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REPORT
Nº 29/91 EVENTS
THAT OCCURRED IN THE TOWN OF CAYARA BACKGROUND:
1. On
November 17, 1988, the Commission received a petition from Americas Watch dated
November 7 of that year. It alleged
a number of violations of the human rights of residents of the community of
Cayara, Peru. Between 28 and 31
townspeople were alleged to have died in three successive incursions by members
of the Peruvian Armed Forces. Those
incursions were also alleged to have resulted in arrests, torture, mistreatment,
looting and pillaging, fires and other violations of that community, as will be
described below.
Previously on May 18, 20 and 24 of that year, the Commission had received
from APRODEH (Association for Human Rights) complaints concerning events that
occurred in Cayara, complaints that, in general, are summarized in the petition
the Commission received on November 17.
The complaints were accompanied by a number of attachments, including a
considerable number of newspaper accounts published in Lima in connection with
the incidents, a copy of the complaints that APRODEH filed with the Supreme
Court and the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation on May 29 and 20, and
another complaint filed with the Attorney General's Office on May 19, this one
by a number of Deputies of the Nation, headed by Deputy Agustín Haya de la
Torre.
The petition received on November 17, 1988
from Americas Watch read as follows:
I. THE
FACTS BEING DENOUNCED
On May 13, 1988, a contingent of the "Sendero Luminoso" armed
group ambushed a military convoy with 20 Peruvian Army troopers at Erusco, in
the district of Cayara, in Víctor Fajardo province, in the department of
Ayacucho. A considerable number of
the insurrectionist group took part in the attack, which was done by planting
dynamite charges on the roadway. In
the fighting, four senderistas, one captain in the Peruvian Army and three
soldiers were killed.
The next day, Army troops entered Cayara, the town closest to Erusco.
According to eyewitness accounts, the military contingent killed the
first person it encountered; it then moved on to the town's church, where it
found five men dismantling a platform. It
shot them on the spot. Later, it
ordered the people to the town's main square, and waited for the men to return
from their work in the fields. upon
their return, the men and young boys were separated from the women and children.
As the women and children watched, the soldiers ordered the men to lie
down on the ground. They then
killed them, using bayonets and work tools.
It has been established that in all between 28 and 31 persons were
killed. The soldiers then buried
the bodies of the dead in a place nearby.
On May 18, the Army returned to Cayara and, in the town's school, set up
a permanent base manned with some 20 troops.
That day, Brigadier General José Valdivia, Chief of the Central Security
Subzone for Ayacucho and the officer in command, read a list of names of Cayara
residents supposedly being sought
as subversives. That same list was
later published in Lima in newspapers and in the magazine Oiga.
On June 29, 1988, uniformed Army troopers took the following individuals
from their homes in Cayara: GUZMAN
BAUTISTA PALOMINO, GREGORIO IPURRE RAMOS, HUMBERTO IPURRE, BENIGNA PALOMINO DE
IPURRE and CATALINA RAMOS PALOMINO. The
first two were witnesses to the Cayara massacre of May 14, 1988; the others are
the father, mother and sister of Gregorio Ipurre Ramos.
Guzmán had allegedly spoken with delegations of congressmen and with the
magazine Caretas about the events that had occurred in Cayara. According to statements made by relatives of the five when
interviewed by Juan Méndez when preparing the report on the situation of human
rights in Peru titled "Tolerating the Abuses," the men in uniform
burst into various homes at night, beat the two men and, over protests from
their wives and children, took them away to the military base, a distance of no
more than 200 meters from each house.
The wives and children followed the captors as far as the base, but were
intimidated into leaving. Some
hours later, other citizens of the town saw the detainees being boarded onto
military trucks that moved out in the direction of the Huyancapi base.
Despite the complaints lodged by relatives with the district attorney's
office and other authorities, none of the five ever reappeared.
