina Palomino was the Secretary at the Mayor's Office and a key witness to the events in Cayara, having testified in the presence of Prosecutor Escobar, other authorities and the press, stating that the military were responsible for what happened. The third person was the driver of the truck.

EVIDENCE:

1. Press report.

9. Death of Martha Crisóstomo García

On September 8, 1989, eight hooded individuals dressed in military uniform entered the home of MARTHA CRISOSTOMO GARCIA in the neighborhood Cooperativo Ciudad de las Américas, San Juan Bautista de Huamanga, Ayacucho, at 3:00 a.m. They shot her a number of times and killed her.

The victim was an extraordinary witness inasmuch as she had witnessed and testified to a number of the key elements in the chain of evidence in this case and had made direct charges against General Valdivia. It is also important to note that she had identified the body of her aunt Jovita García and had been held for fifteen days at the Huancapi Military Garrison following the central events in Cayara, whereupon she was released thanks to the efforts of human rights agencies.

Martha Crisóstomo García had left Cayara for reasons of safety and on November 19, 1988, had sent an official communication to the Special Prosecutor of Ayacucho asking that she not be transferred To Cayara from the Huamanga Hospital where she was working at the time, because she feared for her life.

Though there were any number of witnesses to the murder who were attracted to the scene because of the victim's screams and despite the fact that three bullets were found in her body, the investigation produced no results whatever; not even the bullets were identified. The case was provisionally filed through a resolution adopted by the Provincial Prosecutor of Ayacucho on January 18, 1990.

EVIDENCE

1. Letter from Martha Crisóstomo to the Special Prosecutor dated November 19, 1988 requesting that he intercede to prevent her being transferred back to Cayara, since she feared for her life.

2. Letter from the Special Prosecutor to the Superior Criminal Prosecutor, dated November 24, 1988, informing him of Martha Crisóstomo's request.

3. Decision of the Provincial Prosecutor of the Third Public Prosecutor's Office of Ayacucho, José Macera Tito, dated January 18, 1990, ordering that the proceedings into the death of Martha Crisóstomo be temporarily filed.

4. Letter from the Attorney General of the Nation to the Secretary General of Amnesty International, dated February 28, 1990, wherein he transmits "a copy of the decision handed down in the investigation into the death of MARTHA CRISOSTOMO GARCIA, a witness in the `Cayara Case'..."

III. MEASURES TAKEN BY THE STATE

When the facts in this case were made public, a series of measures were taken by various organs of the Peruvian State, including the Department of Justice, the Legislature, the Executive Office and the Army. This subheading is devoted to a brief summation of these measures.

1. The Department of Justice

On May 17 and 18, 1988, various complaints were filed with the Acting Attorney General of the Nation, Dr. Manuel Catacora González and with the Special Prosecutor for Disappearances of Ayacucho, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda. Those complaints recounted the facts that are the subject of this case. On May 19, 1988, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation ordered that Special Prosecutor Escobar take charge of the corresponding investigation, an order confirmed by the Senior Criminal Prosecutor on May 24.

On October 3, 1988, the Special Prosecutor received a communication dated September 21, from the Senior Criminal Prosecutor, Dr. Pedro Méndez Jurado, asking that he submit the final report on the investigation conducted. On October 13 of that year, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda sent in his final report, which included the following (see Annex No. 5):

... that there is sufficient evidence to be able to file a complaint with the Lower Court Judge of Cangallo, since it is within his jurisdiction. The complaint would be for the commission of the crimes of: homicide with extreme cruelty, provided for and punishable under Article 152 of the Penal Code, amended by Decree Law 18968, the victim being Jovita García Suárez; homicide, provided for and punishable under Article 150 of the Penal Code, the victims being Alejandro Echaccaya Villagaray and Samuel García Palomino; violations of individual liberty, provided for and punishable under Article 340 of the Penal Code, the victims being each and every one of those named in this report as disappeared, including those listed as dead and as having been killed in Cayara and Ccechua, until such time as their bodies appear and the charge can be expanded to include the crime of homicide; robbery, provided for and punishable under Article 238 of the Penal Code, the victims being the townspeople listed under point II.B of this report; damages, provided for and punishable under Article 259 of the Penal Code, the victims being the townspeople Gregorio Ipurre Ramos and Lucía Tello de Suárez referred to under point II.B of this report; violation of the administration of justice, provided for and punishable under article 332 of the Penal Code. The Chief of the Political-Military Command of SZSNC-5 of Ayacucho, Peruvian Army General José Valdivia Dueñas, is presumed responsible, under the provisions of Article 100 of the Penal Code, amended by Law 12341. The facts investigated point to commission of a continuous crime that began on May 14, 1988 and ended between May 20 and 21 of that month and year with the death of the three townspeople found at Pucutuccasa, a crime involving material authors, who executed an order, and intellectual authors who intentionally induced others to the commission of those crimes. The Office further finds that there is sufficient evidence to indict the forenamed General as the individual allegedly responsible. During the course of the corresponding preliminary investigations, said general should indicate and identify those who carried out his orders in committing the aforementioned offenses.

