COMPLAINT FILED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AGAINST THE PERUVIAN STATE

In connection with the events that began on May 14, 1988
in the district of
CAYARA

*

Complaint filed by the IACHR against the Peruvian State
*

Appendixes
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Resolution Nº1/91
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Reply of the Government of Peru to the IACHR
*

Report 29/91

On February 16, 1992 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights pursuant to Article 61 of the American Convention submitted for consideration of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a complaint against the Government of Peru, in connection with the events that began on May 14, 1988 in the District of Cayara, Province of Victor Fajardo, Department of Ayacucho.

In March 1992 the Government of Peru filed twelve preliminary objections to the complaint submitted by the Commission.

In a judgment issued on February 3, 1993, the Court declared that the petition was filed after the expiration deadline stipulated in Article 51.1 of the Convention, and did not address the merits of the case.

Because it considered this to be a matter of general interest, the Commission, at its 83rd session, decided to publish in a single document the complaint, Report Nº 29/91 of February 20, 1991, Resolution Nº 1/91 of November 11, 1991 and the response of the Government of Peru to that Report, which were attached to the complaint filed by the Commission.
March 12, 1993

I. PURPOSE OF THE COMPLAINT

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is petitioning the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that:

1. It find that the Government of Peru, through the acts of its agents, has violated the right to life, the right to humane treatment, the right to personal liberty, the right to a fair trial, the right to property, and the right to judicial protection, recognized in articles 4, 5, 7, 8, 21 and 25, all in relation Article 1.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights, as a consequence of the extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, forced disappearance and damage to public property and the property of Peruvian citizens, victims of actions that members of the Peruvian Army took starting on May 14, 1988, in the district of Cayara, Province of Víctor Fajardo, Department of Ayacucho, and the following persons in particular:

ARBITRARY EXECUTIONS AND FORCED DISAPPEARANCES

1. APARI TELLO, HERMENEGILDO
2. ASTO BAUTISTA, ESTEBAN
3. BAUTISTA PALOMINO, GUZMAN (disappeared)
4. BERROCAL PALOMINO, EMILIO
5. CCAYO CAHUAYMI, DAVID
6. CCAYO CAHUAYMI, PATRICIO
7. CCAYO NOA, SOLANO
8. CCAYO RIVERA, JOSE
9. CHOCCÑA ORE, ALEJANDRO
10. CRISOSTOMO GARCIA, FELIX
11. CRISOSTOMO GARCIA, MARTA
12. ECHECCAYA VILLAGARAY, ALEJANDRO
13. GARCIA SUAREZ, JOVITA
14. GARCIA PALOMINO, SAMUEL
15. GARCIA TIPE, ANTONIO FELIX
16. GONZALEZ PALOMINO, ARTEMIO
17. GUTIERREZ HUAMAN, MAGDALENO (disappeared)
18. HUAYANAY BAUTISTA, ALFONSO
19. IPURRE BAUTISTA, HUMBERTO (disappeared)
20. IPURRE RAMOS, GREGORIO (disappeared)
21. IPURRE SUAREZ, IGNACIO
22. MARCATOMA SUARES VDA. DE IPURRE, SEGUNDINA (disappeared)
23. NOA PARIONA, TEODOSIO
24. ORE PALOMINO, EUSTAQUIO
25. PALOMINO BAUTISTA, ZACARIAS
26. PALOMINO CHOCCÑA, AURELIO
27. PALOMINO DE IPURRE, BENIGNA (disappeared)
28. PALOMINO QUISPE, FERNANDINA
29. PALOMINO SUAREZ, FIDEL TEODOSIO
30. PALOMINO TUEROS, INDALECIO
31. QUISPE PALOMINO, FELIX
32. RAMOS PALOMINO, CATALINA (disappeared)
33. SUAREZ PALOMINO, DIONISIO
34. SULCA HUAYTA, PRUDENCIO
35. SULCA ORE, EMILIANO
36. TAQUIRI YANQUI, ZOZIMO GRACIANO
37. TARQUI CCAYO, IGNACIO
38. TELLO CRISOSTOMO, SANTIAGO
39. TINCO GARCIA, JUSTINIANO
40. VALENZUELA QUISPE, TEODOSIO

TORTURE

PALOMINO DE LA CRUZ, INDALECIO
DE LA CRUZ IPURRE, CESAR
TARQUI QUISPE, AVELINO
ESQUIVEL FERNANDEZ, DOMITILA
VALENZUELA CCAYO, BENEDICTA MARIA
CCAYO RIVERA, CIRO
CRISOSTOMO GARCIA, TEOFILO
VALENZUELA PALOMINO, NESTOR

DAMAGE TO THE PROPERTY OF

IPURRE RAMOS, GREGORIO
SUAREZ PALOMINO, DIONISIO
TELLO, LUCIA
CABRERA DE PALOMINO, PRIMITIVA
GARCIA PARIONA, MODESTO
TORRES TINCO, TEODOSIO
DE LA CRUZ VDA. DE TORRES, CATALINA
SUAREZ BAUTISTA, PAULINA
HUAMANI, APOLONIO
GARCIA PARIONA, ENEDINA
AQUINO PAICO, EMILIANO

DAMAGE TO PUBLIC PROPERTY

CAYARA HEALTH STATION
CAYARA DISTRICT COUNCIL
CAYARA EDUCATION CENTER

2. It find that the Government of Peru has failed to honor its obligation to respect and guarantee the exercise of the rights mentioned in the preceding paragraph, under the terms of Article 1.1 of the Convention.

3. It set the reparations and compensatory damages to which the victims and/or their next-of-kin are entitled as a consequence of the actions of the agents of the Peruvian Government described in this complaint, in accordance with Article 63.1 of the Convention.

4. It instruct the Government of Peru to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of the facts denounced in this submission, single out those responsible for the violations denounced and bring them to trial so that they may receive the punishment that the law demands.

II. THE FACTS

A. General statement of the facts in this case

On May 13, 1988, at around 21:00 hours, in the vicinity of the hamlet known as Erusco, a Peruvian Army convoy was ambushed by an armed group belonging to the Peruvian Communist Party -also known as the Sendero Luminoso [Shining Path]--, leaving four soldiers dead and another 14 wounded. Erusco is located in the District of Cayara, Province of Victor Fajardo, Department of Ayacucho, a region that has been the scene of very serious violence dating back to 1980, when the group launched its armed fight against the Peruvian constitutional system. Since December 1982, the Department of Ayacucho has been in a state of emergency and under the authority of a Political-Military Command. At the time of the events in question, the Chief of the Political-Military Command was Brigadier General José Valdivia Dueñas, who was promoted to the rank of Division General in December 1990.

The next day, May 14, military troops instituted a series of actions in the Cayara district which resulted in the arbitrary execution of 33 persons, the disappearance of 7, the torture of at least 6 who survived and damage to public and private property, all within the period from May 14, 1988 to September 8, 1989. In committing the violations mentioned herein, the military troops' purpose was to take reprisals -targeted at a community whom the military considered to be terrorists-- and to eliminate those persons whose names appeared in a letter that an anonymous informant sent to an Army officer in that area. Some of the persons whose names were mentioned in the letter were killed on May 14, while others were arrested and then killed on May 18. Others were arrested and disappeared on June 29 of that year, while another was summarily executed on December 14. Property belonging to some of the other people on the list was damaged and looted. Apart from the individuals on the list in question, military troops proceeded to execute arbitrarily other persons from the town, while other people were the victims of enforced disappearance. The soldiers also tortured an unknown number of persons to obtain information on the subversive group's activities.

