HUMAN RIGHTS COURT DECISION CAUSES GARCIA TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 000165

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/19/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PTER PE
SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS COURT DECISION CAUSES GARCIA TO
STUMBLE


Classified By: Political Counselor Alexis Ludwig for reason 1.4(d).


1. (C) Summary: An Inter-American Court of Human Rights
(IACHR) decision requiring the Peruvian government to pay
reparations and to apologize for the May 1992 killing of 41
prison inmates (associated with the Shining Path terrorist
group) has caused the Garcia administration political
problems. Government and APRA representatives have blasted
the decision, threatened to pull Peru out of the IACHR, and
blamed former President Toledo for failing to represent the
interests of the state. Meanwhile, the government is seeking
to shape a response that is both politically viable and
legally valid -- a difficult balancing act. Most analysts
believe President Garcia has uncharacteristically stumbled in
his public handing of the case, including when he renewed his
support for the death penalty, perhaps out of a concern to
shield himself from a future court decision. End Summary.

Controversial Court Ruling
--------------


2. (SBU) In late December the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights issued a series of Peru-related rulings. The most
controversial of these was one that held the Government of
Peru liable for the May 1992 killing of 41 inmates in Lima's
Castro Castro prison. Most observers acknowledge the
evidence shows many of the prisoners were executed after
surrendering. At the same time, Peruvians maintain vivid
memories of the violent and nihilistic Shining Path
insurgency that in 1992 controlled vast swaths of the
country, including state prisons like Castro Castro. Further
muddying the waters, the incident occurred one month after
President Alberto Fujimori -- who many Peruvians credit with
breaking the back of terrorism -- shut down Congress in the
infamous "self-coup" inaugurating a near decade of autocratic
and corrupt rule. Wherever one stands on the ambivalent
figure of Fujimori, the ruling has generated a thorny
political challenge for the Garcia administration.


3. (SBU) The key elements of the court's decision have been
like salt in a still open wound. The court decreed that the
state owed the "victims" a formal apology; that the families
of the dead deserved financial compensation; and that the
names of the victims should be inscribed in an artistic work
-- a large Lima-based stone sculpture called "The Eye That
Cries." The idea that the state would reward the principal
perpetrators of the era's violence -- the 41 dead prisoners
were members of the Shining Path terrorist group -- with an
apology, cash and a privileged place in a supposedly
apolitical artistic work seems to many Peruvians the height
of folly. That none of the 30,000 plus innocent victims of
the terrorists themselves, whether poor farmer or humble
police officer, has received indemnification of any sort only
compounds the political impracticability of the decision.
Many observers believe that submitting to the ruling as is
would be political suicide for the government.

GOP Criticizes Court Excess
--------------


4. (C) Government officials and representatives of the
ruling APRA party, including President Garcia, have publicly
blasted the court's decision as outrageous and characterized
the victims of the Castro Castro killings as terrorists.
APRA Secretary General Mauricio Mulder stated that Peru
should consider pulling out of the IACHR in protest.
Government officials have also blamed the government of
Alejandro Toledo -- President of Peru during the time the
IACHR case ran its course -- for failing to represent the
interests of the state, and have threatened to issue a
Constitutional motion holding Toledo responsible for this
alleged lapse. (Comment: Sources in the Ad-Hoc Prosecutor's
office told us that lawyers representing the state in the
case were not given sufficient funding to do their jobs and
even, in some cases, to pay for the plane ride to San Jose
when relevant hearings were being held. Some analysts have
suggested that the Toledo administration may have blundered
in conceiving the case as directed against the government of
Fujimori -- for whom there was no love lost or responsibility
felt -- rather than against the Peruvian state. End
Comment.)


5. (C) Meantime, since the court's decision is not subject

to appeal, the government is seeking to shape a response that
is both politically viable and legally valid. Its first
tactic has been to prepare a formal request for
"clarification," to buy time while considering its options.
But government officials and legal analysts acknowledge that
the administration cannot thumb its nose indefinitely at the
court's decision, given the terms of IAHCR membership.
According to one foreign ministry official, a range of
politico-legal strategies are being contemplated to manage
this difficult balancing act. One of these is for the
government to set aside in a special escrow-type account the
cash to indemnify the "victims," but to condition its
dispersal on a similar or proportional amount of money being
provided by the terrorist perpetrators to their own multiple
victims.

Garcia Stumbles
--------------


6. (C) Many analysts believe Garcia has uncharacteristically
stumbled in response to the IAHCR ruling. In publicly
accusing the court of undermining Peru's democracy, he
indiscriminately characterized as a terrorist an individual
who has proven to be an authentic victim, and he claimed that
hundreds of similar cases faced the Peruvian state in the
IAHCR (when in fact there is only one.) Raising the bar,
Garcia publicly reiterated a constitutionally questionable
proposal to apply the death penalty to terrorists as well as
to child rapists. When a series of high-profile political
figures publicly challenged this proposal, Garcia dug deeper,
calling for a popular referendum on the death penalty. In
the end, even Garcia appeared to realize he had gone too far,
telling reporters mid January that he would say no more on
the subject. Some observers have invoked familiar rumors of
Garcia's psychological instability, supposedly aggravated
when the political temperature rises, in explaining his
apparent political missteps.


7. (SBU) Others suspect more cynical motives in Garcia's
public suppor for the death penalty. Notwithstanding its
dubious constitutionality and the consequences to Peru's
membership in the IAHCR, the death penalty is supported by a
clear maority of Peruvians. Pointing to this fact, Garcia's
detractors believe he secretly seeks to have Peru withdraw
from the IAHCR in order to shield himself from a future court
decision concerning his role in a 1986 prison massacre at El
Fronton, which occurred when he was President. Other critics
have suggested Garcia is blowing smoke to conceal his
administration's lack of concrete progress on other fronts.
One congressman told us that, by publicly pursuing the death
penalty, Garcia may inadvertently have created the structure
of a genuine opposition in congress, which was forced to vote
the measure down in a preemptive special session.
POWERS