As for the crime of rape, which is also part of this investigation, one of the allegedly aggrieved parties has stated that she was not raped, while the other has not been located.

It should be pointed out that in April 1989, the Attorney General of the Nation decided to terminate Prosecutor Escobar's posting in Ayacucho, so that the latter had to leave that city and return to the city of Iquitos, where he took over his duties on May 3 of that year. On July 31, 1989, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda was permanently severed from the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation.

On November 11, 1988, the Attorney General sent the Special Prosecutor's file to the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, Dr. Jesús Granda Olaechea, so that he might enlarge upon the investigations. Prosecutor Granda addressed the events that began on May 13, 1988, in Erusco and Cayara, and issued his finding on November 24, 1988 (Appendix No. 6) wherein he decided not to bring any criminal charges for the crimes of homicide, vandalism, robbery, looting, crimes against individual freedom, arson, assault, battery, violation of home, sexual violation and crimes against the administration of justice. He justified his decision on the grounds that it was impossible to either identify or single out the authors of the "alleged crimes." Therefore, Prosecutor Granda decided to file the proceedings provisionally.

On August 29, 1989, the Attorney General of the Nation, Dr. Manuel Catacora G., nullified Prosecutor Granda's decision and ordered that the investigations be expanded. He assigned the Prosecutor of the Province of Cangallo, Dr. Rubén Vega, to the case. On January 23, 1990, Prosecutor Vega decided not to file criminal charges and to file the case permanently (Appendix No. 7). On January 30, 1990, the Office of the Superior Prosecutor of Ayacucho confirmed Prosecutor Vega's decision. By virtue of those decisions, the case was never brought to trial before the regular courts since, under Peruvian law, it is up to the Department of Justice to file criminal actions with the judiciary.

As for the proceedings conducted in the case of the summary executions of Justiniano Tinco García, Fernandina Palomino Quispe and Antonio Félix García Tipe, which occurred on December 14, 1988, and the murder of Martha Crisóstomo García on September 8, 1989, those cases were provisionally filed by the Department of Justice.

2. The Army

On May 18, 1988, the Security Zone of the Peruvian Army Center issued the following official communique No. 003:

The national security zone of the Center hereby informs the citizenry of the following:

1. On Friday, May 13, at approximately 23:00 hours, in the vicinity of the town of Cayara, in the Province of Victor Fajardo, in the Province of Ayacucho, more than a hundred subversive criminals ambushed a patrol consisting of two Army vehicles, which was relieving men on duty between the towns of San Pedro de Huaylla and Huancapi.

2. As a result of this criminal action, the following members of the Peruvian Army perished:

- Infantry Captain Arbulú Sime José, Second Sergeant Vargas Támara Angel, Corporal Roldán Ortíz Fabián, Corporal Espinosa de la Cruz Carlos.

Fifteen Army soldiers were wounded, four of whom are in grave condition.

The murdered captain was buried in Lima on Monday, May 16, while the other troopers who died were buried that same day in Huaraz.

- It was also established that in repelling the attack, the soldiers managed to kill six unidentified subversives; the evidence discovered also indicates that there are an undetermined number of wounded among them.

3. The Peruvian Army reinforcement patrols began to track down the subversive column that fled in the direction of the town of Cayara. The town was found completely abandoned, except for some children and elderly people who said that there were four bodies in the town church.

4. In prosecuting the operations, there were additional clashes in the vicinity of the town and an undetermined number of casualties among the ranks of the subversives.

5. On Monday, May 18, the Political-Military Command reported these facts to the Ayacucho Prosecutor's Office so that the appropriate legal action might be taken. For its part, through the competent organs, the Peruvian Army launched the appropriate investigation.

6. The unfounded claim made by authorities from the area to the effect that many townspeople of Cayara lost their lives, is utterly false, as are the accounts of a bombing that never occurred; the obvious purpose of such charges is to prevent the forces of law and order from pursuing their efforts to capture the subversive criminals who ambushed the Army patrol.

7. The search operations continued and their results will be reported as soon as they are available.

On May 30, 1988, the Office of the Army Inspector General released a report on the events denounced (Appendix No. 4). On November 18, 1988, the Chief of the Political-Military Command of Ayacucho, General José Valdivia Dueñas, sent the following report to Prosecutor Jesús Granda O.:

1. Concerning the AMBUSH of a MILITARY CONVOY at ERUSCO-CAYARA

a. On May 13, 1988, at approximately 22:30 hours, an Army CONVOY was ambushed in the region of ERUSCO in the district of CAYARA, Province of VICTOR FAJARDO. The assailants were some 200 subversives, consisting of men, women and children. The ambush left one captain (Captain ARBULU SIME JOSE), one sergeant second class and two corporals dead, as well as a number of wounded, five of whom were very gravely wounded; one troop carrier and a number of rifles were also completely destroyed. Ten rifles and other articles also disappeared.

