[R-G] PERU: Leftist Leaders Targeted by Anti-Terror Police

[Anthony Fenton]

RIGHTS-PERU:  Leftist Leaders Targeted by Anti-Terror Police
By Ángel Páez
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44899

LIMA, Nov 28 (IPS) - Based on information from a laptop computer  
belonging to Colombian guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes, Peru’s anti- 
terrorism police have requested arrest warrants for 14 leftist  
politicians and trade unionists from Peru for supposed ties to  
Colombia’s FARC guerrillas.

Sources with the DIRCOTE anti-terrorism police force told IPS that the  
content of emails found on the laptop of Reyes -- who was killed in a  
Colombian bombing raid of a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of  
Colombia) camp just inside the Ecuadorean border in March --  
"completed" an ongoing investigation into ties between Peruvian  
citizens and the FARC.

According to DIRCOTE, the information provided by authorities in  
Colombia proves that the 14 people in question committed the crime of  
"collaborating with terrorists," punishable by 30 years in prison.

But two of the people targeted by DIRCOTE -- the secretary general of  
the Communist Party of Peru-Red Fatherland (PCP-PR), Alberto Moreno,  
and the leader of the Peruvian Communist Party-Unity (PCP-U), Renán  
Raffo -- say the request for arrest warrants is part of a government  
plan to jail opponents.

The PCP-PR and PCP-U are legal political parties that have even held  
seats in both houses of Congress at one time or another, and which are  
registered with the national election authorities.

Olmedo Auris, former secretary general of the teachers’ union (SUTEP)  
and vice president of the CGTP labour confederation, is another of the  
14 whose arrest is being sought by DIRCOTE’s investigation of  
international terrorism division (DIVITI).

"The investigation into the FARC’s ties with radical groups in Peru  
did not emerge as a result of the emails and documents found on Raúl  
Reyes’ computer," one of the sources with the anti-terrorism police  
told IPS.

"What we received from the Colombian authorities completed our work,  
allowing us to confirm the identity of those who have been cooperating  
with the FARC terrorist organisation. The investigation has been going  
on for several months," the source added.

The police also want the justice system to summon former presidential  
candidate Ollanta Humala of the Nationalist Party, to provide  
explanations to the authorities on his meetings with a Venezuelan  
member of the Latin American Parliament (PARLATINO), Amílcar Figueroa,  
a supporter of left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez who is  
accused of having contact with the FARC.

Humala responded that the investigation by the anti-terrorism police  
is "political persecution" of opponents.

The La Primera newspaper, which has ties to Humala’s Nationalist  
Party, published a copy of the report sent by DIRCOTE to prosecutor  
Fanny Escajadillo to ask her to secure arrest warrants for the 14  
people in question.

But Interior Minister Remigio Hernán, a retired police general, denied  
that his ministry had processed the request.

The Attorney General’s Office, however, confirmed the request received  
for the arrests issued by DIVITI, the same police team that arrested  
on the Ecuadorean border nine leftist Peruvian activists on their way  
home from participating in the Second Congress of the Continental  
Bolivarian Committee (CCB) last February.

According to the anti-terrorism police, Rául Reyes’ laptop contained a  
number of emails from Nubia Calderón, a member of the FARC known as  
"Esperanza," that provided detailed descriptions of meetings she held  
with leftist activists and leaders from Peru.

Calderón is a survivor of the March bombing, in which Reyes and nearly  
two dozen other rebels were killed. The laptop was seized by the  
Colombian security forces after the attack.

DIRCOTE said there are videotapes of Esperanza’s meetings with  
Peruvian leftists, apparently held to organise a FARC support network.

Only Alberto Moreno of the PCP-PR admits to meeting with Esperanza.

"In January 2001, we met in Lima with Nubia Calderón, who was involved  
in the process of peace talks between the Colombian government and the  
FARC," Moreno told IPS.

"Calderón came to seek support for the peace process, and we met with  
her for that purpose. Also involved in the process were the United  
Nations and the European Union. The meetings had nothing to do with  
collusion to carry out terrorist acts," he said.

But Raffo, of the PCP-U, denied meeting with representatives of the  
FARC and called on the authorities to investigate him, to prove that  
he has had no ties with the rebel group.

"The members of the Communist Party (Unity) have not met with anyone  
with links to the FARC," Raffo told IPS.

"We have met with Venezuelan legislators who came for a series of  
conferences on the life of José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of our  
party, but none of them has anything to do with the activities of  
terrorist organisations," he added.

"It is irresponsible of the government to cite Colombian police  
sources as the only evidence," he said. "We have asked to be given  
access to the documents on which the accusation is based, and the  
authorities have refused. They won’t even allow us to defend ourselves."

Trade unionist Auris also said there were no ties between CGTP leaders  
and FARC representatives or envoys.

"To state that we had or have links with the FARC is implausible," he  
said in a conversation with IPS. "I ask the authorities to prove that  
we have ties to terrorism.

"What was found on Raúl Reyes’ laptop is not evidence linking us to  
the FARC, because no one can guarantee that something incriminating  
hasn’t been ‘planted’ against us," he said.

Prime Minister Yehude Simon, who spent eight and a half years in jail  
on charges of "apology for terrorism" during Peru’s 1980-2000  
counterinsurgency war against leftist insurgents, said the government  
was not persecuting opposition or labour leaders.

"The executive branch is not carrying out any kind of persecution  
against Ollanta Humala, Olmedo Auris or anyone else," said Simon, who  
was the leader of a left-wing political party in the 1980s and 1990s.

But Moreno, Raffo, Auris and the other 11 suspects -- who are also  
involved in leftist, nationalist or other opposition groups -- see the  
accusation as a sign of an aim by the government to silence dissent.

"What the government is trying to do is discredit us, to keep us out  
of the next elections," to be held in 2011, said Moreno.

"Of course this is political persecution, aimed at repressing social  
and political protest in the country, with the objective of  
suffocating the popular nationalist, leftist, socialist alternative  
that is growing in the country and is preparing to win the elections,"  
said Auris.

"We are facing arrest warrants, and are under continuous surveillance.  
That isn’t persecution? Our constitutional rights are being violated,  
because it isn’t a crime to be a leftist, or to oppose the government,  
let alone to meet with politicians in legal activities," said Raffo.

The public announcement of the request for arrest warrants for the 14  
left-wing politicians and labour leaders, and for Humala to be  
summoned to testify, seems to have been blocked by the judicial  
authorities, who have taken no action. (END/2008)