The authors of these actions also committed acts calculated to conceal the truth. Pressure was used to force witnesses to change their testimony and those who would not were physically eliminated. And so it was that on September 8, 1989, the last of the key witnesses was murdered. The authors also took measures to cover up their tracks, which included efforts to wash away the bloodstains in the church and to hide the bodies of the victims, most of which have not yet been found. Their actions were also calculated to thwart the proceedings conducted by those organs of the Peruvian State that were endeavoring to ascertain the facts and, as the case gained notoriety, to obtain from organs of the Peruvian State versions that were consistent with those spread by the Army.

As a result of all these actions, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation has not indicted any of the authors of these events, though the Special Prosecutor did submit an official report prepared on the basis of his investigations wherein he charges that the individual that bears the principal responsibility for these events is the Chief of the Political-Military Command of Ayacucho. The Government Commission -also known as the Commission of Notables-, appointed by the Executive Power, also failed to arrive at any clear-cut conclusions concerning the responsibility for these actions. It should also be noted that the majority opinion of the Senate Investigating Committee also concurs with the Army's version of what happened, while two minority opinions hold the Army responsible. The Military Court failed to convict anyone for these actions and dismissed the respective case. All this could not have happened without complicity at the highest decision-making levels within the Peruvian State. These events are not unprecedented in Peru, where there have been other killings by the security forces. Moreover, when it comes to the practice of enforced disappearance of persons, Peru is at the top of the list.

APPENDICES:

1. Map of the area.

2. Report of the Office of the Inspector General of the Army, May 31, 1988, on the
events under examination.

3. Cayara pleadings

4. Report of General José Valdivia Dueñas to the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo,
Dr. Jesús Granda, dated November 18, 1988.

5. Report of the Special Prosecutor, Dr. Carlos Escobar Pineda, dated October 13,
1988.

6. Report of the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, Dr. Jesús Granda.

7. Report of the Prosecutor for Victor Fajardo, Dr. Rubén Vega Cárdenas.

8. Report of the Senate Investigating Committee.

9. Attachment to the statement made by Amnesty International before the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, February 1991.

B. Statement of the specific facts

1. Death and subsequent disappearance of Esteban Asto Bautista

On May 14, 1988, the Army seized total control of the area and some 80 soldiers, organized into seven patrols, entered the district of Cayara, province of Víctor Fajardo, Department of Ayacucho.

At the entrance to the town, at the place known as Alpajulo, they arbitrarily executed ESTEBAN ASTO BAUTISTA. That night, the soldiers returned to look for the victim's body and removed it.

EVIDENCE:

1. Report of General Valdivia to Prosecutor Granda, dated November 18, 1988, wherein he mentions the operation involving seven patrols and the fact that there was a dead man at the entrance to the town.

2. Testimony of Indalecio Palomino de la Cruz to the Special Prosecutor, dated May 21, 1988.

3. Testimony of Martha Crisóstomo García to the Special Prosecutor, dated May 21, 1988, on what Magda Suarez Valenzuela, wife of Esteban Asto Bautista, had said.

4. Testimony of Marco Antonio Taquiri Infante before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988.

5. Testimony of Maximiliana Noa Ccayo to the Special Prosecutor, dated May 26, 1988.

6. Testimony of Valeriana Ipurre Marcatoma de Apari to the Special Prosecutor, dated May 26, 1988.

7. Minority Report of the Senate Investigating Committee, prepared by Senator Javier Diez Canseco (IACHR Report 29/91, page 88), on statements made by the victim'_ wife.

2. The Material Damage

The soldiers then entered the town, where they damaged the clinic, the premises of the Town Council and the school. They looted and damaged stores and other private property. Some of the damage and thefts involved property belonging to persons whose names appeared on a "list of subversives" that the Army had in its possession and whose existence it acknowledged. That list was later published by the press. Some of those whose property was damaged were being sought openly by the Army and were killed, either that very day or thereafter. To locate the homes and then identify the persons on the list, the soldiers forced Marcial Crisóstomo de la Cruz to accompany them.

EVIDENCE:

1. On-site inspection conducted by the Special Prosecutor on May 21, 1988 (page 7 of the Report of the Special Prosecutor), an inquiry that concerned the following property:

a. That of Gregorio Ipurre Ramos, located in Cayara; the house was burned completely to the ground.

b. That of Lucía Tello, located in Cayara, which was also the residence of Dionisio Suárez Palomino; the door had been broken down and some of her belongings burned; the flames had gone as high as the ceiling as the rafters were already sooty; damage estimated at I./40,000.

c. That of Primitiva Cabrera de Palomino, located in Cayara; the general store was found to have been looted by soldiers on May 14, 1988; the stolen property was valued at I./.20,000.

d. That of Modesto García Pariona, located in Cayara; it was established that the general store had been looted by soldiers on May 14, 1988; the economic loss was I/.50,000; the door and the glass shelving had been broken and electrical devices stolen, the value of the loss being I/.30,000.

e. That of Teodosio Torres Tinco, in Cayara; the door of the house had been forced; Army soldiers had stolen cash in the amount of I/.30,000.

f. That of Catalina de la Cruz Vda. de Torres, located in Cayara; Army soldiers stole I/.40,000 in cash from her general store.

g. That of Paulina Suárez Bautista, in Cayara; a food store where Army troops broke down the door and stole I-/2,000 in cash. The inquiry was suspended at 9:00 p.m., to resume on May 26, 1988, at 2:00 p.m.

h. At the Cayara Medical Station, where the witness Agapito Tinco Noa was present; by the time of the inspection everything was found to be in order, though it was said that on May 14 everything had been torn apart by the soldiers.

i. At the premises of the Cayara Town Council; by the time of the inquiry everything had been repaired and recently painted, though one could still see that a door had been forced open.

j. At the home of Apolonio Huamaní, located in Cayara, where the door had been broken down and everything had been torn apart.

k. At the Cayara Education Center, where the inquiry found that there were five aluminum pots missing, which the Army troops were said to have been using.

l. That of Enedina García Pariona, located in Cayara; the door of the general store had been forced open, ripping off the hinges and latches, which were turned over as the corpus delicti; Army soldiers were said to have stolen cash and electrical devices valued at I/.15,000.

m. That of Professor Emiliano Aquino Paico, located in Cayara, where the door had been forced.

2. A letter that an anonymous informant sent to an Army Captain, in which the following persons are named as being terrorists:

José Joayo Rivera (killed in Ccechuaypampa on May 14, 1988)
Dionisio Suarez (janitor at the school; home damaged and killed in Ccechuaypampa)
Román Hinostroza Palomino
Gregorio Ipurre (house burned, arrested June 29, 1988 - see II.B.7. - and disappeared)
Justiniano Tinco García (Acting Mayor, murdered on December 14, 1988, while travelling - see II.B.8-)
Guzmán Bautista (school janitor, arrested June 28, 1988 - see II.B.7.- and disappeared)
Ceseliano Apari de la Cruz
Luis Chipana García
Victoriano Apari García
Mauro García Palomino
Samuel García Palomino (arrested, May 18, 1988, murdered and buried at Pucutuccasa, see II.B.6.)
Fidel Ipurre
Arotinco Félix Curo and
Alejandro Echaccaya Villagaray (arrested on May 18, 1988, murdered and buried at Pucutuccasa, see II.B.6).

The existence of this list has been acknowledged in the Report that the Chief of the Ayacucho Political-Military Command sent to Prosecutor Jesús Granda dated November 18, 1988, and to which a copy of the anonymous letter that included that list was affixed. The existence of the list is also acknowledged in Official Communique No. 064/S-2/BCS 34/20.00, which appears in the Report of the Office of the Army Inspector General sent by General Jaime Enrique Salinas Sedó, Acting Commandant of the II Military Region, dated May 31, 1988. The list was published in the magazine OIGA, dated May 23, 1988.