In the days that followed, the survivors went to Ayacucho and reported
what had happened. When the
Prosecutor charged with investigating the disappearances, Dr. Carlos Escobar,
went to the town, the buried remains were no longer there; they had been
illegally removed. There were,
however, traces left behind at the place where the victims' bodies were said to
have been buried: blood stains, human hairs, pieces of clothing, etc.
Obviously, the bodies could only have been moved by a force capable of
patrolling the area on a regular basis.
On August 10, 1988, some farmers reported finding graves containing three
cadavers. Prosecutor Escobar
exhumed three bodies at a place called Pucutugasa, four hours from Cayara, and
identified ALEJANDRO ECHEGAYA VILLAGARAY (referred to as Garay in other
accounts), SAMUEL GARCIA PALOMINO and JOVITA GARCIA SUAREZ.
The three had been arrested on May 18, during the military incursion
in Cayara led by General Valdivia. According
to the District Attorney's Office, the group headed up by Escobar was able to
take only one corpse, that of Jovita García Suárez; because the site where the
bodies were buried was so far from any city, the group did not have the
transport facilities it needed to take away the other bodies.
The sister of Jovita, Flavia García Suárez, identified the three bodies
and the Prosecutor recorded the exhumation.
When investigators returned several days later, the other two bodies had
been removed.
Newspaper accounts state that General Valdivia ordered the Peruvian
Investigating Police (PIP) officer who accompanied Escobar to tell him what the
prosecutor had found. The autopsy
done on Jovita García established that at the time of her death, she was
pregnant and that her limbs were fractured in several places and her skull
crushed. The autopsy listed two possible causes of death:
serious trauma to the skull and brain or a puncture wound at the level of
the heart. Later, in an attempt to
conceal these facts, the Army reported that Jovita García had been its
informant and that she had been killed by the Sendero Luminoso.
II. THE
VICTIMS
A. May 14
According to the information supplied to us by Peruvian human rights
organizations, the reports published by Amnesty International, and information
supplied by relatives, between 28 and 31 people were killed on May 14,
1988. It is important to note that
the disappearance of the bodies has made it difficult to establish precisely how
many were killed and who they were. Most
of them were adult males or young men living in Cayara and engaged in farm-related
activities.
The names of some of the victims are as follows:
1.
Hermenegildo Apari Tello
B. May
18
Among those arrested on May 18 in Cayara were the following: Jovita García Suárez, Samuel García Palomino, Alejandro
Echaccaya Villagaray, Victoriano Apari, Justiniano Tinco García, Gregorio
Ipurre Ramos and Ramón Hinostroza.
Of
these seven, four were released, and only the following remained under arrest: 1. Jovita García Suárez
These three persons were found dead in Pucutuccasa on August 10, 1988, by
Prosecutor Escobar.
C. June 29
The persons who were detained on June 29 and who have since disappeared
are as follows:
1. Guzmán Bautista Palomino
III. VIOLATIONS OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The acts described above constitute a violation of the American
Convention on Human Rights, to which Peru is a party.
A. Violation of
Article 4
In effect, the acts perpetrated by the regular forces of the Peruvian
State involve a violation of Article 4 of the Convention:
Every person has the right to have his life respected.
This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of
conception. No one shall be
arbitrarily deprived of his life.
The events occurred within an area where a state of emergency had been
declared under Article 231 of the Peruvian Constitution.
However, Article 27 of the Convention provides that suspension of some of
the obligations under the Convention itself does not authorize suspension of the
right to life upheld in Article 4. As
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held in its Advisory Opinion OC-8/87,
of January 30, 1987:
The suspension of guarantees also constitutes an emergency situation in
which it is lawful for a government to subject rights and freedoms to certain
restrictive measures that, under normal circumstances, would be prohibited or
more strictly controlled. This does
not mean, however, that the suspension of guarantees implies a temporary
suspension of the rule of law, nor does it authorize those in power to act in
disregard of the principle of legality by which they are bound at all times.
