Saúl Cantoral Huamaní

Saúl Cantoral Huamaní on November 8, 1988. Since 1987 he had served as secretary general of the Federación de Mineros y Metalúrgicos del Perú (FNTMMP). A year later, that union federation launched a series of mobilizations and national strikes demanding negotiation of the list of grievances of workers in the mining and metallurgical sector. During the first of these strikes, in August 1988, Saúl Cantoral was the victim of a temporary kidnapping — presumed to have been carried out by members of a paramilitary group — during which he was tortured to force him to call off the work stoppage. A few days later, despite not having yielded to the pressure and with his health broken by the mistreatment, Cantoral was released by his captors. In the face of the government's failure to fulfill its commitments, the miners resumed their action in October 1988. On February 13, 1989, the bodies of Saúl Cantoral and Consuelo García, a social worker with the FNTMMP, were found in a park in the Lima district of Canto Grande. Various sources indicate that those responsible for the murders were members of the self-styled paramilitary group "Rodrigo Franco." The deaths of both prompted significant protests from the Peruvian union movement.