3. Testimony by Fernandina Palomino Quispe before the Special Prosecutor, on June 19, 1988, page 4. She was the wife of Solano Ccayo Noa, who was murdered at Ccechuaypampa and was herself murdered on December 14, 1988, while on the road, see II.B.8.

4. First testimony given by Martha Crisóstomo before the Special Prosecutor, May 21, 1988. Murdered on September 8, 1989 in Ayacucho, see II.9.

3. The Deaths at the Cayara Church

On the morning of that May 14, the soldiers went to the church of Cayara where the festival honoring the town's patron saint, the Virgin of Fatima, was coming to an end; they ordered those inside the church to go outside, to the town square, where they were assembling a number of people. They then proceeded to separate the women and children from five men, whom they ordered back into the church. The women and children heard the men screaming, as if they were being tortured. The men were kept inside the church that night. The soldiers surrounded it and did not allow relatives and townspeople to enter or go near the church.

Inside the church, the soldiers killed:

1. EMILIO BERROCAL CRISOSTOMO
2. PARTICIO CCAYAO CAHUAYMI
3. TEODOSIO NOA PARIONA
4. INDALECIO PALOMINO TUEROS and
5. SANTIAGO TELLO CRISOSTOMO

They then proceeded to move the bodies during the night. In the days that followed, they scrubbed down the church floor with cooking oil and dirt to remove the bloodstains.

The bodies of the victims were later found by their relatives at Quinsahuaycco, where they were buried. On May 30, an attempt was made to conduct an exhumation, but the graves were discovered empty; however, they still contained human hairs and pieces of human skin that, according to the tests conducted by the police, dated from the time these events occurred.

EVIDENCE

1. Testimony of Paulina Gonzalez Cabrera de Noa before Special Prosecutor on May 21, 1988, plus her expanded statement, May 26, 1988.

2. Testimony of Julia Noa Palomino before the Special Prosecutor, May 27, 1988.

3. Testimony of Fabián Suarez Pariona before the Special Prosecutor, on June 11, 1988.

4. Testimony of Victoriana Meza Cabrera before the Special Prosecutor, June 2, 1988.

5. Exhumation proceeding conducted on May 30, 1988, by the Judge of Cangallo, Dr. César Amado Salazar, in the company of forensic physicians from Lima, Dr. Victor Maurtua and Dr. Rodolfo Díaz Cucho, and in the presence of Special Prosecutor and the witness Julia Noa González.

6. Examination Report No. 02384, dated August 10, 1988, from the Peruvian Forensic Medicine Institute.

4. The Deaths and Disappearances at Ccechuaypampa, obstruction of proceedings and concealment

A number of military patrols continued on their way on the afternoon of May 14 and arrived at Ccechuaypampa, a place that is an hour and a half walk from Cayara. There they arrested a group of campesinos who were returning from Ccechua after working on their harvests; the soldiers separated the women and children from the men and began to torture the latter mercilessly, interrogating them about the ambush that occurred the previous day. They cut off cactus leaves and placed them on the backs of the campesinos, as the latter lie face down on the ground; they stepped on the campesinos and beat them. The soldiers then killed them using their own work tools, axes, hammers, knives, sickles and machetes. Those who were not killed outright, they shot. As they killed them, they "piled them up like sheep at the foot of a molle tree" (Testimony of Fernandina Palomino). All of this occurred in the presence of the women and children. It should be noted that some of those tortured survived, as in the case of the minor Ciro Ccayo Huayanay. Those who died as a result of these actions were buried in at least five graves, from which the soldiers removed their bodies. Those killed in these actions were:

1. DAVID CCAYO CAHUAYMI (62)
2. SOLANO CCAYO NOA (29)
3. JOSE CCAYO RIVERA (56)
4. ALEJANDRO CHOCCÑA ORE 958)
5. ARTEMIO GONZALEZ PALOMINO (45)
6. ALFONSO HUAYANAY BAUTISTA (18, student)
7. IGNACIO IPURRE SUAREZ (55)
8. EUSTAQUIO ORE PALOMINO (17, student)
9. ZACARIAS PALOMINO BAUTISTA (58)
10 AURELIO PALOMINO CHOCCÑA (38)
11. FIDEL TEODOSIO PALOMINO SUAREZ (62)
12. FELIX QUISPE PALOMINO (48)
13. DIONISIO SUAREZ PALOMINO (42)
14. PRUDENCIO SULCA HUAYTA (58)
15. EMILIANO SULCA ORE (32)
16. ZOZIMO GRACIANO TAQUIRI YANQUI (940)
17. TEODOSIO VALENZUELA RIVERA (60)
18. IGNACIO TARQUI CCAYO (50)
19. HERMENEGILDO APARI TELLO
20. INDALECIO PALOMINO IPURRE
21. PATRICIO CCAYO PALOMINO
22. ILDEFONSO HINOSTROZA BAUTISTA (20)
23. PRUDENCIO PALOMINO CCAYO (55)
24. FELIX CRISOSTOMO GARCIA

Among those who survived the torture were:

1. CIRO CCAYO HUAYANAY
2. TEOFILO CRISOSTOMO GARCIA
3. NESTOR VALENZUELA PALOMINO

On the night of May 14, 1988, Valeriana Ipurre Marcatoma de Apari, who lives near Ccechuaypampa, received MAGDALENO GUTIERREZ in her home. Gutierrez arrived complaining of a strong pain in the head, saying that they had shot him. Together with her mother, SEGUNDINA MARCATOMA SUAREZ vda. de IPURRE, age 80, the two women dressed Gutierrez' wound, but did not turn on the light for fear of the soldiers, since both of them had seen what had happened in Ccechuaypampa. At five or six in the morning, Army troops arrived and forced Valeria Ipurre to leave her home with her children, so that her mother and Magdaleno Gutierrez remained inside. According to Valeria Ipurre's testimony, she sent her young son to see what was happening. The first day he saw his grandmother and Mr. Gutierrez, but on the second day he did not see them and they have been missing ever since.

On May 20, 1988, the Provincial Judge of Cangallo, Dr. Simón Palomino Vargas, did an on-site inspection at Cayara and, based on what relatives had told him concerning the existence of bodies at Ccechuaypampa, attempted to reach that point; he was, however, forced to suspend the proceedings when the group heard shots from a nearby hill, whereupon the military escort told them that they must not continue any further.

On May 21, another attempt was made to conduct an exhumation proceeding at Ccechuaypampa but a military control at Huancapi, under the command of "Major Yauyos," did not allow the experts accompanying the Judge of Cangallo to continue, thereby thwarting the proceeding yet another time.

On May 25, the soldiers ordered the townspeople not to come out of their houses, loaded the bodies that were at Ccechuaypampa on horseback and took them off in the direction of Huayla. On May 27, 1988, the Judge of Cangallo, Dr. César Carlos Amado Salazar, conducted an exhumation during the course of which five empty graves were found; the graves had the odor of bodies and the remains that were found were analyzed by forensic medical laboratories, which established that they were human remains.

On June 11, at the request of the Special Prosecutor, the Judge of Cangallo conducted an on-site inspection in connection with the removal of the bodies denounced by several witnesses; approximately one meter above the path in question, twisted among the plants bordering that path, strands of human hair and pieces of human skin were found, which was consistent with the witnesses statements to the effect that the bodies were taken away on pack animals.

