Peru: Annual Report on Human Rights (3)

Following on from posts (1) and (2).

The situation of human rights and the judicial system in Peru since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR):

- There is a lack of a coherent system for witness protection.

- There are a number of cases of human rights abuses pending, including 47 recommended by the CVR, 12 investigated by the Defensoria del Pueblo, 159 which were part of an agreement between the Peruvian state and Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, and some others. For the majority of these, little concrete progress has been made. Only 13% have ended with a conviction - an average of just two a year.

- Investigations by the public prosecutor are described as a "filter" which impedes the justice process.

- In 2008, there were repeated calls from certain interest groups, including politicians, denouncing the supposed persecution of the security forces by human rights organisations, using the criminal justice system. In fact, the opposite is true: although the CVR documented tens of thousands of victims murdered by state forces, just 280 police and members of the armed forces have been tried or are in the process of being investigated. Of these, until now just 21 police officers and 7 soldiers have been convicted (p.178).

- The Ministries of Defence and the Interior have obstructed some investigations by refusing to hand over evidence, such as archival lists of personnel stationed in areas which saw particularly serious cases of human rights.

- In particular, women have great difficulty in achieving any justice for sexual crimes committed against them during the conflict.

- Some factors in the state are once again proposing an amnesty for the members of the security forces involved in atrocities.

- Successes in 2008 included sentences for those reponsible for the massacre at La Cantuta.

This diagram is taken from p. 196.