PERU: Free Trade Opens Environmental Window

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Saturday, November 01, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Milagros Salazar* – Tierramérica

LIMA, Nov 1 (IPS) – Legislative decree 1090, which modifies Peru’s forest policy, is worrying U.S. trade authorities because it contravenes environmental clauses of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that is to enter force between the two countries in January 2009.

The decree, which in June amended the Forestry and Wildlife Act, leaves 45 million hectares — or 60 percent of Peru’s jungles — out of the Forestry Heritage protection system — a step that runs counter to the FTA forestry annex.

That was one of the 10 observations made by the Office of the U.S Trade Representative, Susan Schwab, in a meeting with delegates of the Peruvian government earlier this month in Washington, according to Sandro Chávez, president of the non-governmental Ecological Forum (Foro Ecológico).
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CORRUPTION-PERU: Officials Charged in Oil Contract Scandal

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Thursday, October 23, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Oct 22 (IPS) – An anti-corruption Peruvian prosecutor brought charges against one current and three former high-level officials and 10 other people in a scandal over alleged bribes in lucrative oil contracts awarded to Norway’s Discover Petroleum company.

The charges filed by prosecutor Óscar Zevallos include corruption of public officials, criminal conspiracy and trafficking of influences. Judge Jorge Barreto immediately accepted the case.

The most prominent of the 14 defendants — Petroperu’s former president César Gutiérrez and former general manager Miguel Celi, and Perupetro’s current president Daniel Saba and former director Alberto Químper — were named to their posts by the administration of Alan García, who took office in July 2006.

(Petroperu is the state-run oil company involved in the transportation, refinery and commercialisation of fuel and other oil derivatives, while Perupetro is the government licensing body in charge of promoting investment in the oil industry and granting contracts to oil companies doing business in Peru).

The government has been severely shaken by the scandal, which led the entire cabinet to step down on Oct. 10. Although 10 of the 17 ministers were reinstated, the prime minister was among those who were replaced.

Among the evidence presented by the prosecution are recordings of telephone conversations between Químper and Rómulo León, a former lawmaker of the governing APRA party and former minister during García’s first term as president (1985-1990) who is now a representative of Discover Petroleum.

The defendants also include five other Petroperu officials, who carried out a ”technical assessment” that led to the September decision to grant five oil contracts to Discover Petroleum.

The recorded conversations indicate that Químper and León conspired so that Discover Petroleum would win the contracts and enter into a partnership with Petroperu.

Químper, the former director of Perupetro, who has strong ties to the governing party, was given that position when he failed to be elected to Congress.

Former Petroperu president Gutiérrez and Perupetro president Saba insist that the decision to award the contracts was transparent, and that there were no meddling or kickbacks of any kind.

But in the taped phone conversations, Químper and León can be heard discussing alleged payments that they were to receive from Discover Petroleum once the contracts were signed with the Peruvian state.

The deal was never actually finalised, however, because the tapes, dubbed ”petroaudios” by the local press, were leaked to the media.

The suspicion that the recordings were illegally taped in a corporate spying operation by one of Discover Petroleum’s competitors has prompted another prosecutor to launch an investigation into who tapped the phones of the state oil officials and others during the eight month span from February to September.

Also facing charges filed by Zevallos are businessman Fortunato Canaán from the Dominican Republic and his Mexican associate Mario Díaz Lugo, who lobbied on behalf of Discover Petroleum in Peru.

Canaán hired León on the recommendation of members of the government.

In taped conversations between Canaán and León, the latter promised that the contracts would go to Discover Petroleum one way or another.

Executives from the Norwegian company, accompanied by Canaán, met twice with President García.

The ”petroaudios” also indicate that León later had a falling-out with Canaán and became Discover Petroleum’s local lobbyist. In a letter published in the local press, Canaán complained that his former partner had betrayed his trust.

The prosecutors brought charges against Discover Petroleum employee Jostein Kjaerstad as well.