b. During the clash with the surviving military personnel, four subversive criminals died (three men and one woman), and it is assumed that there were a number of wounded as well; they may have been taken to CAYARA because of the considerable trail of blood that was found on the roads leading to that town.

c. Once they learned of the attack, patrols from HUANCAPI, PAMPA, CANGALLO and AYACUCHO descended upon the scene of the events to assist the ambushed patrol and begin to search for and track down the subversives.

d. On May 14, 1988, the first patrol that had gone in the direction of CAYARA following the trail of blood, found a dead body at the entrance to the town and was told by a number of children that there were five people dead inside the church. CAYARA was virtually abandoned.

e. The patrol, which arrived at CAYARA at approximately 15:00 hours after receiving reports to the effect that a large group of criminal subversives had headed in the direction of JESHUA-MAYOPAMPA (on the MANTAS or CANGALLO river), continued to move in that direction. While en route, at around 1:30 hours, the patrol was attacked from a wooded hillside, by individuals carrying rifles and explosives; there was a clash that left six subversives dead; one rifle that had belonged to the ambushed patrol was recovered, as was an MGP pistol (property of the Civil Guard), bags of dynamite and four blood-stained Peruvian Army blankets.

f. When the criminal subversives retreated in the direction of MAYOPAMPAA at around 18:00 hours, the patrol followed in pursuit until it reached that community, at around 4:00 hours on May 15, 1988.

g. Another mounted patrol that took the right flank (passing through CHINCHEROS) headed toward MAYOPAMPA, found 500 dynamite sticks in the vicinity of HUAMANMARCA, but no inhabitants; however, on the return, as the patrol crossed the PAMPAS river on May 15, 1988, at 14:00 hours, it was attacked by approximately 25 subversives. The subversives scattered when the patrol fired back, and suffered perhaps two dead and others wounded. The patrol lost one rifle that fell into the river.

NOTE: a diagram is attached (Annex 1)

h. When the first patrol returned from MAYOPAMPA via the same route on May 15, 1988, the six bodies at JESHUA were no longer there nor were the six that had been seen in CAYARA the previous day.

i On May 16, 1988, through letter No. 063, the Pampa Cangallo Battalion Chief filed a complaint with the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of CANGALLO and HUANCAPI concerning the terrorist attack; the names of certain individuals who allegedly helped plan and execute the ambush were included in the complaint.

j. Because of a tendentious and intentionally exaggerated report released by the Mayor of HUAMANGA Fermín ASPARRENT TAYPE, on May 17, 1988, both the Office of the Army Inspector General and various delegations of officials and journalists who went to CAYARA have established that there was neither any harassment nor bombing there; no women were raped; no children were killed; there was never any "slaughter" of some 100 campesinos; they were, however, told that some 18 civilians died during the clashes that took place on May 13, 14 and 15, 1988. Moreover, the Office of the Army Inspector General, during the investigation it conducted, proved that the complaint filed with the Huamanga Prosecutor's Office by three alleged survivors of CAYARA concerning the death of 20 individuals and 17 disappearances was false (a copy of documents signed by the alleged dead and disappeared is attached, presented on May 22, 1988, by the authorities of CAYARA, Annex 2).

k. Further, the Office of the Army Inspector General has also established that the people of CAYARA participated in the Erusco ambush on the military convoy, which is obvious from the following facts:

- In the clash that took place at JESHUA between an Army patrol and CAYARA residents, an FAL No. 57786 and four blankets that belonged to the patrol ambushed at ERUSCO were recovered, as was the submachine gun MGP No. 16606, belonging to the CGP.

- Subversive propaganda and explosive materials were found in various homes in CAYARA and the surrounding area.

- In the home of one CAYARA resident, pieces of Army uniforms and a cap of the kind used by military personnel were found.

- The written complaint (letter to the Chief of the BCS of SAN PEDRO) brought by a resident of CAYARA, to the effect that there were individuals there who were associated with the subversives and that an ambush was being prepared and that the townspeople knew about it; unfortunately, this letter arrived too late (a copy is attached, Annex 3).

l. We believe it is important to point out, Mr. Prosecutor, that the purpose of the subversive propaganda spread in the communications media thanks to the deliberate disloyalty of the Special Prosecutor (ESCOBAR PINEDA) and in connection with the events alleged to have occurred in CAYARA, has been to slander the Army and interfere with the countersubversive operations.

