Two weeks after the publication of this article in Bandera Socialista, press of the Socialist Workers Party – Peru, the Permanent Commission of the Congress of the Republic, which meets between legislatures, approved in a second vote a law that declares crimes against humanity committed before 2002 to be barred from prosecution.
By Víctor Montes
The reactionary majority in Congress, under the umbrella of the government of Dina Boluarte, approved in the first instance, last June 7, a law that determines that crimes against humanity and war crimes can be exempt from prosecution in Peru if they were committed (conveniently) before 2002.
The authors of the bill in question, Congressman Fernando Rospigliosi of Fuerza Popular, former Minister of the Interior in Toledo’s government and the person responsible for the repression during the popular uprising against the privatization of the electric companies in the city of Arequipa (“el arequipazo”), and Congressman José Cueto, retired Admiral of the Navy and former President of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, of the Honor and Democracy party, told the newspaper Perú 21 that with this law, “.… the sentences of the military and police officers which qualified as crimes against humanity before July 1, 2002 will be without effect and will have to be corrected…”
In other words, they intend to absolve by law those who were among the protagonists of the genocide that was inflicted on poor people in the countryside, particularly the Ayacucho people, during the 20 years of internal armed conflict (1980 – 2000).
Who wants impunity?
Clearing and freeing the police and military responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people (as in Putis), under the pretext of confronting terrorism, is an old objective of the most reactionary and conservative political sectors of the country. These include Fujimorism and Renovación Popular, and of the big businessmen who supported the dictatorship and its crimes while it forcibly guaranteed them greater exploitation and, therefore, an increase in their profits.
The same was true under the “democratic” Belaúnde and Alan García (1980-1990), as under the Fujimori dictatorship, little or nothing mattered to the bosses (and it does not matter to them now). The 69,000 people murdered during those years, or the 20,000 people who disappeared during the internal armed conflict.
It does not matter to them that it was proven by the CVR (Truth and Reconciliation Comission) investigation that 36% of those murders and disappearances were committed by members of the Armed and Police Forces.
According to the CVR, state agents were responsible for more than 7,300 extrajudicial executions, as well as for more than 6,400 cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
In reality, what Fujimorism, Renovación Popular and other reactionary parties, as well as the bosses, want is to establish a regime in which their right to kill those they consider “terrucos” (terrorists) is recognized. That is, anyone they consider to question or threaten their interests.
Neither forgetting nor forgiveness
The law approved by Congress is a step towards the consolidation of that regime of impunity against the poor and working people that the bosses and the reactionary parties want. The same impunity that Boluarte expects to receive at the end of her term of office, in spite of the 49 murdered by the repression.
Impunity is precisely the opposite of justice. And with this law, the relatives of such emblematic cases as Los Cabitos (1983), Putis (1984), Benito Baldeón (1984), Accomarca (1985), Cayara (1985), El Frontón (1986), Bustíos (1988), Barrios Altos (1991), Madre Mía (1992) and La Cantuta (1992) are exempt from justice.
The working class and its organizations cannot forget this. We workers must discuss in our unions, neighborhoods and workplaces, the need to be on the front line of the struggle against this law of impunity, leading the mobilization of all the people, for trial and exemplary punishment for all those responsible for the massacres, tortures and disappearances, both executive and political, for political violence and also for those assassinated “in democracy”.
We cannot and should not forget that state repression, as history shows, is mainly directed against those who fight and confront the exploitation and abuse of the bosses and their authorities.
This is what happened during the Fujimori dictatorship, when the working class itself, a victim of “terruqueo” (accusation of being terrorists), suffered the ferocious repression of the government with the aim of destroying its organizations, firing its leaders, and imposing new and higher rates of exploitation and misery.
For this reason, and out of solidarity with our brothers and sisters directly assassinated by the Armed Forces and the police who today defend this murderous and starvation government, we must overthrow this norm with our mobilization. And to achieve this, we must overcome the limits imposed on the struggle by the current reformist leaderships, like the CGTP (General Confederation of Workers of Peru), who seek to submit the mobilization to their electoral calculations.