León, in hiding, sent a video to several local TV stations just before the charges filed by the prosecutor were announced. In the video, he says the ”petroaudios” are not evidence of corruption and criticises García for publicly calling for his arrest before the courts issued an actual warrant and without giving him a chance to explain himself.

”The highest-level representatives of the government have jumped on the bandwagon, and the president himself has stigmatised me, which is deeply painful because it is unjust,” said the former minister.

León also said he would turn himself in if the warrant for his arrest was revoked. Químper’s arrest has also been ordered.

In the ”petroaudios”, the defendants can be heard mentioning meetings and conversations with former prime minister Jorge Del Castillo and former energy minister Juan Valdivia, both of whom resigned on Oct. 10.

However, neither is facing charges, although they will be summoned to testify as witnesses.

Discover Petroleum said in public statements that the contracts were obtained in strict compliance with Perupetro’s technical requirements.

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PERU: Small Towns Face Challenge of Using Windfall Mining Revenues

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Friday, September 05, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Sep 5 (IPS) – Peru is enjoying a mining boom. But while some areas lacking in minerals and oil have seen very little of the windfall profits, other districts have taken in so much money that they have only been able to actually use a tiny portion of it.

Take San Marcos, a highlands municipality of 12,000 people in one of the country’s poorest provinces, which has received the largest proportional amount of revenue from the ”canon minero” mining industry tax, but only managed to spend four percent of the funds last year, and six percent so far this year.

As a result of the soaring international minerals prices, San Marcos’ share of the canon minero taxes skyrocketed from 200,000 dollars in 2005 to 73.5 million dollars in 2007.

The canon minero is the direct economic compensation received by the provinces where non-renewable resources like minerals, natural gas and oil are extracted. Under Peru’s current legislation, 50 percent of the taxes and royalties taken in by the Peruvian state from the extractive industry must be transferred to the regions.

In San Marcos, in the northeastern coastal province of Ancash, more than 90 percent of the canon minero taxes come from Antamina, a mine operated by Canadian, British, Australian and Japanese corporations.

According to the governmental National Fund for Social Development (FONCODES), 42.5 percent of the population of Ancash lives in poverty, while 51 percent of the people of San Marcos are malnourished. In the past two years, the poor have been hit hard by the rise in food prices and cost of living.

Local residents point out that a meal that used to cost three soles now costs double that, close to prices in the capital, Lima.

Today, the town of San Marcos looks like a big wholesale market for products ranging from food and clothing to cell-phones and electronic appliances, although power outages are frequent because the local hydroelectric company is in a state of collapse.

Meanwhile, in the surrounding rural areas, the roads are not paved, water is only available on some days, and sanitation coverage is spotty.

”We want them to build roads and improve our basic services. What good is the money to us if it’s in the bank?” Gaspar Guerra, one of the local residents of San Marcos who are hoping to see some of the benefits of the windfall mining revenues, commented to IPS.

Local residents are so enthusiastic that in August 2007, the district’s four towns and villages approved, in participatory budget meetings, 400 different infrastructure and other projects — amounting to more than one a day over the course of a year.

”That’s impossible. We’re going to help the people understand that the largest number of projects we can carry out in a year is 100. The idea is to come up with a smaller number of big projects,” said the San Marcos municipal manager of budgets and planning, Damián Bernal.

The official reported that last year, only four percent of the budget was actually invested, mainly in projects to upgrade schools and expand sanitation, while so far this year, only six percent has been used.

The municipal Investment Planning Office (OPI) has declared viable 150 of the 220 projects presented from 2006 to 2008. But in 2007, only 37 public works actually got underway, and this year another 56 were put out to tender.

”There has been a lack of determination to move ahead with the public works projects, as well as a lack of sound criteria for avoiding the mushrooming of small projects, that end up splintering the funds,” said OPI head Eugenio Lugo.

