Peru: Annual Report on Human Rights (1)

The Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH) has presented its annual report on the state of human rights in Peru. You can access the whole thing (in various PDFs) here (in Spanish). Now, it's nearly 300 pages long so I haven't read it all, nor can I translate it all, but let me present a few points from the initial summary which are relevant to this blog.

- The opening paragraph of the report is pretty damning, describing 2003 as a year of 'limited advances' in human rights (p.19).

- It presents the Garcia administration as aggressively promoting big business, criminalising social protest, and viewing human rights as 'obstacles' to development.

- The situation of the most basic human rights (to life, liberty, integrity) worsened in 2008.

- The recommendations of the CVR/TRC have still not been acted on. There was limited or no progress in these areas in 2008. Worse, there have proposals for military amnesty by those who believe that the armed forces are being 'persecuted' in the courts. This despite the fact that just 15 members of the security forces have been sentenced for human rights abuses. No one has been sentenced at all for sexual violence during the conflict.

- On the positive front, Peru has signed an international moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

- The continuing trial of Fujimori was the most positive and visible aspect of the human rights scene in Peru in 2008.

Here's a colour-coded image of the human rights arena in Peru (p. 27, sorry it's not higher quality):

This post has been taken from the initial chapter which summarises the contents of the report. I want to focus on particular areas in a few future posts, as time allows.