Marina has waited for justice for almost 25 years. In December 1984, government troops gunned down members of her family. 123 men, women and children were massacred the same day in the remote village of Putis in the Peruvian highlands.

When democracy was restored to Peru in 2000 the government created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine the events of the past twenty years, including atrocities like the Putis massacre. They promised to grant compensation, both at the individual and community level, to those who had been affected by the violence.

Fuente: www.csw.org.uk/urgentactionperuputismassacre.htm?ea.url.id=20033&ea.campaigner.email=5XOpppxjwj8%2Ff47N2BJfYvANL4%2BtM2Qz&forwarded=true

Peruvian women stand by the mass grave in Putis.

Going back on its word…

Unfortunately the government, under the leadership of President Alan Garcia, appears to be going back on its word and is looking to scrap the compensation programme before it has even begun.  For years the government, under Garcia, has rejected responsibility for any of the human rights violations committed during the twenty year period of violence. They have blocked investigations into military officials thought to be responsible for human rights atrocities and weakened government bodies tasked with investigating cases and implementing programmes for compensation.

The government Council for Reparations (responsible for compensation for the victims) announced that it would have to shut down at the end of the month due to the government’s refusal to allocate funding for the creation of a Victims Registry, something the government said must be completed before compensation can be granted.

While the specific issue of compensation is extremely important to those who suffered violations of their human rights, it is part of a larger effort by the government to downplay the role it had in past human rights atrocities. Despite promises to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which included compensation, six years after the publication of its final report, the government has yet to do so. Rather than seeking true national reconciliation and working to correct the mistakes of the past, the government has chosen to ignore the cries for justice from the more than 70,000 victims.

Disappointment for the victims

This means that people like Marina – as well as the families of the victims of the Callqui Church massacre, which also occurred in 1984 at the hands of the military – may never receive any kind of compensation for their losses. Sadly, those most affected by this decision are those who suffered the most during the years of violence, those who have historically lacked any kind of voice – the impoverished and neglected Quechua communities of the Andean highlands.

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