EVIDENCE:

1. Statement by Ciro Ccayo Huayanay before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988.

2. Testimony by Fernandina Palomino Quispe for the Special Prosecutor, May 19, 1988 (II.B.2, para. 3).

3. Testimony by Priscila Isabel García Oré before the Special Prosecutor, May 19, 1988.

4. Testimony By Valeriana Ipurre Marcatoma de Apari before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988.

5. Expanded testimony by Paulina Gonzalez Cabrera before the Special Prosecutor, June 26, 1988 (II.B.3, para. 1).

6. Testimony by Marco Antonio Taquiri Infante before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988 (II.B.1, para. 4).

7. Testimony of Maximiliana Noa Ccayo before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988 (II.B.1, para. 5).

8.* Testimony of Delia Ipurre Noa before the Special Prosecutor, May 26, 1988.

9. Testimony of Aurora Palomino Suarez before the Special Prosecutor, June 10, 1988.

10. Testimony by Crescencia Sulca Palomino before the Special Prosecutor, June 10, 1988.

11. Testimony by Urbana Noa Suarez de González before the Special Prosecutor, June 10, 1988.

12. Testimony by Maura Palomino de Oré before the Special Prosecutor, June 10, 1988.

13. Testimony by Lucía Tello de Suarez before the Special Prosecutor, May 21, 1988.

14. Testimony by Teodora Apari Marcatoma de Palomino before the Special Prosecutor, May 21, 1988.

15. On-site inspection report, dated May 20, 1988, performed by the Judge of Cangallo, Dr. Simón Palomino Vargas, in connection with statements by relatives concerning the existence of bodies in Ccechuaypampa, a proceeding that had to be suspended because of shots fired at the retinue from a nearby hill.

16. Report of the Special Prosecutor on the proceeding conducted to exhume the bodies at Ccechuaypampa which procedure was frustrated due to the obstacles imposed by military personnel on May 21, 1988 (Annex No. 6, page 9).

17. A proceeding to exhume and raise bodies, conducted on May 27, 1988, by the Judge of Cangallo, César Carlos Amado Salazar, at Ccechuaypampa, during which the existence of empty graves containing human remains and a strong odor of corpses were discovered.

18. Forensic Biology Opinion No. 1930-88, from the Central Laboratory of the Peruvian Investigating Police Bureau.

19. Forensic Medicine Report No. 3615/88, on the skin of the hand of Eustaquio Oré Palomino.

20. Forensic Biology Expert Report No. 1930-88 to determine the characteristics of the traces of blood and hair.

21. Forensic Medicine Report No. 4286/88, on a piece of cranium.

22. Examination Report No. 02384, conducted in connection with the exhumations of May 27, 1988.

23. The on-site inspection of the Special Prosecutor, dated June 11, 1988.

5. Torture in the Cayara District Council

On the night of May 14, 1988, soldiers took into custody INDALECIO PALOMINO DE LA CRUZ, CESAR DE LA CRUZ IPURRE, AVELINO TARQUI QUISPE, DOMITILA ESQUIVEL FERNANDEZ and BENEDICTA MARIA VALENZUELA CCAYO; the last of these was accompanied by her young child. These people were taken to the premises of the Cayara District Council, where some 15 soldiers proceeded to torture them throughout the night, interrogating them about the ambush that occurred the previous day and about their alleged connections with subversive groups. The torture consisted of beatings, burns and lesions caused by pliers. Four of these people were released the following day; Indalecio Palomino was released on May 16.

EVIDENCE

1. Testimony of Indalecio Palomino de la Cruz before the Special Prosecutor, May 21, 1988 (ii.B.1, para. 2).

2. Testimony of Benedicta María Benedicta Valenzuela Ccayo before the Special Prosecutor, June 10, 1988.

3. Testimony of Fernandina Palomino Quispe before the Special Prosecutor, May 19, 1988 (II.B.2, para. 3).

4. Testimony of Fabían Suarez Pariona before the Special Prosecutor, June 11, 1988 (II.B.3, para. 3).

6. Arrests and subsequent deaths of Alejandro Echeccaya Villagaray, Samuel García Palomino and Jovita García Suarez

On the morning of May 18, General José Valdivia Dueñas and ordered the townspeople to assembly on the sports field, which is where the helicopters landed. Around midday, he read aloud a list of names asking that the individuals in question turn themselves in since they were regarded as subversives. The list coincided with the names included in the aforementioned letter that the Army had in its possession, wherein an anonymous townsperson reported the names of alleged subversives, except in the case of Dionisio Suárez Palomino and José Ccayo Rivera, who had been killed in Ccechuaypampa on May 14. Many people told General Valdivia that the individuals named were not subversives. At that point, none of those named by General Valdivia was found; he left in the helicopter, after having installed a permanent military garrison at the Cayara school.

At around 3:00 on the afternoon of May 18, an Army Patrol arrived under the command of an Army officer dressed in khaki pants, wearing a black cap, with red hair and a ruddy complexion; he would later be photographed. The patrol went out in search of those named by General Valdivia. On May 18, in Erusco, this patrol arrested SAMUEL GARCIA PALOMINO and JOVITA GARCIA, the first of whom was on the list. They were placed under arrest and taken to the Erusco school, in the presence of a number of the people who lived in that vicinity. Thirty other people were being held at the school at the time. On May 19, ALEJANDRO ECHECCAYA VILLAGARAY was arrested; he, too, figured on the list taken from the anonymous letter.

On May 20, six soldiers took Jovita García to her home, where she was seen by her relative Zózima García, whom soldiers threw out of the house while they conducted a search. They then released Jovita García but withheld her documents. That night, the soldiers again went out in search of Jovita García, and found her at the home of her aunt, Lucía Bautista Sulca, the soldiers arrested Jovita García again and took her away together with ECHECCAYA and GARCIA PALOMINO. When they arrived in Yarccapampa, the military patrol and the detainees spent the night at the home of a campesino by the name of Julio Torres. Fifteen days later, the wives of the two men who had been arrested, Delfina Pariona Palmino and Juana Apari Oré, found articles of clothing and evidence of the existence of a grave on Mount Pucutuccasa. Afraid, they returned a month later and there found the bodies. All the evidence pointed to the fact that the detainees had been executed.

The body of Jovita García was exhumed and identified by her sister Flavia and brother Justiniano García Suarez on August 10, 1988, in the inquiry conducted by Prosecutor Escobar. In that same proceeding, Justiniano García identified the bodies of Alejandro Echeccaya and Samuel García Palomino; there was also a fourth body, which could not be identified. The Special Prosecutor obtained the fingerprints from the body of Samuel García Palomino. Because of a lack of transportation, only the body of Jovita García was transported to the Cangallo Hospital, where an autopsy was conducted and she was identified by her niece Martha Crisóstomo García. Senator Carlos Enrique Melgar requested another exhumation of the body of Jovita García, a proceeding that was to have been conducted on November 9, 1988; it was never conducted, however, because the bodies disappeared from the Cangallo cemetery before the proceeding took place. On August 19, 1988, the Special Prosecutor finally managed to conduct another proceeding to exhume the three bodies found on Mount Pucutuccasa, in the presence of the Senate Investigating Commission; it was discovered that the three bodies had disappeared.

EVIDENCE

1. Testimony of Martha Crisóstomo García before the Special Prosecutor, May 21, 1988.

2. Testimony of Flavia García Suarez before the Special Prosecutor, June 23, 1988.

3. Testimony of Antonio Ccayo Quispe de García before the Special Prosecutor, August 19, 1988.

4. Testimony of Juana Apari Oré before the Special Prosecutor, August 19, 1988.

5. Testimony of Lucía Bautista Sulca before the Special Prosecutor, August 19, 1988.

6. Testimony of Zózima García before the Special Prosecutor, August 19, 1988.

7. Testimony of Delfina Pariona Palomino de Echeccaya before the Special Prosecutor, August 19, 1988.

8. Photograph of the Army officer in command of the patrol that arrested Jovita García, Alejandro Echeccaya and Samuel García Palomino.

