Rights-court ruling on rebels criticized in Peru

LIMA, Jan 9 (Reuters) A ruling by an international rights court telling Peru's government to honor 41 leftist rebels killed in a 1992 prison raid has provoked public indignation, and the government is considering withdrawing from the court.

In a controversy that has reopened scars of a rebellion that raged from 1980 to 1998, Javier Velasquez, head of the ruling APRA party in Congress, said after meeting President Alan Garcia on Monday that authorities were mulling Peru's withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The court serves to uphold and promote human rights in the Americas under the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights.

The court in December demanded the government apologize for the bloody 1992 raid on the Miguel Castro Castro prison, pay compensation to the families of 41 rebels from the Maoist Shining Path group killed there and put their names on a monument to thousands of victims of hostilities in Peru.

The decision triggered a wave of anger in the Andean country over what many see as paying tribute to ''terrorists'' and ''murderers.'' ''They are crazy, we cannot honor the terrorists who made Peru bleed,'' said construction worker Julio Romero, 44, as he stood next to the monument in Lima's Field of Mars park.

Human rights groups, however, have hailed the ruling as an opportunity for the government to acknowledge and denounce rights abuses during its effort to defeat the Shining Path.

Attacks by the Shining Path accounted for over a half of the roughly 69,000 people who were killed or vanished during the war.

The remaining casualties are attributed to other rebel groups, the army and police.

Peru has one year to meet the court's demands. In the next three months the government is likely to ask the court to more fully explain its verdict, which some officials hope will help to avoid confrontations with the court.

Garcia has said he is indignant over the decision, many congressional deputies and judges called it unacceptable and Catholic church leaders condemned it.

COMPENSATION Interior Minister Pilar Mazzetti said paying tribute to the rebels and paying an estimated 20 million dollars in compensation to the families of those killed and wounded in the raid could ''seriously affect'' the morale in the armed forces.

''I think our country has been through a lot of pain and suffering and anything that would legitimize violence is just not right,'' Mazzetti said.

The raid occurred a month after former President Alberto Fujimori shut down Congress and assumed vast powers via an alliance with the military in a bid to crush the insurgency.

Hundreds of troops and police supported by helicopters shelled then stormed the prison, where jailed Shining Path members had gained control and were openly holding high-profile Maoist propaganda meetings.

The same year, Fujimori's forces nabbed Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, which largely quelled guerrilla operations.

Fujimori fled Peru in 2000 amid a corruption scandal. He is living in Chile, and Peru has sought his extradition on charges of corruption and human-rights abuse.

Francisco Soberon, director of Peru's Pro-Human Rights Association, or APRODEH, told Reuters Garcia's government was reluctant to dig into the war past to avoid accusations of human-rights abuse during Garcia's first term, from 1985-1990.

In 1986, more than 100 rebels were killed in another prison.

''There is a general arrangement in favor of impunity... The state has to acknowledge the barbarity to family members, so it does not repeat itself,'' he said.

Julia Pena, mother of two of the raid's victims, recalls: ''My daughter was 27 and they killed her with a bullet in the head after she surrendered. She had studied at the university and was accused of belonging to the Shining Path.'' Pena's son is still serving a 20-year sentence, with two bullets in his body dating back to that day.

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