To illustrate, he pointed out that local residents asked for improvements to 70 dirt roads, but instead of designing just six big projects to reduce the number put out to tender, and to cut the time needed to carry them out, each road was tackled as a separate project.

”The question here is how should we manage so much money? What is happening in this district serves as a test for the public administration at all levels of government,” said Lugo.

”If this municipality is only able to use a small part of the funds, that is also the responsibility of the national government, which should strengthen the local government’s capacity while setting limits on the budget based on what it can responsibly invest,” said Epifanio Baca, head of the Vigila Peru (Citizen Watch) section of the Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana, an umbrella group of non-governmental organisations.

He told IPS that a fund should be created which would allow tax revenues to be saved up for the years when the funds transferred to the regions and municipalities through the canon minero shrink.

The local authorities of San Marcos say the bottleneck is partly due to the technical guidelines set by the Economy Ministry’s National Investment System (SNIP), as well as the requisites put in place by the Superior Council for State Procurement and Contracting (CONSUCODE), which mean the public tender processes can stretch out to a year or longer.

Another factor is the shortage of skilled and trained personnel for designing and implementing the projects, despite the fact that more professionals were hired by the municipality this year.

Each area of the local government in charge of designing the projects and the public tender processes has on average just three specialists and technical experts. As a result, 90 percent of the proposed investment projects are in the hands of outside consultants.

With the influx of the enormous windfall profits in San Marcos, the effectiveness of local authorities has come under increased scrutiny. In March, some local residents began to make an effort to remove Mayor Félix Solórzano.

The mayor has hired more staff to move ahead with the public works, while creating a temporary employment programme: the Public Infrastructure Maintenance Project (PMIP), which has hired some 4,000 local residents, and is funded with 20 percent of the municipality’s canon minero revenues.

The full-time PMIP workers earn the equivalent of 300 dollars a month for tasks like sweeping the streets, removing stones from dirt roads, and cleaning cemeteries.

”But the solution is not to generate welfare-style solutions by giving temporary jobs to people, because that runs counter to development. The comptroller’s office should be overseeing this,” said Baca.

In his view, the local authorities of San Marcos should forge alliances with nearby municipalities and provincial authorities to carry out projects with a greater social impact. ”They should not work in an isolated manner,” he said.

Mayor Solórzano said that not only is the local government providing jobs, but it is also moving ahead with the infrastructure works demanded by the local population. ”It’s not easy to manage so much money, which is why we have reorganised, in order to put priority on works that have a major impact on people,” he told IPS.

The projects declared viable by OPI mainly involve small investments for paving dirt roads and installing piped water, sanitation and irrigation canals, as well as less urgent projects like the construction of five small sports complexes.

At times there has been greater enthusiasm for construction projects than for income-generating initiatives. New stadiums are quickly being built in Chavín de Huántar, a municipality near San Marcos, and in Uco, another nearby district, with just 1,800 inhabitants.

The head of the National Strategic Planning Centre (CEPLAN), Agustín Haya de la Torre, said it is important to foment the emergence of a ”meritocracy” in the public administration, in order to improve the use of the canon minero funds.

To that end, he said that he would also review SNIP and CONSUCODE technical guidelines to negotiate improved application and enforcement with regional and local governments.

The Peruvian parliament is also studying ways to improve the distribution of the canon minero taxes, which is lopsided, with just five of Peru’s 25 provinces receiving 60 percent of the funds.

Huancavelica province, where more than 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, received a mere 13.4 million dollars from the canon minero fund last year, because unlike Ancash, it is not a major source of minerals like zinc, copper and molybdenum.

To reduce the inequalities inherent in the system of distribution of the funds, a multi-party parliamentary commission has proposed a series of modifications to the canon minero law, including a provision that 16.2 percent of the tax go to the provinces with the greatest unmet basic needs.

Popularity: 12% [?]