9. Report of the exhumation conducted of the body of Jovita García Suárez, August 10, 1988.

10. Autopsy report for Jovita García, August 10, 1988.

11. Report of the proceeding to continue with exhumation of the bodies from the grave on Mount Pucutuccasa, August 19, 1988, wherein it is established that the bodies had disappeared.

12. Forensic Medicine Report No. 5228/88 on portions of the heart, lungs and skin from the body of Jovita García.

13. Forensic Medicine Report No. 5191/88 on fragments from the cranium of Jovita García.

14. Ballistics report No. 2901/88 on the two shells found on August 10, 1988, during the exhumation conducted on Mount Pucutuccasa.

15. Forensic biology report No. 2569/88.

16. Forensic biologic report No. 2493/88, done on the bloodstains on a hat and on stones.

17. Forensic biology report No. 2522/88, done on fragments of bone, two large leaves and hair.

18. Anatomical pathological study No. 200-88, on portions of the body of Jovita García.

7. Disappearance of Guzmán Bautista Palomino, Gregorio Ipurre Ramos, Humberto Ipurre Bautista, Benigna Palomino de Ipurre and Catalina Ramos Palomino

On the night of June 29, 1988, uniformed Army soldiers arrested GUZMAN BAUTISTA PALOMINO, GREGORIO IPURRE RAMOS, HUMBERTO IPURRE BAUTISTA, BENIGNA PALMINO DE IPURRE and CATALINA RAMOS PALOMINO in their homes in Cayara, and took them via Army truck to the garrison that had been set up in Cayara. The first two were on the list of names read by General Valdivia, taken from the anonymous letter. They were also key witnesses to the events that occurred in Cayara and had made statements in the presence of Prosecutor Escobar, the Senate Investigating Committee and the Peruvian press. The last three of these individuals were the father, mother and sister of Gregorio Ipurre Ramos, respectively. In the early morning hours, the detainees were put in an Army truck that headed out in the direction of the Huancapi Military Base. To date, the five individuals named here are still listed as arrested-disappeared.

EVIDENCE

1. Investigations No. 476 and No. 477 by the Special Prosecutor into complaints filed by relatives concerning disappearances.

2. Testimony by relatives of the disappeared to members of Americas Watch, published in Tolerating Abuses, Violations of Human Rights in Peru, an Americas Watch Report, October 1988, pp. 49-50.

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.

Since the majority opinion contains detailed information taken from oral and written statements, from visits and proceedings in the capital as well as in the Department of Ayacucho, I shall not enumerate them again and go instead directly to my conclusions.

The Chairman of the Committee and its members have been quoted frequently by the press that are carrying the problem that has come to be known as "Cayara" as news or as reading material for various sectors of the public. This has created some expectations of this investigating committee, which was to come up with one single version of the facts, since there is only one version of the truth.

However, despite all the effort and publicity, I cannot honestly say that because there is only one truth, that is what has been discovered. I have two different and often conflicting versions, one from the forces of order and another from those who have appeared as witnesses to the events.

Through their Political-Military Command, the forces of order assert that 18 people died and that all of them were shot in the course of combat. They demonstrate their assertion by citing Erusco, Cayara, Coshhua and the Pampas river, where those who died in combat were found. In Erusco they showed the tracks of the fighting that began after an Army vehicle was dynamited. At the other places, they pointed to other signs to support their assertions. They presented the officers and troops who participated and had it not been for the existence of another version from the people of Cayara, we could have been content with that version.

Those who appeared as witnesses state that these were not combat deaths; in other words, that it was a question of genocide, where the victims were seized, transported and executed with machetes, axes, sickles and stones. They cite a number of details which I need not repeat here, since they are recounted in the other opinions.

The disappearance of the bodies makes it impossible to confirm whether or not these people died from bullet wounds. Because the two versions are completely different as to how their deaths occurred, if only a few of the bodies were found, it would be possible to know which version is the truth. A congressman whose fact-finding mission is temporary, only for as long as the investigation lasts, cannot say which of the two parties is telling the truth.

On the one hand, the political-military command performs its functions by a mandate of the Constitutional Government and must do so according to the principles of the Constitution. It is not there of its choosing, but because of the presence of subversive groups that want power to govern by their own rules, different from the rules contained in our 1979 Constitution. Since the struggle is an armed one, it is inevitable that there should be dead and wounded. On the other hand, the people of Cayara and the surrounding areas have not just moved into the area as a subversive movement; instead, they have lived there for generations. One cannot argue that their presence constitutes proof of subversion, therefore, since they find themselves caught between two forces that expect information and support from them; it is understandable why they are mistrustful and introverted. Unfortunately, these people are always victims: whether the casualties be members of the forces of order or of the subversive forces, it is always possible that either one or the other will pressure and even punish, in various ways, these Andean communities. Thus, the action of either of these two parties may ultimately produce conflicting testimony.

The fact that genocide has been committed in years past leads one to suspect that this is yet another case. The fact that a captain was killed when the Army truck was blown up leads one to suppose that the reaction must have been swift and hard against the authors; so if in the past innocent people were accused and punished for much less serious matters, the same may have happened in this case.

On the other hand, the fact that the world was told that there were over 100 deaths and that the killing continued and that the bodies were being left to birds of prey and wild animals and the fact that not one witness cited these figures or these details in his or her charges, lead one to suspect that an attempt has been made here to create a new spectacle, one ultimately intended to weaken the system and the forces of order. The figure of 100 deaths, at least, turned out to be a fiction in comparison to the number of people who were not located and who were townspeople who died under the circumstances that each version describes.

When a fact-finding commission of this nature and for a specific time period must conclude its business, the result may be an inconclusive report, as in this case. In other words, it is impossible to say that these excesses did not occur, though it is also impossible to say that the effects and characteristics of the excesses are as described in the denunciations. Cayara did not appear to have been looted; only 7 of its 400 houses had been burned. When the committee visited Cayara, it was somewhat abandoned.

I understand what is happening; the people are afraid, many are suffering terribly. In the end, we can become confused. I am thus unable to contribute anything new to the Senate and to those who, as members of the judicial branch of government, must find the truth that I was unable to find. Having discharged my mission, my duties as a Congressman require nothing further of me.

IV. CONCEALMENT AND OBSTRUCTION OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

The authors of such grave events as those that began on May 14, 1988, in the Cayara district, took a number of steps to erase the evidence of their guilt and to obstruct the investigations being conducted by the Attorney General's office, and provided a version of the facts that blamed other persons or groups for what happened.

1. Destruction of evidence

To make it impossible to determine what actually happened and the identity of the authors, military personnel cleaned away the bloodstains in the Cayara Church where they had killed the persons mentioned under Point II.B.3.

The military personnel also removed the bodies of the persons killed at the entrance to Cayara, in the church, in Ccechuaypampa and, later, those of the individuals arrested on May 18 and 19, who were buried on Mount Pucutuccasa.

The elimination of evidence is an integral part in forced disappearance of persons, in this case used against two persons in the vicinity of Ccechuaypampa around May 16, 1988, and the five persons arrested on June 29, 1988 (fact II.B.7.).

Another means used to make it impossible to ascertain the facts and identify their authors was to physically eliminate witnesses, a method used in the events described in this complaint under points II.B.7, 8 and 9.

