Peruvian journalists killed in trouble-plagued province

Press, 1 February 1983, Page 8

Peruvian journalists killed in trouble-plagued province

NZPA-Reuter Lima The Peruvian authorities said yesterday that the bodies" of eight journalists and their guide had been found buried in the militarycontrolled province of Ayacucho. The President, Mr Fernando Belaunde Terry, and military officials said that all nine probably had been killed by peasants who thought they were Left-wing guerrillas. The journalists, all Peruvian, disappeared on Thursday while seeking on-the-spot coverage of the activities of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Lighted Path) guerrilla

movement. Provincial military authorities issued a state'ment on television saying that the bodies of six reporters and their guide had been found in four graves in Ayacucho, which is about 600 km south-east of Lima, the country’s capital. Journalists' documents, cameras and suitacases of clothes had been found with the corpses, the statement said. The reporters “had been tragically mistaken for seditious elements ... peasants were the probable authors (of the killings) according to reports from other peasants who were witnesses."

The Peruvian journalists' union leader, Mario Castro Arenas, who went to Ayacucho at the week end, said the bodies of Jorge Luis Mendivil, of the Lima daily, “El Observador,” and that of a photographer, Pedro Sanchez Gavidia, of the daily, “El Diario" showed signs they had been attacked with sticks and stones. Peasants used such weapons in recent attacks on suspected Sendero Luminoso members, and seven guerrillas were recently clubbed to death by peasants in Huaichao, near Uchuraccay. “El Diario” said that there were conflicting reports on who killed the journalists.

Some reports had indicated that police from the paramilitary Civil Guard may have confused the journalists with guerrillas. The deaths of the journalists were the first in a twoyear guerrilla war that has claimed more than 200 lives. The Civil Guard, meanwhile, reported killing nine members, including two women, of Sendero Luminoso near Cangallo, about 128 km from Ayacucho. The Government ordered 1000 Armed Forces members into the Ayacucho area a month ago to help 1000 police officers fight the guerrillas.