RIGHTS-PERU: Another Blow to Military Impunity

Global Geopolitics – Global Politics Online – IPS
Monday, September 01, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Sep 1 (IPS) – The reopening of the investigation into the death of Marco Barrantes, a second lieutenant in the Peruvian army accused of spying by the military, revived his family’s hopes for justice and may lead to the filing of a lawsuit against the state by the widow of the Ecuadorean soldier murdered along with him.

Chief Prosecutor Pablo Sánchez has requested a new trial in the case of the 1988 kidnapping, torture and murder of Barrantes, allegedly by agents of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE), who suspected him of selling military secrets to Ecuadorean air force Sergeant Enrique Duchicela, then a military attaché at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Lima.

At the time, while President Alan García was serving his first term of office (1985-1990), the long-running boundary dispute between Peru and Ecuador had flared up again. In 1995 the two countries briefly went to war, and the dispute was finally put to rest in 1998 with the signing of a peace agreement.

Carlos Rivera, a lawyer with the non-governmental Institute for Legal Defence (IDL) who is representing Barrantes’ family, told IPS that the Aug. 20 decision to reopen the case will enable more evidence to be gathered against the accused.

The armed forces kept silent for years about the murder committed in the army’s headquarters, known as the ”Pentagonito” (Mini-Pentagon), but the dead man’s relatives battled on until the justice system opened an investigation, nearly two years ago.

However, in spite of the evidence presented at trial, on Feb. 14, 2007 the First National Criminal Court acquitted those accused of the murder, on the grounds of lack of evidence.

Prosecutor Sánchez has now challenged last year’s verdict of acquittal because, in his view, the court did not fully take into account important evidence about the execution of Barrantes in an operation of which the army brass was presumed to have had knowledge and to have approved.

General Oswaldo Hanke, who was the head of the SIE at the time of the murder, and Colonel Harry Rivera, then the head of SIE Counterintelligence (SIE-2), had told the court that Lieutenant Barrantes was never detained, and therefore the alleged crime could not have been committed.

Following the advice of their defence lawyer César Nakazaki, who is also counsel for former President Alberto Fujimori, currently on trial for a number of crimes committed during his 1990-2000 administration, the two retired officers said they had never ordered the capture of Barrantes, and the court accepted their testimony.

But prosecutor Sánchez takes the view that the court overlooked documents and testimony that prove that SIE agents abducted Barrantes as part of an operation known as ”Plan Operativo Lucero,” which also included the capture of Sergeant Duchicela.

According to Rivera, important evidence that was disregarded by the First National Criminal Court includes a written statement and a taped confession by former SIE agent Jesús Sosa about his direct role in the kidnapping and murder of Barrantes and Duchicela.

Sosa, who was then a fugitive from justice and in hiding, handed over the document and tape to Barrantes’ family during the earlier trial because, he said, he had learned from press reports that the army high command was denying responsibility for the double murder. But the court ruled that this evidence, which could have cleared up the murders, was inadmissible.

The chief prosecutor’s decision document, seen by IPS, also indicates that the court disregarded the testimony of former agent Raúl Gamonal, who said he was held in a cell in the basement of the SIE headquarters in the Pentagonito with Barrantes, who told him there that he (Barrantes) had been accused by his SIE captors of spying.

”Now that former agent Sosa is in prison and is willing to testify about his participation in the kidnapping and murder of Barrantes, his testimony will be fundamental when the trial begins,” Rivera told IPS.

Reopening the case will also allow Duchicela’s widow, Martha Escobar, to bring a lawsuit against the Peruvian state for her husband’s murder.

”Only someone very powerful indeed could have ordered this crime — do not forget that my husband was with the Ecuadorean Embassy, and therefore had diplomatic immunity,” Escobar told the press when she learned of the new evidence that had been unearthed in the case of her husband’s disappearance.