2. Concerning the discovery of an alleged "COMMON GRAVE" and the body of a woman alleged to be JOVITA GARCIA.

a. Since August 12, 1988, newspapers in the capital, particularly LA REPUBLICA and LA VOZ, have repeatedly carried stories on the discovery of a "COMMON GRAVE" where, according to Prosecutor ESCOBAR's version, the bodies of CAYARA campesinos who were allegedly killed by the Army in May 1988 following the attack on the Military Convoy in the area of ERUSCO were said to have been buried. Later, those same newspapers reported that the alleged bodies were those of JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ and two persons who were said to have been arrested by the Army between May 18 and 19, 1988, and on orders from the Political-Military Chief.

b. In this regard, Mr. Prosecutor, I must report the following:

(1) It is true that on May 18, 1988, the Political-Military Chief of SZSNC-5 went to CAYARA to investigate, firsthand, the alleged excesses that were mentioned in the communique released by the Mayor of Huamanga on May 17, 1988. There, he established that the charges against the Army were false and spoke with townspeople and asked whether the individuals named in the anonymous letter (mentioned earlier) lived in CAYARA and the surrounding area. The answer was yes, but that none of those named was present; it is therefore illogical to assume that those persons were arrested at that time.

(2) Since May 17, 1988, no one from CAYARA and the surrounding area has been arrested by the Army, much less JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ, who was an Army informant; she was the one that reported the exact place where the ambush on the military convoy occurred and also asserted that residents of CAYARA had participated in the terrorist attack.

(3) According to statements made by the townspeople, JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ remained in ERUSCO for several days following the events in CAYARA, and her name did not appear in the complaint about persons alleged to have died or disappeared in CAYARA.

c. We believe that the case of JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ is a premeditated and carefully prepared fabrication by the subversive delinquents of the Sendero Luminoso who have been aided either consciously or unconsciously by Prosecutor ESCOBAR PINEDA and the leftist press in order to discredit the forces of law and order and bring a halt to the countersubversive activities.

Some time ago, we observed Prosecutor ESCOBAR PINEDA's suspicious activities; he quite deliberately allowed seven days to go by before conducting the proceeding to exhume two alleged bodies, which according to newspaper accounts, had been left in a "common grave," whose location only the Prosecutor and his witnesses knew. I attach a copy of the letter sent to the Political-Military Command reporting that he would conduct the proceeding on August 17, 1988 (Annex 4).

As for military jurisdiction, it should be noted that the Second Army District Court dismissed the respective case on May 12, 1989, a decision that was upheld on January 31, 1990, by the Supreme Council of Military Justice.

3. The Executive Branch

On May 17, 1988, the Council of Ministers held a meeting where the situation involving the complaints filed concerning the deaths in Cayara was examined and it asked the Attorney General of the Nation to investigate the facts, for which he would have the Executive Branch's full support. These statements were reiterated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Presidency, Dr. Armando Villanueva del Campo, to the Attorney General of the Nation, Dr. Hugo Denegri Cornejo, in a letter dated May 23, 1988.

On May 21, 1988, the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers reported that a commission composed of the Minister of Defense, General Enrique López Albújar, the Minister of Justice, Dr. Camilo Carrillo, and escorted by the Dean of the Lima Bar Association, Dr. Raúl Ferrero, and the then Auxiliary Archbishop of Lima, Monsignor Augusto Beuzeville, visited Cayara that same day "having established in-situ that there was no evidence of bombing, fire or fighting in Cayara ..." and that, "from the testimony given freely by the townspeople who were in Cayara, the versions that alleged that women were raped, that there were fires, bombardments, the murder of some 100 individuals and other acts of genocide allegedly committed in Cayara and attributed to Army personnel were false."

Concerning this Press Release, Monsignor Beuzeville addressed the following communication to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on May 17, 1991:

CLARIFICATION

I, Monsignor Augusto Beuzeville Ferro, Auxiliary Bishop in the Diocese of Piura-Tumbes, in the departments of those same names, Republic of Peru, at the urging of the Pro-human Rights Association (APRODEH), which is the petitioner in cases Nos. 10,206, 10,264, 10,276 and 10,446 (CAYARA Case), and in response to the document of May 27, 1991, containing the Peruvian Government's reply to Report No. 29/91 of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, do hereby stipulate the following facts, in writing, to clarify the reply in question:

ONE: In May 1988, the Government of Peru, under the Presidency of Dr. Alan García Pérez, in response to reports that campesinos had been slaughtered by soldiers in Cayara in the Department of Ayacucho, ordered that a Government Commission consisting of the Minister of Justice, Dr. Camilo Carrillo, and the Minister of Defense, General Enrique López Albújar, go to that area to ascertain the facts. The undersigned, who was then Auxiliary Bishop in Lima, and the Dean of the Lima Bar Association, Dr. Raúl Ferrero Costa, were invited to accompany the trip as witnesses. The trip was made on May 21, 1988.

TWO: The report on the visit made to the scene of the unfortunate events was given to the Prime Minister at the time, Armando Villanueva del Campo, in a private meeting and in the presence of the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of the Interior.

THREE: To the surprise of Dr. Ferrero Costa and the undersigned, on May 21, 1988, the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers issued an official communique, paragraph 5) of which stated the following: "The individuals in question went to the town of Cayara (...), and established that there was no evidence of bombing, fire or fighting in Cayara."

