Aliados

10th Annual Cesar Chávez Walk & Festival

When: Saturday, March 29 10:00 am.

Where: Historic Olvera Street, 125 Paseo de la Plaza (Main Street between Arcadia and Cesar Chávez Avenue), Los Angeles, CA 90012

Join Aliados con Amnesty for the 10th Annual Cesar Chávez Walk & Festival!

This will be the second time Aliados con Amnesty participates in this important event which celebrates the California State holiday and the anniversaries of Cesar's nonviolent movement for the rights of farmworkers and immigrant workers. Aliados con Amnesty will have a booth and various actions.

Walk alongside Chávez family members, students, elected officials, celebrities, and community members to celebrate Cesar Chávez Day 2008. Presenting walk sponsors include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and Councilmember Jose Huizar, 14th District.

For more information or to sign up to join the Aliados con Amnesty team please email: voluntarios@aiusa.org or call Liliana at (415) 252-1750 x210. Team spots are limited so please make sure to RSVP!

After a long period of impunity for the human rights violations committed by the Colina death squad under the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori, the case of La Cantuta is crucial to the prosecution in the Fujimori trial. The case addresses the kidnapping, disappearance and death of nine students and a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, also known as La Cantuta. This event, which has caused so much sadness for our family, occurred on July 18, 1992 and, unfortunately, was not the only case committed by this criminal group made up of agents from the Army's Intelligence Service and carried out with total impunity.

After more than 15 years of  persistent struggle by the families of the victims, we succeeded in cornering the murders and bringing them to justice. The majority of the Colina members were subjected to judicial processes and, the person most responsible for these crimes, Alberto Fujimori, was extradited by the Chilean judiciary to face charges for his responsibility in these human rights violations. 

Even with this opportunity, we--as family members, as citizens, as people--cannot lose ground. We have to demonstrate to the world that murderers and violators of human rights have fewer places to hide. We have to show, in spite of the time that has elapsed, that justice has to be a right for the victims and a process for healing the open wounds and the sorrow of their families. We will not be able to succeed without your solidarity. We continue to be grateful for your support that will put an end to impunity, so that these stories of grief are never repeated--EVER.

--Gisela Ortiz Perea is the spokesperson for the families of the victims in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta Massacres for which Fujimori currently stands trial. Her brother, Enrique, was one of the 9 university students disappeared from La Cantuta University on July 18, 1992. To see more on Gisela's struggle for justice on behalf of her brother, please watch 'Story 1' of Amnesty International's documentary, 'Justice Without Borders'.  (The Fujimori Facing Justice blog would like to thank Harriet Mullaney and the Denver Justice & Peace Committee for passing along this message of solidarity from Gisela. Harriet Mullaney is responsible for the excellent translation.)

CASO LA CANTUTA: AVANZANDO HACIA LA JUSTICIA

 Después de un largo periodo de impunidad instaurado por la dictadura de Alberto Fujimori, en Perú, uno de los casos relevantes en violaciones a los derechos humanos que se cometieron  por un escuadrón de la muerte, es el caso La cantuta; conocido así al secuestro, desaparición y muerte de 9 estudiantes y un maestro de la Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, más conocida como la Universidad de La Cantuta. Este hecho que sembró tristeza en nuestras familias ocurrió el 18 de julio de 1992 y, lamentablemente, no es el único caso cometido por este grupo criminal integrado por agentes del Servicio de Inteligencia del Ejército y que actuó con total impunidad.

Cerca de 16 años después y tras una persistente lucha de los familiares, hemos logrado arrinconar a los asesinos y llevarlos a la justicia. La gran mayoría de los integrantes de este grupo están sometidos a procesos judiailes y, el pricipal responsable de estos crímenes, Alberto Fujimori, fue extraditado por la justicia chilena y está respondiendo por la responsabilidad que tiene en las violaciones a los derechos humanos.

Esta oportunidad que tenemos como familiares, como ciudadanos, como personas; no la podemos desaprovechar. Tenemos que demostrarle al mundo que los asesinos y violadores a los derechos humanos, cada vez tienen menos lugares donde esconderse y que, pese al tiempo transcurrido, la justicia tienen que llegar como derecho para las víctimas y como un proceso de sanación para las heridas abiertas aún por el dolor. No podremos lograrlo sino contamos con la solidaridad de todos. Seguimos necesitando de ustedes hasta acabar con la impunidad para que estas historias de dolor no se vuelvan a repetir JAMÁS.

--Gisela Ortiz Perea es vocera para los familiares de las victimas en las masacres de Barrios Altos y La Cantuta. Su hermano, Enrique, fue uno de los 9 estudiantes desaparecidos de la Universidad de La Cantuta aquel 18 de julio de 1992. Para saber más de la incansable lucha de Gisela por conseguir justicia en el caso de su hermano, visita el sitio web del nuevo documental de Amnestía Internacional, 'Justice Without Borders'. (Fujimori Facing Justice agradece a Harriet Mullaney y el Cómite para Justicia y Paz de Denver por haberme compartido este mensaje solidario de Gisela.)

