Peru: Severe setbacks for justice in cases involving military

Human rights groups in Peru are complaining about drastic setbacks in the attempt to hold members of the security forces responsible for crimes against humanity committed during the country's counterinsurgency war. Since early 2009, the Sala Penal Nacional, the highest-level court dealing with the human rights cases against armed forces and police personnel, has acquitted 65 members of the security forces and convicted only 15, according to human rights organizations that defend victims of the 1980-2000 civil war. Of the 15 who were sentenced, 10 belong to the army, four to the police and one to the navy, representatives of the National Human Rights Coordinating Committee (CNDDHH), the Legal Defence Institute (IDL) and the Association for Human Rights (APRODEH) told IPS. "There's a clear tendency towards impunity on the part of the Sala Penal Nacional in cases of extremely serious human rights violations, that benefits members of the military and police who should be punished for the crimes they committed," said CNDDHH executive secretary Ronald Gamarra. The human rights groups responded with statistics in hand to Defense Minister Rafael Rey, who recently stated in a public military ceremony that the members of the armed forces who fought "subversion" are victims of "judicial persecution." "The military continue to be unjustly mistreated and persecuted," said Rey, alluding to the case of retired army general Juan Rivero. Rivero is accused, as then director of army intelligence, of distributing weapons and equipment to an Army Intelligence Service death squad known as the Colina Group before it committed two high-profile massacres, known as Barrios Altos and La Cantuta.