When guarantees are suspended, some legal restraints applicable to the
acts of public authorities may differ from those in effect under normal
conditions. These restraints may
not be considered to be nonexistent, however, nor can the government be deemed
thereby to have acquired absolute powers that go beyond the circumstances
justifying the grant of such exceptional legal measures.
(Paragraph No. 24).
B. Violation
of Article 7
The conduct of the Peruvian Sate as we have described it here also
implies a violation of Article 7 of the Convention.
Although personal liberty is a derogable right in a state of emergency,
such derogation cannot be considered to authorize the practice of disappearance,
in other words, detention without any form of judicial control over the right to
humane treatment and the other rights of the person detained.
As has been said, in addition to the absolute rights, which are
nonderogable, there are others, such as the right to personal liberty, that are
derogable; however, this does not give the State absolute power vis-à-vis those
rights. The requirements for such
derogation have been described as follows:
A second type of right established in the Convention are those that are
derogable provided the requirements stipulated in the Convention are observed.
For restriction of such rights to be lawful, the Convention establishes
requirements of i) necessity, ii) temporality, iii) proportionality, iv)
compatibility with other obligations, v) nondiscrimination, and adherence to law
by those in authority. (Claudio
Grossman in "Algunas Consideraciones sobre el Régimen de Situación de
Excepción bajo la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos" in Human
Rights in the Americas, Homage to the Memory of Carlos A. Dunshee de Abranches,
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Washington, 1984, p. 129.)
It is obvious that in this case there was no compatibility with the
Peruvian State's other obligations, among them the duty to protect human life,
and that the authorities who made the arrests did not adhere to the law.
IV. THE CONDUCT OF THE PERUVIAN STATE
The Peruvian Government has not relieved from duty the officer in charge
of the area, Peruvian Army Brigadier General Juan Valdivia Dueñas, nor any
other officer who was in command of the operations denounced.
On July 11, 1988, after taking testimony from relatives on the
disappearance of five persons, Americas Watch sent an urgent letter to President
Alan García requesting guarantees that the witnesses would turn up alive.
To date no reply to that letter has been forthcoming.
The complaints filed with the Office of the Attorney General by relatives
of those who disappeared on June 29 have not produced any positive results and
have failed to turn up the disappeared.
The Attorney General's Office, which under the Constitution is the
Peruvian institution in charge of criminal proceedings and defender of the
rights of the people, instructed the special Prosecutor for cases of
disappearances, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda, to conduct the necessary
investigations to ascertain those suspected of being responsible for the events
that occurred in Cayara. According to statements made to the press by the Chief
Criminal Prosecutor, Pedro Méndez Jurado, the Report of the Special Prosecutor
had already been completed and found General José Valdivia guilty of four
crimes (statements made to Caretas Nº 1031, November 7, 1988).
Nevertheless, thus far the findings of that investigation have never been
made public; even worse, no charges have been brought against those responsible
for the murders and kidnappings that took place in Cayara.
The situation provided for in Article 46.2.c has thus materialized,
inasmuch as there has been an unwarranted delay in the remedies under domestic
law; therefore, the requirement stipulated in Article 46.1.a does not apply in
the instant case.
2. The
complaint was forwarded to the Government of Peru on November 29, 1988, under
Case Nº 10,264) requesting of it any information it deemed pertinent within the
90-day statutory time period and without any prejudgment as to its admissibility
under Article 42.3 of the Commission's Regulations.
That note was repeated on March 1, 1989.
[end of petition of November 17, 1988]
3. On the
8th of July, 1988 the Commission
received the following complaint, complementary to the previous ones,
transmitted to the Peruvian Government by cablegram on the 11th of that month.
The complaint stated that on June 29, 1988 witnesses to the events in
Cayara had been arrested and taken from their homes.
