US trained Peruvian soldiers on trial for torture and murder

Teofila Ochoa Lizarbe, a survivor of the Accomarca massacre of 1985 in Peru, testified in a Miami court on Feb. 11 against Telmo Ricardo Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondon. The two former military officers led the Peruvian army units responsible for the death of 69 unarmed civilians living in the Andean highlands of Peru on August 13, 1985. Hurtado and Rondon, attended Arms Orientation courses at the controversial US Army School of the Americas from 1981-1982 during the height of the war against the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) guerrillas. The US Army School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is a military training facility for Latin American security personnel currently located at Fort Benning in Columbus, GA. The SOA/WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Teofila Ochoa Lizarbe, one of the few survivors of the massacre, testified before US District Judge Adalberto Jordan against Hurtado and Rondon, saying she watched soldiers under their command rape and torture women and children. Another plaintiff, Cirila Pulido Baldeón, also gave an emotional testimony about the Accomarca massacre; she was 12 years old at the time. The plaintiffs each testified that they survived by hiding from the soldiers. Despite Ms. Ochoa Lizarbe's own escape, her mother, four brothers and a sister were killed. Soldiers also murdered Ms. Pulido Baldeón's mother and brother. The plaintiffs testified about life after such a devastating loss and their on-going struggle to heal. Retired Peruvian military officers Telmo Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondon were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Florida and Baltimore respectively, in violation of US immigration laws in March of 2007. Both also face deportation orders from Peru under charges of murder and crimes against humanity. According to an AFP report, in a recent testimony given during the trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, Angel Sauni, a self-confessed member of a team of select army intelligence operatives accused of killing 25 people in two massacres in 1991 and 1992, said the strategies used against the leftist guerrillas came directly from teachings and manuals of the School of the Americas. The plaintiffs are represented by The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), a San Francisco-based human rights organization. The center and its lawyers have based their arguments on the Alien Torts Statute, which allows non-US citizens to seek justice in US courts for violations of international law if the defendant lives in or has assets in this country.