There Is No Massacre That Stays Unpunished for 23 Years
More than two decades later, justice began to detain the soldiers, like Contreras, who under the command of then-lieutenant Telmo Hurtado swept through Accomarca with fire and blood, killing 16 men, 30 women, and 23 children. All indications are that this was not the act of an officer who acted on his own initiative and at his own risk, but rather that the crime was part of the objective of a counterinsurgent operation approved by Lieutenant Hurtado's superiors. That is why, once the massacre was carried out, the army attempted to conceal the fact.