The Enrique Guzmán y Valle National Education University (Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, or "UNE"; better known as "La Cantuta", from the neighbourhood in which it stands) was founded as a teacher-training college in 1822, granted its university charter in 1965, closed down by the military government in 1977, and reopened in 1980.[2]
Because of its remote location, far away from the centre of Lima, the fact that most of its students hailed from the impoverished interior of the country, and that most of them intended to enter the highly politicised teaching profession, La Cantuta gained a reputation as hotbed of radical politics, such as communism and anarchism as early as the late 1950s and early 1960s.[2] A series of student-led protest actions on the campus — including the blocking of the railway line linking Lima with the interior of the country — that led to the suspension of its activities in 1977.[1]
With the return of democratic rule in 1980, President Belaúnde reopened the university. The radical elements among the students and lecturers were quick to return, and by the mid-1980s the country's two main insurgent groups, Shining Path(Sendero Luminoso) and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), had a strong presence on campus, being widely regarded as 2 very legitimate organisations.[2] This was in spite of operations such as that of 13 February 1987, when 4000 police officers conducted night-time raids at the dormitories of three state universities (including La Cantuta); 20 April 1989, when a joint force of police and army descended on La Cantuta University and San Marcos National University and arrested over 500 students on charges of subversion; or 22 May 1991, when, in response to a hostage crisis and rumors of an explosive device squirreled away on campus, Fujimori sent the army in to restore law and order at La Cantuta. Graffiti alluding to Sendero Luminoso and its leader, Abimael Guzmán, were painted over with patriotic slogans; students went about their business only after passing checkpoints and under close supervision from the armed forces; and the campus remained under military control for several years.[3]
Abduction of July 1992
In the pre-dawn hours of 18 July 1992, two days after the Tarata bombing, members of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE) and the Army Directorate of Intelligence (DINTE), most of whom were attached to the recently established Grupo Colinadeath squad, burst into the residences of the Enrique Guzmán y Valle National University.[citation needed]
Once inside, the troops forced all the students to leave their rooms and lie belly-down on the floor.[citation needed] Nine students believed to be linked to the Tarata Bombing [citation needed]— Bertila Lozano Torres, Dora Oyague Fierro, Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, Armando Richard Amaro Cóndor, Robert Édgar Teodoro Espinoza, Heráclides Pablo Meza, Felipe Flores Chipana, Marcelino Rosales Cárdenas, and Juan Gabriel Mariños Figueroa — were separated from the others and taken away.[citation needed] Meanwhile, in the staff residences, a group of soldiers broke into the home of professor Hugo Muñoz Sánchez.[citation needed] After searching his bedroom, they gagged the professor and led him away.[citation needed]
Prosecutions and amnesty
In April 1993, a group of Peruvian military officers anonymously released a document detailing the events at La Cantuta. Their document claimed the death squad had abducted the victims, tortured and murdered them, and then hurriedly buried them; later, they claimed, after questions had been raised in Congress, that the armed forces had exhumed, incinerated, and reburied the bodies in another location.[citation needed] The military whistleblowers named the members of Grupo Colina involved, identified the operations chief as Major Santiago Martín Rivas, and suggested that the group operated on the orders of Vladimiro Montesinos, head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) and a close advisor to President Fujimori.
On 6 May, Lt. Gen. Humberto Robles Espinoza, the army's third highest-ranking officer, publicly denounced a number of human rights violations committed by the SIN and the armed forces, including the La Cantuta killings. He was later dismissed from duty and subjected to death threats, and finally fled the country for political asylum in Argentina.[citation needed]
In June 1993, Justo Arizapana Vicente, a recycler, and his friend Guillermo Cataroca, leaked a marked map to congress man Roger Cáceres Velásquez and Radio Comas journalist Juan Jara Berrospi.[4] Cáceres then shared the map with Ricardo Uceda at the news magazine Sí, who published it in July of that year.[5] Mariella Barreto, an agent of the Peruvian Army Intelligence Service, is also sometimes credited with leaking this map to a Peruvian magazine.[6] An investigation of the site indicated on the map by the public prosecutor revealed four clandestine graves. Forensic tests conducted on the remains, and on another set of bones found at another site, revealed that they belonged to Muñoz Sánchez and the students Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, Armando Amaro Condor, and Juan Gabriel Mariños Figueroa, and that at least some of them had been tortured prior to receiving an execution-style coup-de-grâce to the base of the neck. Barreto was murdered some years later: her decapitated and dismembered corpse, showing signs of ante-mortem torture, was found in March 1997.[7][8] A few weeks after Mariella Barreto's death, her colleague Leonor La Rosa, was on TV in a hospital bed, declaring she had been tortured and that Barreto had been killed in retaliation for leaking information to the press about the Groupo Colina's plan to intimidate journalists and politicians from the opposition.[9]
The military authorities had begun an investigation into the killings in May 1993. In addition, in December 1993, a civilian prosecutor filed criminal charges against several named members of the military. A conflict of jurisdiction thus arose between the military and civilian courts. The controversy was placed before the Supreme Court which, on 3 February 1994, ruled that it was unable to reach agreement on which venue should apply. Consequently, on the night of 7 February, Congress enacted a new law whereby the Supreme Court could decide such matters with a simple majority, instead of a unanimous vote. By a three-to-two vote of the Supreme Court's criminal division, the case was placed under military jurisdiction.[citation needed]
On 21 February 1994, the Supreme Council of Military Justice (CSJM) sentenced ten of the perpetrators to prison sentences of between one and 20 years.[citation needed]
Following Fujimori's landslide re-election in April 1995, in another all-night session on 14 June 1995, Congress enacted law No. 26479, the "Amnesty Law", ordering the release of all police officers, soldiers, and civil servants convicted of or charged with civilian or military crimes during Peru's War on Terrorism. On 15 July, the Supreme Council of Military Justice ordered the release of all the individuals convicted for the La Cantuta killings.