Sosa stated in a written deposition that the person who ordered Plan Lucero to detain and execute Barrantes and Duchicela was ”the then commander-in-chief of the army, General Artemio Palomino.”

”I was obeying orders, as I always was during the 17 years I was with the SIE. At the time, I served my country committing acts that ordinary justice regards as crimes, but always following orders from the chain of command,” Sosa’s testimony says.

According to Sosa’s sworn statement, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, the army officers who organised Plan Lucero were General Hanke, Colonel Rivera and Captain Jorge Miranda.

”The capture of Barrantes and Duchicela was only known to the army high command and to those of us who took part in the operation,” his statement says.

”Our work as agents ended with the detention and interrogation of Duchicela, whom Barrantes himself had identified as the foreigner to whom he passed on (intelligence) information,” he said.

In the same document, Sosa asked for forgiveness for the murders of Barrantes and Duchicela, and said that the military commanders kept the crimes a secret so that Peruvian society would not find out that the army had been infiltrated by a spy.

”The disappearances of Duchicela and Barrantes prevented a public scandal,” he wrote.

In an appearance by Sosa at the trial of Fujimori, the former SIE agent publicly confirmed his account of his role in the operation that led to the death of Barrantes in the SIE facilities at the Pentagonito.

Sosa’s earlier confession of his leading role in the crimes was first published by journalist Ricardo Uceda in his book ”Death in the Pentagonito” in 2003, when the former SIE agent was still a fugitive from justice.

”Now that he is an accredited witness, Sosa can be called upon to declare in court what he has already stated in writing,” Carlos Rivera, the Barrantes family lawyer, told IPS.

”Sosa himself says that Barrantes and Duchicela were ‘disappeared,’ not just as suspected spies but because if the facts became publicly known, there would be a scandal, and the military chiefs would face courts-martial for the breach of national security. Now, however, it is time for justice to be done,” said Rivera.

Sosa knows that he will be sentenced for the crimes to which he has confessed, but he will not be the only one to be punished. His superiors, who rather than handing the suspected spies over to the ordinary justice system, chose to kidnap and murder them and incinerate their bodies, simply to save their careers and the army’s reputation, will also be held accountable.

Popularity: 7% [?]

PERU: Courts Move Closer to Clarifying Accomarca Massacre

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – IPS
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Aug 27   (IPS)  – ”They entered the village and called all the peasants together, tortured them to make them say who were terrorists, and killed them because they didn’t talk,” testified former soldier José Contreras, one of those involved in the 1985 killing of 69 people in the southern Peruvian village of Accomarca.

More than two decades after the massacre, Contreras and other soldiers have begun to be arrested and tried for killing 30 women, 23 children and 16 men in the highlands village of Accomarca, under the command of then lieutenant Telmo Hurtado.

Another former soldier, Francisco Marcañaupa, said in his testimony that the villagers were all rounded up in one small house, some of them after being ”pulled out of the bushes, while other escaped.”

”They didn’t shoot or do anything to us, and all of a sudden I saw Lieutenant Telmo Hurtado opening fire on them, then he threw in a grenade, and smoke starting coming out of the house,” said Marcañaupa.

A dozen other former soldiers are also facing arrest warrants in connection with the Aug. 14, 1985 killings in Accomarca, one of the worst massacres committed in the 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.

There are strong indications that the killings were not the work of one officer acting on his own, but formed part of a counterinsurgency operation approved by Hurtado’s superiors — and hidden later by the army.

Contreras revealed that the orders were to leave no survivors or witnesses. ”Lieutenant Telmo Hurtado shot the victims to finish them off,” the ex-soldier testified. He added that the victims ”were not armed,” and that Hurtado said they were ”supporters of the subversion,” according to the judicial records to which IPS had access.

”After Hurtado put all the people in one house, he tossed in a grenade. But since they didn’t all die, he started to finish them off with his gun, and ordered that the house be burnt down,” said Contreras.