In point 9), the communique states that: "... from the testimony given freely by the townspeople who were in Cayara, the versions that alleged that women were raped, that there were fires, bombardments, the murder of some 100 individuals and other acts of genocide allegedly committed in Cayara and attributed to Army personnel were false." Dr. Ferrero and I informed the Prime Minister of our dissatisfaction with this communique since we considered that it was incomplete and inconsistent with the facts, since those campesinos whom they allowed to speak with us in the Plaza de Armas told us that on May 14, there was a clash during the night when the Sendero Luminoso ambushed two Army trucks. The following day, very early in the morning, members of the Army took reprisals against the town, burning three or four houses and murdering 27 or 28 campesinos who were working on the harvest. However, we were unable to establish the truth of all this, since we had no decision-making power regarding the inspection schedule, which had already been established by the government authorities.

FOUR: As a result of this conversation, wherein we shared our impression that we suspected this area of Ayacucho had been the scene of excesses on the part of the Armed Forces, the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers issued another communique on May 22, wherein he reported "...that he is informing the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation of the accounts given by inhabitants of the area who speak of the death of the townspeople (...), since it is up to that authority to prosecute the relevant investigations, which, by their nature, are beyond the means and the scope of the mission appointed."

Further, the communique stated that "The government confirms its decision to get a full clarification of any conflicting accounts that may exist concerning what happened."

FIVE: This final and definitive official communique seems to be contradictory and inconsistent with what the Peruvian Government states in its reply to the effect that: "The Executive Branch appointed a Committee of Notables, which visited the area and found that the complaints were unfounded..."

In effect, that committee, of which I was part, never said anything about a lack of definitive evidence; on the contrary, given the versions that the committee repeatedly heard both firsthand and via the media, I said that these events had to be investigated by the appropriate authorities such as the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the Judiciary and the Congressional Human Rights Commission.

Moreover, that committee never released an official written communique to the public; it reported its impressions in private meetings, whereupon those impressions were conveyed to the general public by the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

SIX: Finally, I should point out that my participation in the committee was on a personal basis and not as a representative of the Church, since I considered it a duty and a service to my country to get to the truth amid utterly conflicting versions.

It should also be noted that the then President of the Republic, Dr. Alan García Pérez, visited Ayacucho and Cayara on May 22, 1988 and spoke with residents and area authorities.

4. The Senate of the Republic

On May 23, 1988, the Senate of the Republic decided to form an Investigating Committee to look into the matters that are the subject of this complaint. That committee consisted of Senator Carlos Enrique Melgar López, Senator Esteban Ampuero Oyarce, Senator Ruperto Figueroa Mendoza and Senator Alfredo Santa María Calderón, of APRA; Senator Javier Diez Canseco Cisneros and Senator Gustavo Mohme Llona of the Izquiera Unida and independent Senator José Navarro Grau.

On May 9, 1989, the Senate Investigating Committee released its report (Annex No. 8) which contains majority findings and minority findings. The findings reached by the majority of the members of the committee were signed by Senators Melgar, Ampuero, Figueroa and Santa María and were as follows:

1. It has been established that on May 13, 1988, an Army patrol was ambushed in the vicinity of Erusco by members of the Sendero Luminoso, who blew up one of the trucks using powerful dynamite charges that had been laid in advance on the road; as a result, Infantry Captain José Arbulú Sime, Sergeant Second Class Angel Vargas Támana, Corporal Fabián Rondá Ortiz and Corporal Carlos Espinosa de la Cruz died in the Mobile Surgical Unit from Ayacucho; fifteen Army soldiers were wounded, five of them gravely.

2. It is established that the ambush totally decommissioned the UNIMOC troop-carrier No. 12082, State property, and Senderistas either took and/or destroyed eleven 7.62-caliber light automatic weapons (FAL); a 9-caliber HK-MPSKA submachine gun, plus 52 FAL cartridges and 14 HK cartridges.

3. It has been established that in spite of the numerical superiority of the attackers and the element of surprise they had in their favor in their ambush on the military convoy, the surviving members of the patrol repelled, to the extent of their abilities, the attack; a number of unidentified subversives were killed at the scene of the events; presumably there were wounded among them, who were taken away by the Senderistas to the neighboring towns before the Army reinforcements from Huancapi arrived.

4. It has been established that Peruvian Army reinforcement patrols, following the plan of operation in effect, principally the "PERSECUCION" plan (Peruvian Army PERSECUCION), began to track down the Senderista column that had fled in the direction of Cayara.

5. The town of Cayara was found semi-abandoned, with only children and elderly people present; they told of five bodies in the town church, who were the subversives who had been wounded during the ambush on the patrol and who died as the subversives fled, there being no time to bury them or to take them with them with fresh military troops in pursuit.

