Ricardo Uceda | |
---|---|
Born | Chiclayo, Peru | July 27, 1954
Occupation | journalist |
Known for | reporting on government corruption, La Cantuta Massacre |
Awards | International Press Freedom Award (1993) International Press Institute (2000) Maria Moors Cabot prize (2000) |
Ricardo Uceda Pérez (born July 27, 1954) [1] is a Peruvian journalist notable for his award-winning coverage of military and government corruption.
Uceda was born in Chiclayo, Peru in 1954. [1] He studied journalism at the Jaime Bausate y Mesa Institute of Journalism in Lima and economics and journalism at the National University of San Marcos. [1] [2] He worked for the magazine El Mundo in 1974, then served short stints with the daily newspapers Expreso, El Diario, and El Nacional. [1] In 1987 he worked as an investigative reporter at the television station Canal 2 before becoming deputy director of the magazine Sí the following year. [1]
During his tenure at Sí, Uceda published reports on the corruption of government officials, exposing army massacres and collaboration with drug lords. [2] He consistently refused to reveal the sources of his investigations, leading to numerous government cases against him. [2] He was also accused by government spokespeople of being connected with the Shining Path, though these charges were never substantiated. [2] In 1992, Sí ran a story implicating senior military officials in the Barrios Altos massacre, an incident in which the anti-communist death squad Grupo Colina killed fifteen partygoers, including an eight-year-old child, after mistaking them for Shining Path members. [3] Following the story, Uceda was the subject of a police investigation for "falsifying information", a charge of which he was later cleared. [2] An Americas Watch (an arm of Human Rights Watch) spokesperson condemned the investigation as being part of a general pattern of repression against journalists by the government of Alberto Fujimori. [4]
In one high-profile case in 1993, members of a dissatisfied army faction directed Uceda to a mass grave containing the corpses of nine students and one professor kidnapped from La Cantuta University. [5] Ten army officers and soldiers were eventually charged with the crime, which became known as the La Cantuta Massacre. [5] When angry officials accused Uceda of obstructing justice in response to his reporting—a crime punishable by a prison term—the Peruvian Congress held a vote to guarantee his safety. [1] Complicity in this massacre became one of the charges for which then-president Alberto Fujimori was subsequently tried and found guilty by a panel of three Peruvian judges. [6]
In 1994, Ricardo Uceda resigned as editor-in-chief of Sí to form a special investigative team at El Comercio , then Peru's most popular daily newspaper. [1] As with Uceda's Sí reporting, the Comercio team focused on cases of governmental corruption. [2] One of the team's most notable successes came in 1998, when they exposed the misuse of state funds intended for the survivors of El Niño-created floods and mudslides; the story resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of Civil Defence Chief General Homero Nureña. [1]
In 2004, he published the book Muerte en el Pentagonito: Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano, which explored individual cases in the long conflict between the Shining Path and the Peruvian Army. [2]
Uceda was awarded a 1993 International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists in recognition of his reporting on both the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres. [7]
In 2000, the International Press Institute selected him as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the past half-century. [8] His book Muerte en el Pentagonito: Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in 2005, losing to Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by UK author Alexandra Fuller. [9] In the same year, he won the Maria Moors Cabot prize of Columbia University, the oldest international award in the field of journalism. [10]
The Shining Path, self-named the Communist Party of Peru, is a far-left political party and guerrilla group in Peru, following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path to distinguish it from other communist parties in Peru.
Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto is a Peruvian former politician, professor, and engineer who served as President of Peru from 1990 to 2000. Fujimori, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, was an agricultural engineer and university rector before entering politics. Frequently described as a dictator, his tenure is marked by both significant economic reforms and severe human rights abuses.
Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres is a Peruvian former intelligence officer and lawyer, most notorious for his role as the head of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN) during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos wielded significant power behind the scenes, often regarded as the true authority in the government, supported by the Peruvian Armed Forces.
El Comercio is a Peruvian newspaper based in Lima. Founded in 1839, it is the oldest newspaper in Peru and one of the oldest Spanish-language papers in the world. It has a daily circulation of more than 120,000. It is considered a newspaper of record and one of the most influential media in Peru.
The Barrios Altos massacre occurred on 3 November 1991 in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, Peru. Members of Grupo Colina, a death squad comprising Peruvian Armed Forces personnel, were later identified as the assailants who killed fifteen individuals, including an eight-year-old child, and injured four others. The victims were reportedly partygoers associated with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group Shining Path. Nevertheless, judicial authorities found that they were not terrorists.
La Cantuta massacre took place in Peru on 18 July 1992, during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori. Supposed members of Shining Path, including a university professor and nine students from Lima's La Cantuta University, were abducted, tortured, and killed by Grupo Colina, a military death squad. The incident occurred two days after the Shining Path's Tarata bombing, which killed over 40 people in Lima Province.