”That’s when a woman appeared, and the lieutenant gave orders that she be shot, but they didn’t hit her. On his orders, Sergeant ‘Managua’ ran after the woman. He shot at her twice and missed. But he killed her on the third shot,” he said. The woman was 80-year-old villager Juliana Baldeón.

Contreras also told the court that Hurtado ”informed (then) army Major José Williams Zapata of everything that happened.”

At the time of the Accomarca killings, Zapata was the head of the Compañía Lince (Lynx Company), to which the patrol units commanded by lieutenants Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondón belonged.

As commander of the Compañía Lince, Zapata took part in designing ”Plan Huancayocc”, whose goal was to eliminate Sendero rebels supposedly hiding in Accomarca.

Hurtado is currently in jail in Miami, Florida on charges of violating U.S. immigration laws, but will soon be deported to Peru. He was arrested in March 2007 by U.S. immigration agents.

And on Mar. 4, a U.S. federal judge ordered Hurtado to pay 37 million dollars to two survivors of the massacre, Teófila Ochoa and Cirila Pulido, who were 13 and 12 years old when they managed to escape the killings.

Rivera Rondón was extradited two weeks ago from the U.S. state of Maryland, where he had also been arrested on immigration charges.

By contrast, retired general Williams Zapata has received deferential treatment from the government of Alan García, despite the fact that he is facing legal action. The president appointed him as the country’s representative to the Inter-American Defence Board, based on Washington, even though the position must be occupied by a serving officer.

”Lieutenant Hurtado told us that Accomarca was a ‘red zone’, that we shouldn’t lose sight of each other, because if we did, we would be killed,” Marcañaupa told the court. ”They told us that the area was dominated by Sendero Luminoso and that we had to attack those people.”

When he was asked who commanded the Compañía Lince, to which he belonged, Marcañaupa responded that he did not know the officer’s full name. ”I only remember that it was a major whose last name was Zapata,” he testified.

After the judicial investigation established that Williams Zapata was the only major posted in that area, charges were brought against him. As a result, he has to fly back to Lima every two months from Washington to sign in at court.

Now that Rivera Rondón has been sent back to Peru, he could help establish the chain of command and demonstrate that Hurtado was following higher orders to kill innocent, unarmed rural villagers.

Contreras’ testimony made it clear that the military’s aim was to get villagers to confess to being members or supporters of Sendero Luminoso, or to point fingers at each other. ”Five women were stripped naked, submerged in water, and interrogated,” he said.

The soldiers also kept evidence of the massacre. ”All of the soldiers in my patrol unit and soldiers in other units collected the spent shells. At the army base, Hurtado told us to keep quiet, because we were all implicated,” he said.

The testimony given by Contreras and Marcañaupa has helped shed light on who was responsible for the massacre, especially with respect to Hurtado’s role. According to Karim Ninaquispe, the Peruvian lawyer representing the victims’ families, the former soldiers’ statements are helping to clarify a crime that has been forgotten and has gone unpunished for nearly a quarter of a century.

”Contreras said his patrol unit went out the day after the massacre to clean up the area, and that José Williams Zapata was aware of this. That means (the officer) had immediate knowledge of the execution of the victims,” said Ninaquispe.

Both Contreras and Marcañaupa have also stated that after the Accomarca killings, they were transferred to the Los Cabitos base in the city of Huamanga, which served as the headquarters of the Military Political Front under the command of General
Wilfredo Mori.

This indicates that the activities of the Compañía Lince had General Mori’s approval, which would explain why Hurtado moved around by helicopter.

”Indeed, it was the political-military chief Wilfredo Mori who authorised the patrols, especially the ones carried out by Compañía Lince,” Ninaquispe told IPS.

”The information provided by the ex-soldier Contreras would apparently make it clear that Zapata and Mori participated not only in planning the Plan Huancayocc, but also in the cover-up of those who were responsible for carrying out the massacre,” said the lawyer.

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