6. As the search and pursuit operations continued in the area near the town of Cayara, specifically in the place called Jeschua, there were new clashes between the forces of law and order and the Senderistas, leaving an undetermined number of casualties among the ranks of the subversives.

7. It has been established that on May 17, 1988, the Mayor of the Provincial Council of Huamanga, Mr. Fermín Dario Asparrent, issued a malicious communique knowingly reporting false criminal acts allegedly committed by members of the Army against the townspeople of Cayara.

8. It has been established that these false criminal actions attributed to military troops, accusing them of supposed excesses in Cayara, gradually filtered to various national and foreign news media, and a manipulative campaign was mounted that purported to be an effort to protect human rights; instead, one of its immediate political objectives was to prevent the forces of law and order from prosecuting their pursuit of the Senderistas following the Erusco ambush.

9. It has been established that to accomplish that political objective, members of the Army were accused of being the material authors of a slaughter of 100 persons in Cayara, which consequently drew public attention both at home and abroad, and from the government, public powers and various political and parliamentary sectors; on the other hand, it generated an obvious sense of solidarity within the aforementioned community and raised suspicions about the military force stationed in Ayacucho, which had to be investigated to clarify the facts and punish those responsible.

10. It is established that this psychological operation, wherein the alleged Cayara excesses were blown out of proportion, maliciously and intentionally, succeeded in paralyzing the countersubversive military actions, thereby thwarting the capture of the Senderistas who operated in Erusco; the psychological operation was also calculated to undermine the morale and fighting spirit of the troops whose commanders were wrongfully placed under suspicion in certain quarters of the media that serve as a sounding board for the subversives, and were accused of being directly responsible for the alleged Cayara excesses.

11. It has been established that when the Chief Prosecutor for the Administrative Jurisdiction, Dr. Manuel Catacora González was serving as Acting Attorney General of the Nation --owing to the absence of the Attorney General-- when he was seized of the allegedly criminal acts committed in the town of Cayara; he immediately sent a telex ordering that the Special Prosecutor for Ayacucho, Dr. Carlos Enrique Escobar Pineda, take charge of the investigation; upon receiving that telex, the latter, rather than transmitting the necessary instructions to the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo to file a criminal complaint or institute a preliminary investigation, as required under Article 80 of the Statute of the Office of the Attorney General, unlawfully took upon himself the functions of the hierarchical superior and, exercising functions that pertain to another office, launched his own investigation into the criminal charges, when that was the exclusive purview of the provincial prosecutors and not the superior prosecutors; he thereby abused his authority by usurping another's authority, a crime provided for and punishable under Article 320 of the Penal Code.

12. It has been established that the Special Prosecutor, Dr. Carlos Enrique Escobar Pineda, has committed criminal and disciplinary offenses by repeatedly violating fundamental procedural provisions and provisions of the Statutes of the Office of the Attorney General and of the Judiciary, with the illegal investigation that he conducted into the alleged excesses committed in Cayara by military personnel, as described in the pertinent part of the present report.

13. It has been established that the Special Prosecutor illegally requested the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo to supply all records in connection with the investigation it was conducting into the criminal offenses committed by the Senderistas in Erusco, thereby preventing that investigation from following its normal course; the investigation has been disrupted by that arbitrary decision, which demonstrates an obvious and manifest concern to obstruct the investigation of these subversive elements being conducted by the Office of the Attorney General.

14. It has been established that the interpreter Alfredo Quispe Arango has violated the public trust and aggrieved the State by identifying himself to the above-named Special Prosecutor using various voting identification papers bearing differing numbers and that belong to other citizens, as has been demonstrated in the body of this report.

15. It has been established that the above-named Special Prosecutor was fully aware that the interpreter Alfredo Quispe Arango betrayed the public trust and aggrieved the State by having various voter identification bearing different numbers; nevertheless, he did not report him, which was his obligation, thereby neglecting the obligations of his office and failing to further the prosecution and punishment of that crime, which is a criminal offense under articles 333, 338, 339 and 361 of the Penal Code.

16. It has been established that Alfredo Quispe Arango, acting as interpreter, has rendered false translations, thereby committing a crime against the administration of justice, to the detriment of the State, and provided for and punishable under Article 334 of the Penal Code, his purpose being to obtain evidence against Army personnel by misrepresenting, with the complicity of the Special Prosecutor, the truth.

17. It has been established that the Special Prosecutor, rather than keep the illegal investigation that he conducted confidential, gave several interviews with a number of media and provided information on how the investigation was progressing, thereby violating the Statute of the Office of the Attorney General.

18. It has been established that the Special Prosecutor has had an obvious and notorious interest in the investigation into Cayara--even to the point of violating the law--so as to prevent, through his intervention, the forces of order from furthering their pursuit of the Senderistas in the wake of the Erusco ambush, thereby aiding the psychological warfare that was mounted through several communications media to bring a halt to the countersubversive operations, a campaign that was nurtured by the information that Dr. Carlos Enrique Escobar Pineda provided.