2. Obstruction of justice

As the authors of these events were beginning to erase any evidence of their actions, they were also obstructing the investigations being conducted both by the press and by the Attorney General's office and the Judiciary. What follows is a list of the most significant measures designed to obstruct these inquiries:

a. In the highly militarized zone under the control of the Army, shots were fired from a hillside against the group accompanying the Provincial Judge of Cangallo; the military personnel refused to continue to accompany them, which prevented the group from conducting the proceedings on May 20, 1988, to identify the bodies at Ccechuaypampa (Point II.B.4.).

b. On May 19, the Special Prosecutor requested that the Army provide the transportation facilities offered by the Executive Power but received no cooperation. When the Special Prosecutor attempted to reach Cayara overland, he was delayed by the Army at Cangallo on May 20. The next day, the Army again delayed the Special Prosecutor, this time at Huancapi and did not allow the technical experts accompanying the group to continue on to Cayara, thereby making it impossible to conduct the exhumation, identification and autopsy of the bodies.

c. The Special Prosecutor again requested that the Army supply a helicopter for his trip to Cayara on May 24; he was not supplied that helicopter until May 26, the day after, witnesses stated, the soldiers removed the bodies from Ccechuaypampa.

d. The difficulties encountered in trying to get an identification of the hand skin found in one of the graves at Ccechuaypampa, which the Special Prosecutor believed was that of Eustaquio Oré Palomino, as follows:

i) The report of the experts appointed by the police indicated that they were able to fingerprint only the ring finger, because the rest of the skin had decomposed. Prosecutor Escobar, who had seen for himself that the skin had not decomposed, ordered the commandant to conduct another examination in his presence. In that examination, the prints of the five fingers were taken.

ii) When sent to the Investigating Police, the latter reported that the fingerprints were not those of Eustaquio Oré Palomino. Delving further, it was established that this person was 18 years of age and as such had a police card that was registered when the individual turned 18. On the other hand, the person whom witnesses said had died was 17 years of age and therefore could not have had a card on file with the police.

iii) However, the Prosecutor was informed that the disappeared person had registered with the military, and that the military should have his identification card and fingerprint on file. When a search was ordered, the card was found, but the fingerprint had too much ink to make any comparison possible. Therefore, Prosecutor Escobar asked the Attorney General to compare the print with another copy of the card kept on file in Lima, on the assumption that if one copy had so much ink, the other one might be legible. There is no information as to whether or not the Attorney General took this measure.

e. The Special Prosecutor requested that the Army provide him with a helicopter to conduct the exhumation of the bodies found on Mount Pucutuccasa. When the helicopter was not provided, the Special Prosecutor, the deputy in the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the Provincial Judge of Cangallo and the Court Secretary travelled to the place in two police vehicles. Since they did not have the helicopter requested, they were only able to remove one body from the grave, that of Jovita García, which later disappeared from the Cangallo cemetery after having been identified by her family.

f. The Special Prosecutor returned to Huamanga, Ayacucho, on August 10, by truck from Erusco, following the exhumation. The next day, August 11, the Special Prosecutor telexed a request to the Attorney General that he intercede with the joint command of the Armed Forces to provide the Special Prosecutor with helicopter transport; the telex was sent again the following day. Despite that request and despite the order from the highest levels of government and from the Attorney General that the Special Prosecutor be given every possible cooperation in his work, the Army did not provide him with that helicopter. Because of that, the Special Prosecutor had to obtain overland transport and conducted the proceeding by travelling overland and then on foot on August 18, as stated in the corresponding record. As indicated in this complaint, under Point II.B.6., by that time the other three bodies on Mount Pucutuccasa had already disappeared.

g. On September 21, 1988, in an official communication that the Special Prosecutor received on October 3, while he was still conducting important inquiries to clarify the facts, the Superior Criminal Prosecutor, Dr. Pedro Méndez Jurado, ordered the Special Prosecutor to prepare the final report on his investigation. As indicated earlier, the Special Prosecutor delivered his report on October 13, wherein he concluded that criminal proceedings should be instituted against General José Valdivia Dueñas as the principal responsible party in these events. On November 11, 1988, the Attorney General of the Nation sent the files to the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo to expand the investigation. Twelve days later, the Cangallo Prosecutor decided not to file criminal charges and temporarily filed the case. The sequence of events and their nature clearly point to the fact that their purpose was to prevent any court action in these events. This impression is reinforced when one considers the measures exercised throughout the investigations in connection with witnesses.

h. During the course of the inquiries conducted by the Special Prosecutor in Cayara on May 21, 1988, after being delayed by the Army in Huancapi, and on May 26, he was able to observe the pressure brought to bear against witnesses by Army personnel, whose faces were covered with ski caps. He made particular note of the conduct of the officer in command of the military troops, who was known as "Captain Palomino"; he photographed him, as explained in Point II.B.6. This pressure must be considered together with the fact that there was never any response to the Special Prosecutor's request that the identity of "Captain Palomino" be revealed, even though the corresponding photograph was provided to the military authorities for that purpose.

i. The pressure on the witnesses is especially obvious during the course of the expanded inquiry conducted by the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, during which the testimony was taken inside the Huancapi Military Garrison. When witness Delfina Pariona Palomino (wife of Alejandro Echeccaya, whose body was identified -according to the record- at Pucutuccassa), expanded her testimony in the presence of the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, she stated that she had not seen her husband since May 15 when he had gone off with the subversives in the direction of Muyupampa. This statement contradicts her original statement, which was corroborated by the statement made by the widow of Samuel García Palomino, who said that she and Delfina Pariona went to the grave and found the body of Alejandro Echaccaya. It also should be noted that Delfina Pariona had left her fingerprint on the complaint that 19 campesinos from Erusco filed with the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Disappearances, wherein they state that the Army had pressured them to state that terrorists had taken Jovita García.

As for the witness Maximilana Noa Ccayo, in her expanded testimony in the Huancapi military garrison in the presence of the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo, she appears to be retracting the statements she made in the presence of the Special Prosecutor (Section EIGHT of the Report from Prosecutor Granda). However, Maximiliana Noa Ccayo, who is illiterate, had testified before Prosecutor Escobar on May 22 and had said that she was in Cayara on May 14, with her daughter Delia Ipurre Noa, and that they confirmed the death of Ignacio Ipurre Suarez, wife and father, respectively, of the two women (see statement under Evidence No. 7, point II.B.4). In effect, Delia, a minor with an elementary education, speaks Spanish and had testified separately in the presence of Prosecutor Escobar that she had been with her mother that day, May 14, and had seen the soldiers kill her father. This corroborates the original statement made by witness Maximiliana Noa, and adds yet another element from which to infer that the expanded testimony given in the presence of Prosecutor Granda, under the pressure of being inside the military garrison and after a number of witnesses had been killed, was false.

The same can be said with regard to the witness Teodora Apari Marcatoma de Palomino, who, in her expanded testimony before Prosecutor Granda, appears to say that she was not in Cayara for that entire period, but rather in Ica until June 15, and that she had not seen what the military did; she denied having made any statement to Prosecutor Escobar. The Inter-American Commission has been informed that: a) the testimony of Teodora Apari in the presence of Prosecutor Escobar on May 22, was taped by the parliamentarians who were present at the time; and b) she testified again in the presence of the Provincial Judge, on June 11, indicating the place where soldiers had cut off her husband's head, pointing out the area and gathering blood-stained soil from the site, evidence that Prosecutor Escobar sent to the laboratory where experts concluded that it was human blood (See Escobar Report where it mentions the existence of photographs of this witness at the time she was removing the blood-stained soil). This is another case of testimony retracted under duress.