Yesterday was a scintillating yet brief day of testimony at the Fujimori trial, as two out of the three witnesses who were scheduled to testify failed to appear due to illness. However, the third, journalist Gilberto Hume, left the gallery murmurring over revelations he made about a May 19, 2001 meeting with Major Santiago Martin Rivas, the pugnacious leader of the Colina detachment who fled into hiding subsequent to the collapse of the Fujimori regime in 2000.

According to Hume, Martin Rivas explicitly told him that the Colina detachment operated with the full awareness and support of the Peruvian military. "In every moment, he emphasized to me that [Colina] was not part of a clandestine or secret group. Rather, it was a regular army detachment within the military structure." He went on to emphasize that "his actions were a part of a low-intensity war and, as a soldier, he was only following orders."

Additionally, Hume reported that Martin Rivas received a personal visit from then-President Fujimori and the head of the army's General Command, General Hermoza Ríos. The two purportedly encouraged him to accept a military trial for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta Massacres under the gaurantee that a forthcoming Amnesty Law would set him free. "Martin Rivas told me that he met with General Hermoza Ríos and with President Fujimori, who told him he should accept a military trial as the only way to save the situation of the army and that later they would offer him amnesty."

Indeed, on June 13, 1995, the Fujimori-dominated Congress presented a Law of General Amnesty without previous warning and then approved it for the President's signature in the early hours of the very next day. The Amnesty Law absolved from guilt all military personnel sentenced for human rights violations during the internal armed conflict. The law itself is one of the more damning pieces of evidence suggesting that Fujimori not only knew of Colina's existence but took an active role in the effort to gaurantee impunity for its crimes.

In response to Hume's testimony, Fujimori erupted at the end of the day's session, emphatically denying that he every offered amnesty to anyone in the "Colina Group" and refuted the claim that he ever knew Martin Rivas or met with anyone involved with Colina. Furthermore, he dismissed the suggestion that the Amnesty Law was meant to absolve the Colina members of their crimes and, rather, justified it as a part of a "political solution to the internal conflict."

Reminiscent of the first day of the trial when Fujimori lashed out at the court and yelled to proclaim his innocence, the President of the Tribunal, Dr. César San Martín, interrupted his declaration to tell him to calm down and lower his voice in the courtroom. Sufficed to say, the once boisterous dictator now finds himself in quite different circumstances than those heady days in the 1990s when he possessed exclusive control of the government, Colina was in its murderous heyday, and no one dared to tell him to calm down.

--Hayden Gore

This is a story that ran in the local NBC affiliate by KTSM anchor Nick Miller.  You can also view the video at http://www.ktsm.com/news/local/15096631.html.

Pink crosses rise from an abandoned cotton field in east Juarez. It was here in 2001, police found the bodies of eight young women. Those eight and the hundreds of other murdered women are the reason Marisela Ortiz is pressing ahead with a frustrating mission. She is the director of a group called "Our Daughters Coming Home." Formed in 2001, the group is made up of people like Marilu Garcia Andrade. Her sister Lilia Alejandra was was found murdered in a field a few miles from the cotton field. Lilia was seventeen and worked in a maquila. Marilu says police simply dismiss the cases because they don't know what do about them.

Another member of the group is Ruby Hernandez Pando. Her seven year old daughter Airis Estrella was kidnapped in 2005, while she was walking home from the store. Police found the body of Airis 12 days later, stuffed in a barrel and covered with cement. The women of "Our Daughters Coming Home," say they've received no help from the police so they've taken to the streets to protest. They hope for justice but they're at the mercy of a system that is widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. El Paso Times reporter Diana Washington Valdez wrote the book, "The Killing Fields," on the Juarez murders. She says corruption infiltrates every level of law enforcement and the drug cartels protect the killers. She says there are five groups responsible for the murders.

(1) 2 gangs that kill woman as an initiation test

(2) drug dealers

(3) a group of powerful men who simply know they'll get away with it

(4) 2 or more serial killers

(5) and copycats

"Our Daughters Coming Home ," has received help from international organizations and from lawyers and investigators in Juarez. The women have brought more attention to the crimes and they've made enemies. Marisela Ortiz says some people accuse them of working with the group for money and she says police have threatened her with guns. The group is upsetting some people but Marisela says that simply means she's on the right track.

Flor Mungia is the special prosecutor who is supposed to coordinate the murder investigations. She says there have been no complaints of police threats. She also claims that under a system in place since 1998, the police and investigators are more professional and she says there is no widespread corruption.

Diana Washington Valdez doubts that. She's says there are some good investigators who find it difficult to operate in such a corrupt system. Some of those investigators turned over their findings to their superiors and nothing happened.

Marisela Ortiz pins her hopes on independent groups to keep pushing the authorities. She says, "Mexico is now known as a place where human rights are not important. The government is trying more to create an image of doing something and not really working to solve the cases."

For more on the Juarez murders and information about the book "The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women," go to:

http://www.dianawashingtonvaldez.blogspot.com/