WOLA: Serious Setback in Efforts to Achieve Truth and Justice in Peru

On July 20, the Supreme Court of Peru issued a highly controversial ruling in a case involving members of the annihilation squad known as the Grupo Colina. According to human rights defenders and victims in the cases at issue, the ruling represents a considerable setback in Peru's tortuous search for truth and justice in cases of atrocious human rights violations. The ruling focuses on three crimes committed by the infamous Grupo Colina, a military unit responsible for a series of human rights violations committed between 1991 and 1992: the Barrios Altos massacre in 1991, in which 15 people were murdered, including an eight-year-old child, and four others were seriously injured; the forced disappearance of journalist Pedro Yauri in 1992; and the disappearance of nine peasant leaders from the community of Santa.