— Socialist Workers’ Party of Peru (PST-Peru)
The Dina Boluarte government enacted an amnesty law that benefits police and military personnel accused of human rights violations from 1980 to 2000 in the context of the “fight against terrorism.”
At the ceremony, Fujimori, Popular Renewal, Avanza País, and other parties that promoted the bill were present, including former members of the Colina Group. This irregular armed forces squad is responsible for crimes such as the Barrios Altos massacre (15 victims, including an eight-year-old boy) and the La Cantuta kidnapping and murder of a teacher and nine students. Their remains were later found in mass graves.
Between 1980 and 2000, 70,000 people were killed, and many more were tortured or disappeared. Most of these crimes were committed by the armed forces, the police, and groups under their command. This was the most brutal genocide that Peru has experienced since its founding. As a result of these events, the dictator Alberto Fujimori was tried and convicted, and dozens of military and police officers were prosecuted. These include the recently convicted Daniel Urresti and Ollanta Humala, who was identified as “Captain Carlos.”
This amnesty will allow these criminals and perpetrators of genocide to go unpunished, shelve investigations, and mock the right to justice and reparations while glorifying real murderers as heroes of “democracy.”
The law was enacted despite the demands of the Public Ministry, human rights organizations, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) to suspend it in compliance with international law.
Boluarte and the reactionary forces in Congress are trying to portray the armed forces and the PNP as the persecuted ones who “only did their duty.” In doing so, they expose the hypocrisy of a system that claims to be democratic but is anything but. This system only serves to exploit and dismiss workers, violate the rights of the poor, and justify genocide and human rights violations.
This law seeks to erase the extrajudicial executions, torture, disappearances, and rapes committed against the poorest. These crimes are written in blood in the history of the Armed Forces and the National Police, who applied a policy of “scorched earth.” According to their doctrine, murdering a supposed “terrorist” justified entire massacres.
Furthermore, one of the few democratic gains won by the popular uprising that defeated the Fujimori-Montesinos dictatorship in 2000 is being cut short.
Organizations claiming to be leftist, human rights defenders, or democratic have failed by remaining passive in the face of this attack. Caught up in electoral calculations, where their main enemy was Fujimorism, they capitulated in the name of “democracy.” First, they did so to the Toledo government; then, to Ollanta Humala; and finally, under the Pedro Castillo government, they abandoned any hint of radicalism to ingratiate themselves with business leaders. In doing so, they left the murderous Armed Forces and National Police intact.
Workers, poor people, and the oppressed in rural and urban areas have no reason to trust the military or the police. They repress us when we protest. They murdered 40 fighters during the uprising in the southern Andes against the coup that brought Boluarte to power. She is a puppet of Fujimorism and the right wing, and she deserves the people’s hatred.
That is why the Socialist Workers’ Party (PST) calls on all workers’ and popular organizations to take to the streets and repeal this amnesty decreed by reactionary Congress and murderous Dina Boluarte.
As we did when we defeated the Pulpín Law and the Fujimori dictatorship, we will win the repeal of this law and the trial and punishment of all the military and police officers responsible for crimes against the people in the streets.
However, only a government of workers and the people will allow us to achieve true justice. This government will put an end to the country’s exploiters and looters and send all the corrupt murderers and their accomplices, including congressmen, the president, and her ministers, to prison.