3. Elaboration of self-serving versions

The measures taken to conceal the authorship of these events include the preparation of accounts designed to provide justifications for the action undertaken, to blame other agents and to discredit the work of those whose conclusions differ.

It is possible to discern certain basic lines, both in the Army's versions and in the majority opinion of the Senate Investigating Committee. While it is acknowledged that an undetermined number of deaths occurred, it is alleged that these deaths occurred during the course of armed confrontation, both in Erusco and later in Cchechuaypampa. At a time when the Army had already established complete control over Cayara, Erusco and surrounding areas, and had even set up a military base in the school, these accounts claim that subversive groups removed all of the bodies to prevent them from being identified and that subversives kidnapped Jovita García, Alejandro Echeccaya and Samuel García Palomino and caused them to disappear, again at a time when the military was in full control of the area. The military versions and the majority report of the Senate Committee say that Jovita García was the Army informant who wrote the anonymous letter. Even though the letter was written by "un patriota legal" [a true patriot] who asked that "el nombre del portador" [the name of the bearer] (the masculine gender is used in the Spanish) not be revealed.

The self-serving versions also contend that any opinions contrary to their own are calculated to discredit the armed forces and thwart the anti-subversive effort. Thus, for example, the majority opinion of the Senate Investigating Committee elaborates upon the argument contained in the report filed by General Valdivia with the Provincial Prosecutor of Cangallo concerning the illegal and politically motivated conduct of the Special Prosecutor, adding an attack against the professional ethics of the interpreter.

This argument and the political maneuvering that it triggered, led to the replacement of Prosecutor Escobar by Prosecutor Granda, whose decision to temporarily file the case was based on testimony whose credibility has already been brought into question in this complaint, because it deviated from the original version, was given inside an Army garrison, after a number of witnesses had already been pressured to alter their testimony and others had been detained, killed or disappeared.

V. THE PROOF

1. Documentary evidence

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights bases the assertions contained in this complaint on the evidence contained in the eight Appendices that are attached hereto and on the documentary evidence that is offered in connection with each specific fact (points II.B.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9).

2. Testimonial evidence

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights believes that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights should take testimony from the following persons:

2.1. Dr. Carlos Enrique Escobar Pineda
2.2. Dr. Raúl Ferrero
2.3. Monsignor Augusto Beuzeville
2.4. Senator Javier Diez Canseco
2.5. Senator Gustavo Mohme Llona
2.6. Dr. Augusto Zúñiga
2.7. General Jaime Enrique Salinas Sedó
2.8. Dr. Hugo Denigri Cornejo.

Taking into account the fact that during the course of the investigations conducted in Peru into the facts that are the subject of this complaint, certain witnesses have been physically eliminated while others have been subjected to pressure to force them to change their original testimony, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights believes that the Inter-American Court must establish a method by which to take a body of testimony in such a way that the personal safety of the witnesses and the integrity and accuracy of their testimony are guaranteed. Since the method to be used must take into account the specifics of each individual's unique situation, the Inter-American Commission offers its services to the Inter-American Court to provide it with the specifics required in each case, which should be taken into account when receiving each body of testimony. The names of the witnesses would be reported to the Court once the method described herein has been established.

3. Request for documentation

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is petitioning the Court to require the following documents of the Government of Peru:

3.1. The proceedings upon which the Report of the Senate Investigating Committee was based

3.2. The files upon which the Report of the Office of the Army Inspector General on the facts that are the subject of this complaint was based.

3.3. The proceedings conducted in the Military Courts that led to the dismissal of the case involving the events that are the subject of this complaint.

3.4. Investigations Nos. 476 and 477 of the Special Prosecutor, concerning complaints of the disappearances of relatives of the victims of fact II.B.7.
VI. LEGAL GROUNDS

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has processed the instant case in accordance with its Regulations and the pertinent provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights, of which the Republic of Peru is a State Party and has recognized the compulsory jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on January 21, 1981.

In submitting the present complaint, the Commission is acting under the provisions of Article 50 and 51 of the American Convention, after having analyzed the submission presented by the Government of Peru on May 27, 1991, the led to Resolution 1/91 concerning Report 29/91, which documents are attached to the present complaint. It has also taken into account the fact that the Government of Peru reiterated its positions on January 11, 1992. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, therefore, is proceeding pursuant to the provisions of Article 63.1 of the Convention and is requesting that the Inter-American Court fix the amount appropriate for payment of a "fair compensation to the injured party."

As for the exhaustion of domestic remedies, suffice it to say that the matter is thoroughly examined in Report 29/91 and in Chapter III.1. of this complaint on the measures taken by the office of the Attorney General.

The specific facts set forth in this complaint involve multiple violations perpetrated by agents of the Peruvian State, violations of provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights as indicated in point I concerning the purpose of the complaint.

As for forced disappearance, it should be noted that the Commission, the literature, the practice of other international human rights organs, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States and recently the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has qualified it as a crime against humanity (Velásquez, paragraphs 151-153; Godínez, paragraphs 159-161). As has been noted, disappearance is a multiple and continual violation of essential legal rights protected under the American Convention on Human Rights that the states parties, voluntarily and in good faith, have pledged to respect and guarantee (Velásquez, para. 155; Godínez para. 163).

The Commission concurs with the Court where it states that the forced disappearance of persons is one of the most serious violations of human rights that a State Party to the Convention can commit, since it represents "... a radical departure from this treaty, inasmuch as it implies a crass abandonment of the values that emanate from human dignity and of the principles that lie at the very foundation of the inter-American system and this Convention" (Velásquez, para. 158; Godínez para 166).

Forced disappearance of persons begins with the victim's illegal detention by agents of the State, who normally operate in full daylight. The victim is taken to some secret place or irregular detention center. To relatives and authorities in charge of the investigation, those agents systematically deny the very fact of the detention, the condition of the victim and his/her final whereabouts. The lack of a formal acknowledgement of the illegal detention allows the agents of the State to operate with total impunity, beyond the boundaries of any jurisdictional control. That situation obtains in the case under examination by virtue of the regulations governing states of emergency in Peru, which give the chiefs of the political-military commands extraordinary powers. This unlawful deprivation of freedom constitutes a flagrant violation of Article 7 of the American Convention, which protects the right to personal liberty.

In the instant case, as established in the description of the specific facts (Section II.B. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7), members of the Peruvian Army made a number of unlawful arrests in a succession of operations that began on May 14, 1988, and ended on June 29 of that year.

The Commission's experience and the characteristics of the instant case confirm that once in captivity, the victim of an unlawful privation of freedom under the conditions herein described, is tortured and subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment by agents of the State. This constitutes a violation of Article 5 of the American Convention, which recognizes every person's right to physically, psychologically and emotionally humane treatment. In the case being submitted to the Court, the testimony presented in evidence in support of facts II.B. 3., 4 and 5 recount the torture of the victims in those incidents.

The legal remedies, especially habeas corpus, which would have been the proper remedy to determine the whereabouts of the person and protect the rights of one detained, are ineffectual, which in itself constitutes a violation of judicial guarantees (Article 8) and the right to judicial protection (Article 25) recognized in the American Convention.

In the case presented in this complaint, the arbitrary arrests and torture were followed by the summary execution of the victims mentioned in the specific facts II.B.1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9, which constitutes a grave violation of the right to life recognized in Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Two victims of specific fact II.B. 4 and the victims of fact II.B. 7 likely met with the same fate. This involves seven victims whose situation, strictly speaking, is enforced disappearance, since unlike the other cases, their death has not yet been established.

