Peru: Pucará Trial On, Despite Govt Interference

I noted in June 2009 that a trial had opened concerning the 1989 Pucará massacre. I then lost track of the issue completely, until this article from IPS, which proves that 1) I can't keep up with the progress of all the news stories I mention, 2) the Peruvian justice system is lamentably slow and 3) you can't trust the Garcia regime, which has major human violations on its hands from its first term, not to obstruct the progress of human rights investigations at every turn.

A trial against 41 Peruvian soldiers and officers accused of murdering six men and two women in the highlands village of Pucará in 1989, during the first term of current President Alan García, has reopened.

[...]

The trial got underway again after the lawyers representing the victims' families successfully lobbied the court to order the return to Peru of a key defendant, noncommissioned officer Clodomiro Silva.

Silva and the rest of the members of the army accused in the Pucará murders are not allowed to leave the country without permission from the court, and must attend all court sessions when summonsed.

Nevertheless, President García named Silva as an assistant to Peru's military attaché in Washington.

As a result, the trial was held up when Silva did not show at the Dec. 12, 21 and 28 hearings.

[...]

Silva's appointment "was a way to put him out of reach of the justice system, and his failure to show up at the hearings hampered the trial," Antonio Salazar, a lawyer with the non-governmental Legal Defence Institute (IDL) who represents the victims' families, told IPS.

Sources at the courthouse where the trial is being held told IPS that the judiciary had notified the army command that Silva's appointment to a diplomatic mission abroad was a violation of due process.

Silva finally returned to Lima on Jan. 10, and reported in to the courts. (emphasis mine)

Generals in the Dock in Human Rights Trial (IPS)

News/Blogging Round-Up

I have missed most memory-related news items over the past week, but here is a small selection:

Chile
The Legacy of the Pinochet Dictatorship (Memory, Amnesia and Politics)
Pinochet could have received $292 million dollars in loans from Chilean government, unclear if paid or repaid (Chile From Within)

Colombia
Who Cares About the Victims of Forced Displacement? (IPS)

El Salvador
Remembering "la Matanza" of 1932 (Tim's El Salvador Blog)

Guatemala
The Attack on the Spanish Embassy (Guatemala Solidarity Network)

Peru
Vargas Llosa anuncia que museo se llamara ahora Lugar de la Memoria (APRODEH)

Blogging Break

Hi, dear readers,

Tomorrow I am, I very much hope, escaping the Northern European winter and going on holiday. Blogging will resume in February.

Lillie Langtry

Chile: Museum of Memory

Although it still doesn't contain much detail on the actual exhibits, here's the most in-depth English language article I've yet seen on the new Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile.

Chile's Turning Point (The Nation, via unredacted)

Argentina: Club Atletico, El Banco, El Olimpo

Blogs here and here (Spanish language) are following the trials of the military perpetrators from the clandestine detention centres Club Atletico, El Banco, and El Olimpo. With acknowledgements to them, here are some of the accused:

Argentina: Poch to be extradited

Finally, an on-topic post.

Julio Alberto Poch, detained in Spain last September (not "last month" as the BBC article has it) is to be extradited to Argentina, where he should stand trial for the so-called death flights.

Spain to extradite 'dirty war' pilot to Argentina (BBC)
El piloto de la muerte volara para ser juzgado (Pagina/12)
España aprobó la extradición de Julio Poch (Critica Digital)

Peru/Haiti: Seeking Answers in a Forgotten Peruvian Quake

The AP, published in the New York Times, looks at contrasting examples of reconstruction after a major natural disaster. Sadly for Peru, Pisco is the 'how not to do it' example.

Today, many of the streets of Pisco are still full of rubble. Thousands of survivors still live in shacks. Thousands more have left. That new hospital? Construction hasn't even begun.

''The state has forgotten us,'' said Medalit Diaz, 33, who lives in a huddle of makeshift huts and tents next to the town's soccer stadium.

The comparative analysis here may be simplistic - I don't know enough about Indonesia to say - but I think everyone agrees that the rebuilding in Peru has been disappointing, at best. It's horrible to think about because again, I've been to Pisco myself and remember it before it was shaken to pieces.

Seeking Answers in a Forgotten Peruvian Quake (New York Times)