The arrested ones included GUZMAN BAUTISTA PALOMINO, GREGORIO IPURRE
RAMOS, HUMBERTO IPURRE, BENIGNA PALOMINO DE IPURRE y CATALINA RAMOS PALOMINO,
all of which were taken away, and no information about their destination was
given and their whereabouts were unknown. On
the basis of this complaint, Case Nº 10,206 was open at the Commission,
and the pertinent parts of the complaint transmitted to the Government and
reiterated on February 22, 1989 and
September 7, 1989. The Government
has yet to give any answer to this complaint (see point 33).
On December 16, 1988, the Commission received the following complaint
related to the earlier petition. Recorded as case Nº 10,276, it was forwarded
to the Government on December 29. The
relevant parts of that complaint are as follows:
At 5:00 p.m. on December 14 last, the Mayor and the Secretary of Cayara
were killed. Both had been
witnesses to the May 14 massacre.
JUSTINIANO TINCO GARCIA and FERNANDINA PALOMINO QUISPE were travelling in
a truck with 15 other people when the truck was stopped by men in hoods,
presumably paramilitary, who ordered the passengers to identify themselves.
According to the witnesses, JUSTINIANO and FERNANDINA were tortured and
slashed in various parts of the body before being killed.
The driver, ANTONIO FELIX GARCIA TIPE, was strapped to the bottom of the
truck and killed by a grenade.
The other passengers were then sent on their way on foot, and told that
they would be killed if they reported this new massacre.
We beg that urgent measures be taken to investigate this crime and
request protection for Benedicta María Valenzuela Ccayo, the wife of the
murdered mayor and herself a witness to the massacre in Cayara.
On September 8, 1989, the Commission again relayed this information to
the Government and informed it that should no response be received by the new
deadline, the Commission would consider application of Article 42 of its
Regulations. The Government sent no
reply at all to this case (see point 34).
4. On
September 13, 1989, the Commission received another complaint in connection with
the "Cayara" case, which it transmitted that same day to the Peruvian
Government, registered as case No. 10,446. The pertinent parts of that complaint read as follows:
The murder of nurse MARTA CRISOSTOMO GARCIA by eight hooded men in
uniform is hereby denounced. At
3:00 a.m. on the morning of September 8, 1989, they entered her home in the San
Juan Bautista area of Huamanga, Ayacucho, and shot her a number of times.
Following the death of Justiniano Tinco, the mayor of Cayara, Fernandina
Palomino, secretary of the town council, and Antonio García Tipe, MARTA was one
of the surviving witnesses to the Cayara massacre.
Born in Cayara, MARTA had made statements to Prosecutor Escobar wherein
she acknowledged that she had identified the body of her aunt JOVITA GARCIA
BAUTISTA, around whose murder Prosecutor Escobar had built his case against
General Valdivia. She had also made
statements to the Senate Commission that visited the town one week after the
slaughter.
Her death eliminated a key witness in the Cayara massacre.
[end of complaint of Sept. 13, 1989]
Newspaper accounts attached to the complaint stated that Marta Crisóstomo
had been threatened repeatedly and had requested Government protection.
The Commission's note to the Government transmitting the complaint was
sent again on March 13, 1989, and on April 12, 1990.
The April 12 note also said that should no reply be forthcoming, the
Commission would consider application of Article 42 of its Regulations.
The Government sent no reply at all.
5. On June
9, 1989, since no reply had been received in Case Nº 10,264 from the
Government, the Commission sent it a note informing it that the Commission would
consider the possible application of Article 42 should there be no response to
its request within 30 days. That
note was sent again on September 7, 1989. On September 29, a note was received from the Peruvian
Mission to the OAS, as follows:
As for case 10,264, one must allow for the fact that the internal
jurisdictional process has not yet been completed and that the delay in replying
to the IACHR's request is because of the need for strict observance of the norms
that guarantee the administration of justice, as spelled out in the Constitution
of Peru.
6. In
November 1st, 1989, in response to that note from the Government of September
29, 1989, the complainant claimed that the remedies under domestic law had
already been exhausted, arguing that:
We would like to separate the two arguments brought by the representatives of the denounced Government. The first, i.e., "that the internal jurisdictional process has not yet been completed," is the issue of exhaustion of internal remedies. The second, "the delay in replying to the IACHR's request is because of the need for strict observance of the norms that guarantee administration of justice, as spelled out in the Constitution of Peru," is more of an attempt to explain the absence of any response from the Peruvian Government in the case.