The Tarata bombing, known also as the Miraflores bombing or Lima bombing, was a terrorist attack carried out in Tarata Street, located in Miraflores District of Lima, Peru, on 16 July 1992, by the Shining Path terrorist group. The blast was one of the deadliest Shining Path bombings during the Internal conflict in Peru and was part of a larger bombing campaign in the city during the last stage of the terrorism era.
The Grupo Colina was a military anti-communist death squad created in Peru that was active from October 1991 until November 1992, during the administration of president Alberto Fujimori. The group committed several human rights abuses, including an eight-month period of 1991–1992 that saw a total of 34 people killed in the Barrios Altos massacre, the Santa massacre, the Pativilca massacre, and the La Cantuta massacre.
Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi is a Peruvian politician. Fujimori is the eldest daughter of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi. From August 1994 to November 2000, she held the role of First Lady of Peru, during her father's administrations. She has served as the leader of the Fujimorist political party Popular Force since 2010, and was a congresswoman representing the Lima Metropolitan Area, from 2006 to 2011. Fujimori ran for president in the 2011, 2016, and 2021 elections, but was defeated each time in the second round of voting.
Ollanta Moisés Humala Tasso is a Peruvian politician and former military officer who served as President of Peru from 2011 to 2016. Originally a socialist and left-wing nationalist, he is considered to have shifted towards neoliberalism and the political centre during his presidency.
Gustavo Andrés Gorriti Ellenbogen is a Peruvian journalist known for his reporting on rebel groups, government corruption, and drug trafficking. In 2011, the European Journalism Centre described him as having "been awarded more prizes than probably any other Peruvian journalist". He is the founder of IDL-Reporteros.
The Peruvian conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Government of Peru and the Maoist guerilla group Shining Path and its remnants. The conflict began on 17 May 1980, and from 1982 to 1997 the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement waged its own insurgency as a Marxist–Leninist rival to the Shining Path.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was arrested, tried, and convicted for a number of crimes related to corruption and human rights abuses that occurred during his government. Fujimori was president from 1990 to 2000. His presidency ended when he fled the country in the midst of a scandal involving corruption and human rights violations.
The mass media in Peru includes a variety of different types of media, including television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based web sites. Much of the print-based media in Peru is over a century old, with some newspapers even dating back to the time of independence.
Sí is a Peruvian news magazine which was established in 1986. The magazine has its headquarters in Lima. It is published on a weekly basis and features articles on political news. In 1993, its editor Ricardo Uceda was instrumental in exposing the La Cantuta Massacre, an incident in which nine students and one professor from La Cantuta University were executed by army soldiers and buried in a mass grave.
Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a truth and reconciliation commission established by President Alejandro Toledo to investigate the human rights abuses committed during the internal conflict in Peru between 1980s and 1990s. The TRC was a response to the violent internal conflict between 1980 and 2000 during the administration of Presidents Fernando Belaúnde (1980–1985), Alan García (1985–1990), and Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000). The commission's mandate was to provide a record of human rights and international humanitarian law violations committed in Peru between May 1980 and November 2000, as well as recommend mechanisms to promote and strengthen human rights. The TRC reported on the estimated 70 000 deaths, assassinations, torture, disappearances, displacement, employment of terrorist methods and other human rights violations executed by the State, Shining Path, and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The report concluded that there is both institutional and individual accountability, as well as identifying racial and cultural factors that became a catalyst for conflict.
Censorship in Peru has been prevalent throughout its history. There have been multiple shifts in the level of freedom of the press in Peru, starting in the late 1900s when the country was oppressed, to the early 2000s when the country experienced more freedom; only recently has the country been ranked as partly free. After the neoliberal economic policies implemented in the 1990s stabilized the national economy and led it to an economic boom in the 21st century, usage of TV and access to internet has vastly increased, leading to more spaces of expression.
The San Miguel del Ene attack was a massacre on 23 May 2021 in San Miguel del Ene, a rural area in the Vizcatán del Ene District of Satipo Province in Peru, in which 18 people were killed. The massacre was most likely perpetrated by the Militarized Communist Party of Peru (MPCP), a split of the Maoist terrorist organization Shining Path. The attack occurred in the Valle de los Ríos Apurímac, Ene y Mantaro (VRAEM) conflict region, where the group operates.
The Militarized Communist Party of Peru is a political party and militant group in Peru that follows Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and participates in the communist insurgency in Peru. It is considered a terrorist organization by the government of Peru. The MPCP operates primarily in the VRAEM area and is involved in the area's coca production. Comrade José has been the leader of the MPCP since its official creation in 2018 after its final split from the declining Shining Path guerilla group.
The National Institute of Civil Defence, created in 1972 as the National System of Civil Defence, is a public organisation dependent on the Ministry of Defence of Peru.