Charges presented in Peru’s deadly Amazon clash

Published 6:38 am Wednesday, August 12, 2009

LIMA, Peru — A Peruvian government prosecutor presented homicide charges against two police generals and 15 other officers for a June government crackdown at an Amazon highway blockade manned by Indians protesting development on their ancestral lands.

The criminal charges, which must be ratified by a judge, are the first to implicate police in violence that left at least 33 dead, including 23 police.

Public prosecutor Luz Rojas told The Associated Press she presented the charges Friday as outgoing state attorney of Utcubamba province — where the violence ocurred.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups previously called the Peruvian government’s investigation imbalanced because police had not been implicated. Prosecutors filed homicide charges against 61 civilians two weeks after the June 5 outbreak of violence.

The new charges were presented against Peru’s special operations police chief Gen. Luis Muguruza, regional police chief Gen. Javier Uribe and 15 officers in the deaths of six civilians in the highway confrontation.

Contacted by the AP on Tuesday, Gen. Uribe declined to comment on the charges. Muguruza and others officers could not be reached.

Thirteen police were killed in the highway operation and another officer is still missing, while four civilians and 10 police were killed later that day in the nearby city of Bagua and at an oil pipeline station. Peru’s ombudsman’s office says 200 civilians were wounded, 82 of them by gunshots.

Indian leader Carlos Navas said the charges took too long and do not go far enough. He says the politicians that ordered the police operation should be held responsible, including President Alan Garcia.

Garcia insisted police acted properly and suffered the most, though later admitted to a “series of errors” in his management of the protests leading up to the violence.

Since June, Navas has headed negotiations with government ministers to install an independent truth commission to investigate the violence, but says the government so far has blocked it.

Miguel Jugo, a lawyer with Lima-based human rights group Aprodeh, says the charges are an important first step but agreed they do not go far enough and should include former Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas.

Cabanillas denies responsibility for the police crackdown at the blockade, saying the entire Cabinet voted to approve it and the national police chief gave the order.

“The ombudsman’s office says 200 civilians were wounded, yet here we have charges that represent only 20 people,” Jugo said. He says charges must be filed on the behalf of the other 180 wounded civilians.

Family members of seven police officers killed in the violence support criminal charges against commanders and the interior secretary.

“I would like to join forces with the families of the Indians who were killed, because we are all victims of those politically responsible” for ordering the police operation, said Flor Montenegro, the widow of deceased police Capt. Miguel Montenegro, on CNR radio Tuesday. She and the six other police families are seeking negligence and abuse of authority charges against Cabanillas, former national police chief Gen. Jose Sanchez, Uribe and Muguruza.

The prosecutor’s report charges that Muguruza and Uribe ordered the highway crackdown and that the small police troop was disproportionately armed with AK-47s and pistols. The 800 Indian protesters manning the blockade were armed with spears and rocks and several police were slain with spears, the report says.

Later that day, Indians slit the throats of 10 police they had been holding hostage at an oil pumping station in retribution for the highway crackdown, after hearing erroneous reports inflating the number of Indian dead.

Justice Minister Aurelio Pastor told a U.N. Human Rights committee in Geneva last week that the protesters were carrying firearms and attacked the police.

Peru’s Amazon Indians had been blockading jungle highways and rivers on and off since August 2008, demanding the revocation of 11 pro-investment decrees issued by Garcia in 2008. They say the government does not consult them about oil and mining concessions and laws that affect their traditional lands.