19. It has been established that the Chief Senior Prosecutor of Ayacucho, Dr. Iván Enrique Tello Mondoñedo, was fully aware of the offense that the Special Prosecutor had committed by usurping functions; nevertheless, he failed to take the appropriate measures to correct the illegal investigation that the Special Prosecutor personally conducted into the Cayara event, and did not instruct the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo to conduct the investigation, as the law required, thereby incurring criminal responsibility that must he reported to the Attorney General of the Nation.

20. It has been established that the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, Dr. Jesús E. Granda Olaechea, conducted an extended investigation into the Cayara matter, based on the records and the final report produced by the aforementioned Special Prosecutor.

21. It has been established that at the end of the expanded investigation, the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, on November 24, 1988, issued a decision not to bring criminal charges against the Army personnel for the alleged crimes committed in Cayara, and filed all of the proceedings in Cangallo.

22. It has been established that with the intervention of the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, the Office of the Attorney General as the single autonomous agency of the State charged with prosecuting crime, has clarified the truth of what happened and ultimately the falseness of the slanderous complaints against members of the Peruvian Army, thereby redeeming the image of that institution and of its chiefs, officers and troop personnel who served in Ayacucho during 1988.

23. It has been established that the then Political Military Chief of Ayacucho, Peruvian Army General José Valdivia Dueñas, is neither the intellectual nor the material author of any of the crimes with which he is slanderously charged in the complaints and hence bears no responsibility whatever; instead he has been the victim of a treacherous campaign to undermine his authority and command, as part of the strategy that the Sendero Luminoso is following to neutralize and/or destroy the forces of law and order to destabilize the democratic regime and the rule of law in Peru.

24. It has been established that the Lower Court Judge of Cangallo, Dr. César Carlos Amado Salazar, has, at the request of the Special Prosecutor, conducted a number of extra-procedural criminal inquiries, taking measures that are pertinent to the examining phase and thereby violating the code of criminal procedure, procedure that ultimately must be carried out by officers of the court.

25. It has been established that the body found on August 10, 1988 at Pucutuccasa, hidden in a grave, is not that of JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ, as the Special Prosecutor wrongfully asserted at the outset.

26. That having established that the body is not that of Jovita García Suárez, the death certificate issued in her name and registered at the Cangallo Provincial Council, is null and void, ipso jure, so that the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, as defender of the law, should institute legal proceedings to have that irregular record nullified.

27. It is established that in 1988, the members of the First Correctional Tribunal of Ayacucho acted irregularly in an appeals case in which they were reviewing the irregularities committed by a lower court judge; even though the Tribunal was the higher court, the members did not correct those irregularities by declaring all proceedings null and void and the Superior Prosecutor's petition inadmissible, which would have protected the right of the representative of the Attorney General's office to proceed in accordance with the law.

For his part, Senator Gustavo Mohme Llona arrived at the following conclusions:

1. The clues found by the judicial authorities and the representatives of the office of the Attorney General corroborate the complaint to the effect that campesinos were killed by military troops in Cayara; those clues indicate the need for a thorough investigation on the part of the judiciary.

2. The term "slaughter" is not the proper one in strictly legal terms, because thus far the corpi delicti have not been found; however, one cannot disregard the position taken by the Supreme Court of the Republic in the "Cárpena Case" where a murder was tried without the body of the victim having been found.

3. All of this points to the fact that when the slaughter was publicly denounced, the Political-Military Command of Ayacucho decided to destroy the evidence. Therefore, it barred any civilian authority and member of the press from the area until one week later, during which time the bodies were disinterred and taken to higher altitudes in the Cayara area.

4. The military troops did not stop their repressive measures on May 14, 1988, the day of the attack on Cayara; instead, several days later, on May 18, 1988, the Chief of the Political-military Command of the area took into custody Jovita García Suárez, Alejandro Ectuccaja Villagaray and Samuel García Palomino, who 70 days later were found buried in a grave in the Cayara highlands. The entire population of Cayara was witness to the arrest of these townspeople who were later described as "command informers" in order to blame their deaths on the subversives.

5. Responsibility for these very grave events must, beyond question, be borne by the Chief of the Political Military Command, Peruvian Army General Valdivia Dueñas and the immediate authors of the slaughter.

6. Rather than conceal the culpability of the military, the government must convince the highest ranking authorities of the armed forces of the need to know the truth about what transpired in Cayara and to punish those responsible. The forces of order know who they are, since they know the names hidden behind the pseudonyms used by each patrol chief.

Our Committee believes that there is sufficient evidence to warrant an in-depth investigation on the part of the competent authorities, into the events that occurred on May 14, 1988, in the town of Cayara, Province of Victor Fajardo in Ayacucho, to determine the identity of those responsible for the murder of 28 campesinos in Cayara.

