Peru owes nearly $9 million in compensation payments ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and agreed to before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
According to Agencia Andina, recipients of the outstanding payments include congressional workers who are owed $3,890,000 stemming from their unlawful firings following former President Alberto Fujimori’s April 5, 1992, “self-coup,” when he shut own the legislature and courts. Another $2 million is owed to the families of nine students and a professor who were killed at La Cantuta university by the state-sponsored Colina group paramilitary death squad.
The director of the National Human Rights Council, Luis Alberto Salgado, told Agencia Andina, that paying the outstanding compensations is one of the challenges for next year. Salgado added that Peru has already allocated $17,000,000 in human rights compensations, which were determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The outstanding payments are expected to increase by $8 million to $10 million with the sentencing of the Castro Castro case. The compensation will be paid to victims of the 1992 massacre at the maximum-security Miguel Castro Castro prison.
“It’s true there is a budget problem” said Salgado. “But we have to look for a way to fulfill our commitment or continue fulfilling it without being declared a State that challenges or questions our international commitments.”
