RIGHTS-PERU: Survivors Come Face-to Face with Massacre Leader

[Judi Lynn]

RIGHTS-PERU: Survivors Come Face-to Face with Massacre Leader
By Ángel Páez

Cirila Pulido and Teófila Ochoa

Credit:Courtesy of La República

LIMA, Feb 22 (IPS) - Teófila Ochoa and Cirila Pulido, survivors of a 1985 massacre in Peru, said that seeing retired Peruvian army officer Telmo Hurtado in prison-issue clothing and shackles was the closest they have come to seeing justice done.

On Aug. 14, 1985, Hurtado led the massacre of 69 women, children and old men in the highlands village of Accomarca in Peru’s southern Andean region of Ayacucho.

Ochoa and Pulido, who were 13 and 12 years old, respectively, at the time, managed to survive by running away and hiding. But they lost their mothers and siblings.

"When I saw him come in dragging his feet, guarded by police officers, I felt incredible relief. At last Telmo Hurtado was facing justice," Ochoa told IPS.

The soldiers commanded by Hurtado killed Ochoa’s mother and five brothers and sisters.

"I wanted to hit him, to shout ‘murderer!’ but I controlled myself. There was the man who had caused so much harm to so many innocent people. At last justice will be done, although it makes me really sad that it is in a court in the United States and not in Peru," Pulido, whose mother and nine-month-old brother were among the victims, told IPS.

On Feb. 11, the two women testified before U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan in a federal court in Miami, Florida, where Hurtado is facing a civil lawsuit for damages filed by Ochoa and Pulido on behalf of the members of the Association of the Relatives of the Victims of Violence in Accomarca.

The Peruvian army patrol led by then second lieutenant Hurtado reached Accomarca at 7:00 AM on that tragic day in 1985, rounded up villagers, raped women and girls, and killed their victims by locking them into two houses, opening fire, and throwing in grenades.

In an earlier interview with IPS, Pulido said that after the two houses were burnt to the ground, the soldiers searched their victims’ homes and ate and drank, "to celebrate what they had done."

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41310

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PERU: US Gov't Document Links García to 1980s Death Squads
By Lucy Komisar*

NEW YORK, Dec 5 (IPS) - There is irony in the recent announcement by Peru's President Alan García that he would publish the names of 1,800 "freed terrorists", so that people might recognise and report them if they were participating in anti-state conspiracies. His list includes people imprisoned on false charges or never convicted or sentenced.

One name that is not on the list is that of Alan García. However, according to a declassified U.S. government document, García, during his first administration from 1985-1990, gave instructions to terror squads organised by his political party to assassinate suspected leftists. Victims included trade unionists and other civil society leaders.

The one-page document, written in late 1987, said that the party, APRA, and top government officials were running a secret paramilitary organisation. It said they were responsible for the attempted bombing of the El Diario newspaper, linked to the violent Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso, sent people to train in North Korea and may have been involved in executions. It made it clear that it believed that García was giving the orders.

For example, the report said, "Acting on García's instructions to retaliate for the October 2 assassination of an APRA leader, COSEPAP recently botched an attempted bombing of a pro-SL newspaper." The attempted bombing happened on Oct. 2, 1987; though the report is undated, the reference to the bombing suggests it was written in October or November 1987.

The U.S. government document was written as a factual account, not as speculation. It appears in the files of the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the U.S. president on foreign policy. A reference to the paper was discovered in the presidential library of Ronald Reagan, U.S. president from 1981-88, and it was obtained after a request for declassification by this reporter.

More:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40354



_Bush's second South American favorite, Mr. Death Squad II, Alan Garcia