Peru: Praying for Justice
In Northern Peru, residents of Tambogrande are praying once and for all that a newly reopened lawsuit against anti-mining activists be shelved. […]
Peru
Peru: “If I Don’t Come Back, Look For Me in Putis”
On Nov. 13, in a crowded room at the Inter-cultural Center at Georgetown University, the audience traveled to Ayacucho, Peru and watched as the Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense (Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team-EPAF) exhumed the remains of disappeared persons from the Putis massacre of December 13, 1984. […]
Militarization and the War on Drugs in Peru: Interview with Ricardo Soberón
The government of Alan García has initiated Plan VRAE, a military offensive in the South Andean region of Ayacucho, specifically with the object of exterminating the surviving militias of the Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path and defeating drug trafficking. At the same time, more than a hundred North American marines have settled in Ayacucho. Upside Down World interviews Peruvian lawyer Ricardo Soberón Garrido, a specialist in militarization and drug issues on possible interpretations of this offensive. […]
Peru: Interview with Political Prisoner Lori Berenson
Lori Berenson
American activist Lori Berenson was pulled off a bus in Peru in November of 1995, detained by anti-terrorist police, and tried for treason against the Peruvian state by a hooded military tribunal. A gun was held to her head as she received her sentence: life in prison. […]
Peru: Buried But Not Forgotten on International Day of the Disappeared
Photo: Alain Wittman
On a cold December night in 1984 in Putis, Peru more than 100 men, women, and children were forced to dig their own graves before being executed with automatic weapons and then buried in shallow earth. What is not known are the identities of the victims or who ordered the massacres or why. Almost 24 years later at least one of these questions has begun to be answered. […]
Peru: Piura Votes, A Dangerous Precedent
One year ago today, a local vote was held concerning possible mining activity in three highland districts in northwestern Peru. The referendum drew thousands of peasant farmers, many of whom traveled for the best part of a day by horse, truck or on foot. […]
Peru: Tambogrande Mine Returns Amidst Two Other Conflicts
With the Tambogrande mine threat getting renewed — amidst the occupation of a mine in Puno and a fraudulent referendum in Michiquillay — it’s back to business as usual in Peru.
Return to Putis: EPAF Resumes Exhumations of Mass Graves
Two weeks after completing the exhumation of the largest mass grave found in Peru’s history, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) returned to Putis today to begin work on exhuming four additional graves from a […]
Unburying the Evidence of Peru’s Biggest “Dirty War” Massacre
It was not hard to find the remains of the victims, some of whose bones were actually exposed to the elements. But it took 24 years for the people of the highlands village of Putis in southern Peru to get a response to their insistent requests for exhumation and identification of the remains.
Peru: Indigenous Organizations Aim for the Presidency
Peru’s indigenous associations are pursuing a political project of their own, and hope to win power in the 2011 presidential elections in order to defend their collective rights. […]