Amnesty International Assails Peru
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LONDON — Government forces in Peru are using “terror to fight terror” and have killed 3,000 people in the last seven years using the same brutal tactics as their opponents, the human rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday.
“Torture, mutilation, ‘disappearance,’ murder and rape have become a hallmark of the armed forces’ ‘campaign against terrorism,’ ” the organization said in a report on Peru.
Peruvian troops are fighting against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebel group.
More than 3,000 detainees have disappeared in the past seven years, and at least 3,000 more are estimated to have been killed by security forces, individually or in mass executions, the report said.
Amnesty International called on the government of Peru to investigate and prosecute all cases of disappearances, extrajudicial executions, torture and rape by its forces.
It also stressed the extensive and continuing massacres and torture by opposition forces such as Shining Path.
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