As for the first argument, we would like to state flatly that in the
instant case, the internal remedies have already been exhausted.
We base our position on the following considerations:
a. The resolution dated November 24, 1988,
issued by the Cangallo Public Prosecutor, Dr. Jesús A. Granda Olaechea, decides
against filing any criminal charges and to temporarily archive the complaint.
Prosecutor Granda had replaced Prosecutor Carlos Escobar in the
investigation. The latter had found
criminal liability and
had charged Brigadier General José Valdivia Dueñas of the Peruvian
Army. The ruling of Prosecutor
Granda enabled the Government Forces to evade their proven responsibility for
the events.
b. Since the Prosecutor is responsible for
instituting criminal proceedings, there is no other penal procedure in Peru for
denouncing the violations in the instant case that does not begin with the
Prosecutor's charge. By refusing
to file any criminal charges, the Prosecutor exhausted the internal remedy
available and left only one avenue open for denouncing the events, i.e., the
international recourse that the American Convention on Human Rights provides.
c. To reinforce our contention, we would like to
point out that since November 1989, no further investigation -- either criminal
or judicial -- has been conducted into this case.
We would also like to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that
even supposing, for the sake of argument, that the internal remedies had not
been exhausted, more than a reasonable amount of time has passed since May 13,
1988, to render a final judgment in the case of the disappearance and death of
the Cayara farmers. Because of this
unwarranted delay, Article 46 of the Convention can be applied without first
having to exhaust the domestic remedies.
It should also be noted that the Chief Prosecutor assigned for cases of
disappearances, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda, was relieved of his duty precisely
because he did conduct an inquiry into the facts denounced and found sufficient
evidence to bring members of the Peruvian Government's military forces to trial.
Finally, in connection with the second argument used by the Peruvian
Mission, we would simply like to point out that even if there were any truth in
the claim that the internal remedies had not yet been exhausted -- which there
is not -- and that the obligations inherent in the administration of justice as
spelled out in Article 233 of the Constitution had to be met, these do not pose
any legal or procedural impediment to the Government's responding to the
complaints filed with the Commission and unfortunately do not explain the
absence of any reply on the part of the Peruvian Government.
7. Attached
to the reply sent by the petitioner on November 1, 1989, was a copy of the
report written by the Special Prosecutor for Disappearances, Dr. Carlos Escobar
Pineda, dated October 13, 1988, concerning the events in Cayara on May 14
of that year. (The Report is
transcribed further on, under this same point.
Hereinafter it is referred to as the Prosecutor Escobar Report.)
Dr. Escobar was already serving as Prosecutor for Disappearances for the
Department of Ayacucho when he was assigned the Cayara investigation through a
telex from Dr. Manuel Catacora González, Chief Prosecutor for cases under
Administrative Law, on May 19, 1988. That
same order was given by the Chief Criminal Prosecutor on May 24 (see point
37). The Prosecutor made visits and
conducted inquiries during the days and months that followed. Those visits and inquiries are described further on in this
report. Much of his work was
destroyed in one way or another as evident from documents that this Commission
has in its possession (see, in particular, points 41 to 44).
On September 21, 1988, the Attorney General of the Nation and Counsel for
the People, Dr. Hugo Denegri Cornejo, ordered that Prosecutor Escobar complete
his investigation and submit his final report on the case within ten days, after
which he would "have no authority whatever to pursue the
investigation." The Prosecutor was so notified on October 3 and delivered the
report on October 13. That report
appears in its entirety under the next point.
On October 18 he ceased to be the Chief Prosecutor for Disappearances in
the jurisdictions of Ayacucho and Apurimac.