It should be pointed out that in the instant case, presented to the Inter-American Court, the Government of Peru, through the actions of its agents, not only has failed to respect and guarantee the exercise and the rights of the victims in accordance with Article 1.1 of the American Convention, but those agents have executed a number of actions to obstruct the administration of justice and make it impossible to identify the authors of these specific facts. Thus, witnesses and/or relatives of victims have been eliminated and threatened, consciously and deliberately; the bodies of the persons executed have been removed; evidence has been destroyed, cover-up operations have been conducted, judicial investigations have been obstructed and the individual who attempted to conduct an independent investigation was threatened and ultimately severed from service with the State and forced to seek refuge abroad. The other objective of all this has been to conceal the whereabouts of the victims and erase the crime from the public's memory.

Finally, the Commission must point to the violations committed by members of the Peruvian Army against public and private property belonging to some of the victims in this case. As recounted under Fact II.B. 2, agents of the Peruvian State destroyed movable and immovable property belonging both to the State and to private parties. This constitutes a violation of Article 21 of the Convention, which makes it incumbent upon the Peruvian State to protect the right to private property.

The facts in this case reveal that the Peruvian State has international responsibilities that follow from the violation of its obligations under the provisions of the American Convention. In effect, Article 1.1 of the Convention provides that every State Party undertakes the obligation to adopt whatever measures are needed to ensure juridically, to all persons within its jurisdiction, the effective enjoyment of the rights recognized in the Convention. As a result of this obligation, the State must prevent and investigate violations of the human rights recognized in the Convention; try and punish those responsible for those crimes; inform the family of the whereabouts of persons who have disappeared and indemnify (when it is impossible to restore the victim in the exercise of his or her rights) for any damages caused by the human rights violations committed by agents of the State (Velásquez paragraph 166; Godínez paragraph 175).

The background information submitted by the Commission, the attached evidence and those that it will submit to the Court at the appropriate time, demonstrate that the case submitted to the Court caused a public commotion in Peru to the point that the President of the Republic at that time, Dr. Alán García Pérez, visited the scene of the events and publicly pledged to have them fully clarified. The Peruvian press gave extensive coverage to the work of the Commission of Notables and the Senate Investigating Committee, and to the frustrated judicial investigation of the Special Prosecutor, Dr. Carlos Escobar. However, almost four years have passed since this massacre was committed and, despite efforts made by some Peruvian authorities and the Commission, there are still no remains of the disappeared victims nor of the bodies of those executed, nor has anyone been convicted or even indicted for the crimes committed in connection with these events.

The Commission will prove to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that the Peruvian State has not made any serious attempt to investigate these facts, punish those responsible, adopt the measures necessary to prevent crimes of this nature in the future and compensate the victims and/or their families for the damages suffered. The passive attitude demonstrated by the Peruvian State vis-à-vis a massacre of such proportions, combined with the concealment, obstruction of justice and elimination of evidence by its agents, proves that the Peruvian State has violated its obligation to guarantee the free exercise of the fundamental rights upheld in the Convention, in accordance with Article 1.1 of the American Convention, of which Peru is a State Party.

VII. CONCLUSIONS

In submitting the instant case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reiterates that it is convinced that the Peruvian State is internationally accountable for the violations of the rights recognized in articles 4, 5, 7, 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights, committed by members of the Army against persons under the jurisdiction of the Peruvian State, during the course of events that began on May 14, 1988, in the district of Cayara, Province of Víctor Fajardo, Department of Ayacucho and that culminated on September 8, 1989.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is equally convinced that the Peruvian State has failed to honor its obligations under the provisions of Article 1.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights, inasmuch as it has not adopted measures to guarantee the exercise of the rights recognized in that international instrument; instead, its agents have systematically attempted to obstruct a clarification of the facts and identification of those responsible. As a result, the grave violations set forth in this action go unpunished and the very institutions of the State charged, under the National Constitution, with safeguarding the rights of the inhabitants of Peru and investigating and punishing those responsible for violations of human rights have been adversely affected. It has thus committed acts classified as crimes under Peru's domestic laws.

APPENDIXES

OEA/Ser.L/V/II.80
Doc. 44
October 27, 1991
Original: Spanish

80º SESSION

RESOLUTION Nº 1/91
REPORT Nº 29/91
PERU

Approved by the Commission on October 27, 1991

RESOLUTION Nº 1/91
REPORT Nº 29/91

PERU

HAVING SEEN:

1. Report Nº 29/91 adopted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on February 20, 1991 referring to cases 10.264, 10.206, 10.276 and 10.446.

2. That on May 27, 1991, the Government of Peru filed a brief wherein it "requests that the Commission comply with its Regulations and the Pact of San José and therefore decide not to take the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights without first weighing the observations made in the present note and making the appropriate procedural corrections." In that note, the Government of Peru stated that "In accordance with the express provisions of Article 34, paragraphs 7 and 8 of the Commission's Regulations, once the reply was received from the petitioners, the Commission should have transmitted the pertinent parts thereof and its attachments to the Government of Peru for its final observations. None of the the petitioners' replies to the Government's notes were transmitted to the Government. Hence, by violating that procedural requirement, the Commission has denied the Peruvian State its right to self defense."

CONSIDERING:

1. That the request from the Government of Peru constitutes a petition to suspend the proceedings;

2. That while the Government of Peru raised this matter in the note in question, it did not say what injury had been caused by this procedural omission;

3. That in response to its express request and to honor justice, the Commission resolved to consider the objection and therefore transmitted the petitioners' replies as requested by the Government under the provisions of Article 34.8 of the Commission's Regulations;

4. That in its reply dated September 4, 1991, the Government of Peru made no reference to the petitioners' replies,

5. That the Commission also examined Report 29/91 and has found that adjustments must be made in Section II thereof, which are included in the version of that Report attached hereto.

THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS,

RESOLVES:

1. To reject the argument of the Government of Peru that the report is invalid.

2. To confirm the conclusions and recommendations contained under point 48 of Report 29/91 and to transmit it to the Government of Peru so that it might respond as it sees fit within a period of 90 days.

3. To send the instant case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

REPLY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PERU TO THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Ref. Cases Nos. 10.206, 10.264 10.276 and 10.446

In connection with your note of June 20, 1991, received on July 10 of this year, the Government of Peru, respectful of its international commit­ments, transmits the present communication within the preestablished time limit:

The inter-American system for the protection of human rights estab­lishes the legal procedures that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights must follow in its investigation of complaints. As a signer and ratifier of the American Convention on Human Rights, and recog­nizing the competence of the hemispheric agencies in this area, the Peruvian Govern­ment demands of the Commission strict compliance with the procedural rules that guaran­tee the right of parties to the most comprehensive and unre­stric­ted defense.

According to Article 61 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in order for the Court to hear a case, it must necessarily have first been investigated by the Commission, and investigation is thus a stage that must go before. It follows from this that a decision to submit a case to the Court shall first have been thoroughly examined in fullest conformity with the procedural framework that governs the actions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, especially when it is considered that, once it has filed its suit, the Commission's legal status is transformed, de facto and de jure, from that of a general investigative agency, impartial both to governments and to petitioners, into that of opponent of the respondent government. In other words, upon the mere filing of a complaint it be­comes the procedural adversary of the government, which implies the liter­al impos­­si­bility of reverting to its original status.

Notwithstanding the good intentions shown by the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights in withdrawing cases Nos. 10.206, 10.264, 10.276 and 10.446 from the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in order to rectify the procedural omissions pointed out by the Peruvian government in its note of May 27 of this year, the Commission has not made clear which new procedures could be followed for a possi­ble reexa­mination of the case and which conclusions reached in it, considering that neither the Conven­tion nor the current Rules of Procedure provide any war­rant for its present decision.

In consideration of the situation presented and the p