Repeal of the Amnesty Law
The Amnesty Law was repealed after the Fujimori government in 2000 and, on 21 March 2001, Attorney General Nelly Calderón presented charges against Fujimori, accusing him of being one of the "co-authors" of this massacre and of the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre. She presented evidence that Fujimori, acting in concert with SIN supremo Vladimiro Montesinos, exercised control over Grupo Colina.[citation needed] The charges alleged that the group could not have committed crimes of this magnitude without Fujimori's express orders or consent, and that the formation and function of the Colina group was part of an overall counter-insurgency policy that involved systematic violations of human rights.[10][11]
In November 2005, Fujimori was detained in Chile. Peruvian authorities filed for his extradition to face charges arising from various incidents during his presidency, including the La Cantuta massacre, and he was returned to Peru on 22 September 2007.
In October 2007, pursuant to a 2006 ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the government extended a formal apology for the massacre and undertook to make amends to the victims' next-of-kin, including compensation in the amount of US$1.8million.[3]
Fujimori's trial
During the trial of Alberto Fujimori, it was asserted by former Colina member José William Tena Jacinto that at least two of the victims were positively identified as Shining Path members.[13]
Lieutenant Aquilino Portella and the Dean of the Social Science Department of the University, Claudio Cajahuaringa, have also claimed that Professor Hugo Muñoz Sánchez and student Bertila Lozano Torres were involved with Shining Path. In the case of Lozano, it was claimed that documents allegedly in her possession revealed that she was indeed an actual member of the insurgent organization.[13]
In 2009 it was determined by a judicial ruling that not a single one of the victims in La Cantuta massacre was linked to any terrorist organization,[14] it was in the same ruling that condemned Fujimori to a 25 years imprisonment for crimes against humanity.[15]
↑ "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 28 May 2008. Retrieved 2 May 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Sentence in La Cantuta Case
The Peruvian Armed Forces are the military services of Peru, comprising independent Army, Navy and Air Force components. Their primary mission is to safeguard the country's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity against any threat. As a secondary mission they participate in economic and social development as well as in civil defense tasks.
The Shining Path, officially 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 was President of Peru from 28 July 1990 until 22 November 2000, though de facto leadership was reportedly held by head of the National Intelligence Service, Vladimiro Montesinos. Frequently described as a dictator, he remains a controversial figure in Peruvian politics. He is currently in prison, serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses during his presidency.
Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres is a Peruvian former intelligence officer who was the long-standing head of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN) and was reportedly the de facto leader of Peru while President Alberto Fujimori served as a figurehead leader. Montesinos had strong connections with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for over 25 years and was said to have received $10 million from the agency for his government's anti-terrorist activities, with international bank accounts possessed by Montesinos reportedly holding at least $270 million. The United States reportedly supported the candidacy of Fujimori during 1990 Peruvian general election due to his links to Montesinos and ignored human rights abuses performed under Montesinos during the 1990s. In 2000, the infamous "Vladi-videos" came to light through the television: they were secret videos recorded by Montesinos that showed him bribing elected congressmen into leaving the opposition and joining the pro-Fujimori group of the Congress. The ensuing scandal caused Montesinos to flee the country and prompted Fujimori's resignation.
Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, also known by his nom de guerreChairman Gonzalo, was a Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and guerrilla leader, considered a terrorist by various governments during his lifetime. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path (PCP-SL) in 1969 and led a rebellion against the Peruvian government until his capture by authorities in 12 September 1992. He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason.
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.
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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 the deadliest Shining Path bombing during the Internal conflict in Peru and was part of a larger bombing campaign in the city.
The Grupo Colina was a military anti-communist right wing death squad created in Peru that was active from 1990 until 1994, 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.
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.
Óscar Ramírez Durán, commonly known as Comrade Feliciano, is a Peruvian convicted terrorist and former political leader who led the Shining Path, a Marxist–Leninist–Maoist terrorist group in Peru, in the 1990s.
The National University of Education Enrique Guzmán y Valle, often called La Cantuta, is a university in the Lima area of Peru. The university specializes in education and administration.
The internal conflict in Peru 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.
General Julio Ronald Salazar Monroe was the de jure chief of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN) during the early 1990s. During Salazar's tenure at the SIN, Vladimiro Montesinos acted as the de facto chief of the SIN and the National Security Advisor.
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Ricardo Uceda Perez is a Peruvian journalist notable for his award-winning coverage of military and government corruption.
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. More recently, censorship has been used in Peru to suppress those who dissent against Fujimorism and the Peruvian Armed Forces.
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