The conclusions reached by Senator Javier Diez Canseco are as follows:

1. The actions that occurred subsequent to May 14 are an immediate and direct consequence of the attack on the military convoy that occurred the previous day in the vicinity of Cayara. The military response had three components:

a. To provide direct support to those ambushed, which was handled immediately once the survivors were withdrawn.

b. Pursuit of the subversives, for the purpose of annihilating them and recovering weaponry, which continued until May 15.

c. Punishment of the townspeople, who were considered to be partisan to and participants in the subversion, and the search for specific persons named on a list that the Army had in its possession even before it entered Cayara.

2. The existence of that list of alleged subversive partisans, which the Army has in its possession, is the factor that triggered a crime wave targeted at eliminating all the subversive agents and, in particular, the individuals on the list that military intelligence had in its possession and that, while in began in Cayara on May 14, continued with the arrests-disappearances of May 19, June 30, July 3 and, finally, the murder of Fernandina Palomino, Justiciano Tinco and Antonio García Tipe on December 14. The disappearance of the body of Jovita García Suárez is also part of that crime wave.

3. Judging by the testimony of the witnesses, the remains found by the Special Prosecutor when the graves were opened, and the gaps and contradictions in the information provided by the Ministry of Defense, the Committee concludes that on May 14, 1988, the Military Command ordered an operation to pursue and annihilate subversive forces, which action culminated in a punitive action against the people--especially the men--of Cayara for their alleged participation in the ambush of May 13, which involved the indiscriminate slaughter of dozens of civilians and the arrests-disappearances of others.

4. The Committee has found evidence that during the operation, noncombatant civilians were murdered, such as the deaths that occurred on May 14 at the place known as Erusco, at the entry to the town of Cayara and the four people who died later in the town of Mayupampa.

5. The Committee finds that the Army has been unable to prove that the townspeople of Cayara were subversives and participated in the ambush as the conclusions of the report of the Office of the Army Inspector General would suggest, even though it allegedly had the elements to substantiate its version, such as the finger print identification of the Erusco bodies, testimony and evidence to substantiate its claims, and the cartridges recovered at Cayara and Jeshua.

6. The Committee discards as untrue the notion that the disappearance of the bodies was the work of subversives and concludes that because of the complaints that began on May 17, more specifically when Prosecutor Escobar requested the Army's support to go to Cayara to dig up the graves, which happened on May 25, the Army itself retrieved the bodies and caused them to disappear, thereby attempting to destroy all evidence of its enormous crime.

7. There is a deliberate cover-up of information, in violation of the precepts contained in articles 179 and 180 of the Constitution, in that:

a. The complete version of the report of the Investigation conducted by the Office of the Army Inspector General and its appendices have not been provided; instead, only the conclusions have been supplied.

b. The findings of the fingerprint identification of the four bodies found at Erusco have never been reported.

8. The Commission concludes that Division General José Valdivia Dueñas, Chief of the Political-Military Command of that area, which was under a State of Siege, was the individual immediately and ultimately responsible for planning and executing the military actions that began on May 14.

9. The Commission has found evidence to indicate that on May 19, citizens Jovita García, Bautista, Alejandro Echeccaya and Samuel García were arrested by the Army and later kidnapped. It also concludes that the subsequent location of their bodies is evidence that the authors of their deaths would be the same military troops who took them from Cayara.

10. The Commission contends that the ultimate disappearance of the body of Jovita García could only be for the purpose of making it impossible to establish, with legal certainty, that she died at the hands of her abductors.

11. The Commission has found evidence to conclude that, discarding the version of the kidnapping by a column of subversives, on June 30, citizen Gregorio Ipurre Ramos and his family were kidnapped by Army soldiers.

12. The Commission concludes that the remaining complaints involving murders of civilians that occurred during the course of these events, of whom Prosecutor Escobar found unidentified remains, must be clarified by the office of the Attorney General.

13. There has been deliberate and consistent obstruction of the investigations conducted by Special Prosecutor Carlos Escobar Pineda, coupled with a lack of cooperation from the Political-military Command of Ayacucho to enable him to perform his functions.

14. The facts investigated provide evidence that the actions committed are classified as common crimes in our system and can in no way be regarded as military crimes; it is the duty of the office of the Attorney General to investigate those crimes and the duty of the Judiciary to punish them.

15. The Commission concludes that the crimes investigated must be viewed in the general context of the counterinsurgency policy pursued by the present administration. to obtain intelligence, the forces of order used, as modi operandi, such illegal force as torture or threats. These methods are part of a logic of warfare wherein entire communities are classified as the enemy and with which the State only continues to have a coercive relationship.

16. The Commission regrets to point out that the criticism it makes today is precisely the same criticism that the Senate Committee that investigated the events at Pucayaccu and Accomarca made in October 1985, at the start of this Administration; this merely confirms that the change of administration did not bring a change in the anti-subversive policy.

III. MEASURES TAKEN BY THE STATE

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