Peru to probe prison killings

Press, 23 June 1986, Page 10

Peru to probe prison killings

NZPA-Reuter Lima

Peru’s Government has ordered the military to investigate possible excesses by security forces in putting down a jail revolt, in which 124 Leftist guerrilla inmates were killed. “The number of deaths... makes it possible to presume that excesses were committed in the use of force in fulfilling the orders of the Government,” a statement from the Presidency said.

“Faithful to its democratic responsibility, the Government guarantees the sanction of whatever excess may have taken place in re-establishing order in the prison of Lurigancho,” it said.

The revolt was one of two main prison rebellions on Friday. At least 30 inmates were killed in the other revolt, at the island prison El Fronton. The Government

ordered the joint command of the Armed Forces to probe the events and said it had also asked Congress and the Attorney-General to launch their own investigations. Earlier yesterday an opposition leader accused the military of executing about 60 Maoist “Sendero Luminoso” (Shining Path) guerrillas after they had surrendered at Lurigancho.

Senator Javier Diez Canseco, a leader of the United Left alliance, said prisoners at Lurigancho had been shot after being marched out of the cellblock with their hands on their heads. “The information that we have is that these people have been eliminated, shot in the mouth, in the head.” Mr Diez Canseco refused to reveal the source of his information but said the block where the fighting took place

was overlooked by others occupied by common criminals.

The United Left said the jail battles had been a massacre and called on the International Red Cross to intervene. “The result of the barbarous action will not be pacification. It will only feed the spiral of violence,” it said. Mr Diez Canseco, leader of a far-Left party that holds the largest number of seats in the alliance, said about 300 prisoners had died at Lurigancho and El Fronton. The last official figure was 156 guerrillas killed, 124 of them at Lurigancho, with more bodies to be removed from El Fronton.

He said the police and troops at Lurigancho had blown holes in the walls and fired machine-guns into the building for 21/2 hours before the guerrillas released a hostage they had taken.

He said that about 60 inmates who surrendered were executed, leaving none of the inmates in the cell-block occupied by “Sendero” guerrillas alive.

The military has said that many of the dead Lurigancho inmates were burnt or asphxyiated in fortifications they had built in and around the cell-block. Mr Diez Canseco said at least 90 inmates had been killed at El Fronton, where the fighting continued longer because guerrillas were holed up in tunnels and galleries they had built under the prison. He said the inmates took three policemen hostage at the beginning of the rebellion, capturing three automatic rifles, a sub-machine-gun, and 92 rounds of ammunition. Two of the hostages had survived the attack and the third was asphxyiated.

The military had used

mortars and bazookas to destroy the guerrilla defences, he said. The military has said the guerrillas used automatic rifles, submachineguns, and explosives in the fight, and three soldiers were killed and 20 wounded. Mr Diez Canseco said prisoners were protesting because the authorities had banned visits during a warders’ strike, and at Lurigancho they had offered to negotiate when the military moved in. He said the governors of both prisons had appealed that the military not be used. The Government has accused the guerrillas of staging the revolts to sully Peru’s image during a congress of Socialist International, a world grouping of socialist and social democratic parties. Officials said delegates were increasingly concerned at the events in the prisons and were ask-

ing whether the conference should continue. The delegates are also under some pressure because of the heavy security arrangements and the constant threat of guerrilla attack. A woman guerrilla blew herself up while aiming a mortar at the conference centre, and several bombs exploded in the area.