In April 1989 Dr. Escobar was transferred to Iquitos as Provisional Chief
Prosecutor of Loreto; on July 31, 1989, his services with the Office of the
Attorney General of the Nation were terminated.
Dr. Escobar testified before the Commission at its 77th session in May 1990,
in the presence of representatives of the Peruvian Government. FINAL
REPORT To:
Dr. Pedro Méndez Jurado, Chief Criminal Prosecutor From:
Dr. Carlos Enrique Escobar Pineda, Special Chief Prosecutor Subject:
Investigation into the events that occurred in the District of Cayara
on Date:
October 13, 1988
I have the honor to address you to report the following:
I. On May 17,
1988, Mr. Necías Taquiri Yanqui filed a complaint with the Office of the
Special Chief Prosecutor to the effect that because of an ambush on troops of
the Peruvian Army in the highlands of Erusco on May 13, 1988, which left a
number of soldiers dead, among them a captain in the Peruvian Army, army
troopers from Huancapi and other bases entered Cayara on May 14, 1988,
killing approximately 50 people from the district.
Among those killed were his brother Zósimo Graciano Taquiri Yanqui (the
principal of the Cayara high school), a janitor at the high school by the name
of Dionisio, and a peddler called Solano.
Moreover, on May 19, Fernandina Palomino Quispe, Pelagia Tueros
Chaipana and Antonia Apari Palomino also reported that army troops, among them
cavalrymen from Huaya and soldiers brought in by helicopter, had broken down
doors, searched stores and houses, burned a number of homes, raped women and
killed some of the people of Cayara, some in the church and others with axes and
machetes. They then tried to persuade the survivors to say that the
massacre had been the work of Senderistas.
Finally, by a cable dated May 18, the Pro-Human Rights Association (Asociación
Pro-Derechos Humanos (APRODEH)) reported the same events, listing possible
victims. There were 28 people from
the district of Cayara on that list. It
requested that measures be taken to secure the release of Petronila Chipana
Tarque and Benedicta Valenzuela Bayo, whom the Peruvian Army had taken into
custody.
As a result of these complaints, on May 19 the Attorney General of
the Nation sent a telex, at p. 4, ordering the undersigned to undertake the
corresponding investigation. That
investigation was instituted (p. 5) and the inquiries were ordered.
II. In carrying
out this investigation, the following inquiries have been conducted:
A. Statements have
been taken from the following individuals:
1. Fernandina Palomino Quispe These
persons stated that:
a. On May 13 last,
at around 9:00 p.m., they heard an explosion from the vicinity of Erusco
(testimony given by witnesses Nos. 12, 15, 19, 22, 25, 27, 29 and 30).
b. The explosion was
followed by an exchange of fire lasting approximately 45 minutes (testimony
given by witnesses 22 and 25).
c. The following day,
May 14, 1988, between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., they saw two helicopters fly
over the Erusco area, land there and take off (testimony given by witnesses Nos.
2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 29, and 30).
d. Uniformed army
troopers came to Cayara (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 5, 8, 9, 12, 13,
14, 17, 19, 28, 29 and 30).
e. Many of the soldiers
were from the military base at Huaya (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 5, 6,
7, 10 and 19).
f. Approximately
80 soldiers entered the town of Cayara (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 9, 10,
14, 15 and 17).
g. As they were coming
into town, the soldiers killed a man from the district by the name of Esteban
Asto Bautista (testimony given by witness Nº 10).
h. Those soldiers
destroyed the medical clinic in the town (testimony given by witness Nº 10).
i. The soldiers
broke down doors and searched stores (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 10, 12,
13 and 28.
j. At the town
church, where a religious festival in honor of the Virgin of Fatima was being
celebrated, the soldiers killed Indalecio Palomino Tueros, Patricio Ccayo
Cahuaymi, Emilio Berrocal Crisóstomo, Santiago Tello Crisóstomo and Teodosio
Noa Pariona (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 8 and 31).
k. Between 80 and
100 soldiers went down to Ccechua (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 14, 15 and
17).
