UNICEF Says Shining Path Remnants Violating Convention On Child Rights

Recent reports and photographs of Shining Path rebels in Peru’s southeast jungle have shown that the rebel group holds dozens of young children, kidnapped or born to kidnapped women, to train them as rebel soldiers.

UNICEF’s office in Peru said Tuesday that the use of children by remnant groups of the Shining Path rebels is a violation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

UNICEF said it “rejects the direct and indirect participation, forced or voluntary of boys, girls and adolescents in any situation of armed violence.”

“The utilization of children and adolescents on the part of the Shining Path Read more…

Peru Captures Shining Path Leader Artemio

Peruvian security forces Sunday captured the leader of the Shining Path remnant group in the Upper Huallaga Valley, the last remaining member of the rebel group’s central committee to be captured.

The government said that Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, known as “Comrade Artemio,” was injured in a conflict with Peruvian police and the military. Rebels managed to get Artemio to a village medical post in Santa Rosa de Mishollo, where he was treated for gunshot wounds before going into hiding. Read more…

Movadef Ends Attempt To Register As Political Party

The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights, known as Movadef, has given up on its attempts to register as a political party in Peru, local media reported.

Movadef is known to be the political arm of the Shining Path, an insurgency that terrorized Peru in the 1980s and 1990s as it sought to overthrow the state and implement its Maoist ideology. Some 70,000 people were killed in the conflict, with the Shining Path responsible for some 54%, a truth commission found.

The group’s effort to register as a political party has been widely rejected by Peru’s Read more…

Movadef Appeals Election Board Resolution

The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights, known as Movadef, has appealed a resolution that prevents the group from registering as a political party and participating in elections, daily El Comercio reported.

The appeal was presented on Friday to the National Election Board, or JNE. “With the appeal presented, the JNE will program a public audience in the next few days to receive the arguments from the claimants,” said Virgilio Hurtado, the director of the JNE’s electoral school. The time frame for the decision is 30 days.

The JNE rejected Movadef’s request last week. In its resolution, the JNE said that Read more…

Ex-President Garcia Rejects Movadef As Party

Alan Garcia, Peru’s two-time president, came out hard Tuesday against allowing the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights, known as Movadef, from registering as a political party.

Movadef has close links with the Shining Path, the Maoist-inspired insurgency that launched a bloody battle against the state during the 1980s and 1990s. The conflict led to some 70,000 deaths, with about 54 percent caused by the Shining Path, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Today, the Shining Path is a shadow of its former self, with little of its ideology and none of its original cadres intact. It reached its peak during the late 1980s, when Read more…

Legislators To Back Bill To Block Movadef Registration

Peruvian lawmakers from across the political spectrum said they will approve a bill that would prevent political movements with links to insurgents and other violent groups from becoming registered political parties and participating in local and national elections.

Congressman Yehude Simon of the center-right Alianza por el Gran Cambio alliance said that he will ask the president of parliament to include the bill in the next session.

“If there is a law it has to be approved immediately,” state news agency Andina reported Simon as saying.

Legislator Yohny Lescano of the center Alianza Parlamentaria group said he expects the bill would be approved unanimously, while Alejandro Aguinaga, of Fujimori’s Fuerza 2011 Read more…

Peru Appoints Garcia-Sayan to Lead Memory Museum Commission

Peru’s government has appointed the current president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to lead the commission in charge of developing the Memory Museum, state news agency Andina reported.

Diego Garcia-Sayan, who is also a former Peruvian Justice Minister and for many years a key figure in the Andean Commission of Jurists, has been appointed to lead the High Level Commission for organizing and developing the musuem, which has been renamed the  Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion Museum, Andina said.

The commission will also include Monsignor Luis Bambaren, bishop emeritus of Chimbote, as well as architects Leopoldo Schelje and Javier Sota, exhibition Read more…

Keiko Fujimori May Seek Pardon for Father After Christmas – Report

Ex-Presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori said that her family will seek a humanitarian pardon for her father, former president Alberto Fujimori, after Christmas, daily El Comercio reported.

Keiko Fujimori, who was a member of Congress until July 2011, said that the family and its lawyers are currently gathering the necessary documentation to make the request to President Ollanta Humala.

“I imagine that it will be made during the coming weeks, but I don’t think it will be before Christmas,” Keiko Fujimori was reported saying.

Alberto Fujimori, 73, is serving a 25-year-sentence for human rights abuses in Read more…

Ipsos Apoyo Poll: 66 Percent Support Pardon for Ex-President Fujimori

Public support for President Ollanta Humala to grant a humanitarian pardon for ex-President Alberto Fujimori for health reasons is at 66 percent, according to a new national poll published by Ipsos Apoyo on Sunday.

The poll, published in daily El Comercio, found that 30 percent of respondents would not support the pardon.

Although the Justice minister Juan Jimenez has said the issue is not on the President’s agenda, and premier Oscar Valdes this past weekend denied rumours Read more…

Fujimori Lawyer: Family Not Behind Recent Pardon Request

The family of imprisoned ex-President Alberto Fujimori was not involved in a recent request to grant Fujimori a humanitarian pardon, according to Cesar Nakazaki, the president’s lawyer.

Newspaper El Comercio reported this week that Cesareo Vargas, a questionable former advisor to election authority ONPE during Fujimori’s corruption-riddled run for office in 2000, made the citizen request.

Fujimori is serving a 25-year-sentence for human rights and corruption charges dating back to his 1990 to 2000 term.

Nakazaki said the pardon request from Vargas was the third “unauthorized” citizen Read more…

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