PERU: The Only Dead Hostage was a Fujimori Opponent

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GINEBRA, Apr 29 1997 (IPS) - The only hostage to be shot during the freeing of the Japanese ambassador’s residence was an opponent of President Alberto Fujimori, and he died in strange circumstances, said the American Jurists Association (AJA), calling for an investigation.

The AJA expressed its “pain and concern over the strange death of the worthy (Supreme Court) judge,” Carlos Giusti Acuna.

In a declaration distributed in Geneva, the president of the jurists association, Jose Felipe Ledur, said Giusti Acuna “was publically opposed to the reforms (President Alberto) Fujimori aims to introduce in the Peruvian legal system.

The AJA said the dead judge was a member of the institute’s Consultative Council, which is mainly dedicated to defending human rights.

The organisation of jurists, whose president is in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and its secretariat in Montreal, Canada, rejected “the Peruvian decision when the mediating process and the possibility of a peaceful solution had not been exhausted.”

The military action to recover the diplomatic headquarters on April 22, occupied by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) since December 17, cost the lives of all 14 members of the guerrilla command.

One hostage, Giusti, and two soldiers were also killed in the incident.

The AJA declaration expressed “consternation over the deliberate massacre of the MRTA members, with responsibility for this resting firmly on the shoulders of President Fujimori, the Armed Forces leaders and the intelligence services.”

They called for “an exhaustive and impartial investigation” of the circumstances surrounding the death of Giusti Acuna and the MRTA members and “the trial of the material and intellectual perpetrators.”

Meanwhile, the permanent AJA representative in Geneva, Alejandro Teitelbaum, called for intervention from the United Nations special rapporteur on summary and arbitrary executions, Bacre Wally Ndiaya, to call for an international investigation of the episode.

Teitelbaum also directed a petition to the UN special rapporteur on the independence of the Judicial Power, Dato Param Cumaraswamy, asking for a group of independent experts to investigate the events in Peru.

As representative of the AJA, Peru’s Ada Beraunde denounced the legal situation in the country to the United Nations Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights meeting being held in Geneva from Monday.

Beraunde said that in Peru, “the Legislative Power fulfils a decorative role and the Judicial Power is answerable to the Executive, except in exceptional cases of some honest judges.”

He also declared the situation in the prisons is in need of investigation, describing them as “tombs for the living,” where “elements vital to existence are restricted, like only two litres of water per day for all uses, food once a day and even electricity is rationed.”