l. It was harvest
season and most of the people of Cayara had gone to their farms in Ccechua early
that morning (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 6, 7, 14, 17 and 30).
l(1) The
soldiers assembled the people from the district who had gone to harvest their
crops in Ccechua, at a place called Ccachuaypampa, between four and five that
afternoon (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 6, 7, 11, 14, 15, 17, 29 and
30).
m. The soldiers had
taken Marcial Crisóstomo de la Cruz, tied his hands and used him as a guide to
go to the homes of people whose names figured on a list they had with them
(testimony given by witnesses Nos. 8, 10, 24, 25 and 26).
n. The soldiers were
looking for the homes of Gregorio Ipurre Ramos and Dionisio Suárez Palomino,
which they burned (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 25).
n(1) After separating the
men from the women in Ccachuaypampa, the soldiers ordered the men to lie face
down; they put cactus leaves cut from a nearby grove on the men's backs and
stepped on them (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 2, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19,
26, 28, 29 and 30).
o. The soldiers made the
women and children run so that they would clear out of the area (testimony given
by witnesses Nos. 1, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 28 and 29).
p. The soldiers then
killed the men, one by one, using axes, machetes, sickles, and hammers; they hid
the bodies near a molle tree (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 2, 6,
14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 26, 28, 29 and 30).
q. On May 14 and
15, the road to Cayara was blocked off by soldiers, who checked all cars that
had to go through the town (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 1, 5, 10, 12 and
13).
r. The soldiers
did not allow the relatives of the dead men to go near their bodies, guarding
the accesses to Ccechua until Monday, May 16 (testimony given by witnesses
Nos. 30 and 34).
s. The soldiers
tried to clean up the bloodstains left by the bodies of the people from the
Cayara district who were killed inside the church (testimony given by witness
No. 10).
t. On the morning
of May 18, General José Valdivia Dueñas arrived by helicopter at the
place used as a heliport; he read a list with names of people from the district
of Cayara, whom he said were being sought because they were terrorists; among
those named were Gregorio Ipurre Ramos, Guzmán Bautista Palomino, Justiniano
Tinco García, Román Hinostroza Palomino, Victoriana Apari, Alejandro Echaccaya
Villagaray and Samuel García Palomino; many women protested the death of their
loved ones (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 10, 11 and 22).
u. On the afternoon of
May 18, after the General had already gone, an army patrol came into the
town under the command of an officer in blue jeans, wearing a black ski mask.
Under the black ski mask, one could see that he had blond hair and a
ruddy complexion; one could also make out his nose and eyes.
That day, the army patrol took into custody one of the last two people
listed above; they arrested the other the next day, along with Jovita García Suárez.
All these arrests were in Erusco (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 10,
35, 36, 37 and 39).
v. The soldiers, who
were roughly 20 in number, held these three people at the Erusco school until
May 18. They then took them
away, in the direction of the mountain (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 36,
37, 38 and 39).
w. The relatives of the
two men named above followed the route used by the soldiers when they took their
husbands away. They found some
Articles of clothing belonging to Jovita García Suárez about 15 days after she
was taken away. Finally, 30 days
after the three were detained at the school, their bodies were found in a grave
at Pucutuccasa (testimony by witnesses Nos. 37 and 40).
x. In the early
morning hours of May 25, army soldiers took the bodies that had been buried
in Ccechua and put them on pack animals and headed in the direction of Cayara,
and from there for some unknown destination (testimony given by witnesses Nos. 8
and 30).
y. The witnesses whose
identification numbers appear in the right hand column saw the army soldiers
kill the following people of the district:
Indalecio Palomino Tueros
Nos. 8 and 20
z. The
witnesses whose identification numbers appear in the right hand column saw army
soldiers torture the following people of the district on the night of May 14,
in the building that houses the Cayara Town Council.
Benedicta
María Valenzuela Ccayo Nos. 1,
23, 24 and 32 [ Previous|Next] |