Public Ministry finally opens investigation into the 18 deaths on January 9th in Juliaca (La República [Spanish] - 2/18/2023)

Public Ministry finally opens investigation into the 18 deaths on January 9th in Juliaca (Spanish)

According to the Prosecutor's file, the responsibility for the massacre will be specified during the investigation. However, the victims' lawyers blame Peruvian National Police (PNP) Puno Macro-Regional Chief Colonel Julio Santos Mauricio Contreras, Chief of the Puno Police Division Colonel Alberto Miguel Rojas Méndez, and the head of the National Division of Special Operations (DINOES), Colonel Juan Manuel Herrera Ruiz for the deaths.

On January 9, the Police massacred both protesters and bystanders near Inca Manco Cápac International Airport (photo La República)

Zenaida Zea

The Public Ministry of Puno finally has begun a preliminary investigation for those responsible for the deaths of eighteen people and two hundred injuries that occurred on January 9 during protests against the government of President Dina Boluarte.

According to Fiscal Folder No. 023-2023, the charges that are imputed are for the crimes of qualified homicide and serious injuries against those who are responsible.

For the lawyers who are representing the relatives of the dead and wounded of Juliaca, the responsibility for the deaths falls upon three police chiefs. They are Colonel Julio Santos Mauricio Contreras, head of the Puno Police Macro-Region; Colonel Alberto Miguel Rojas Méndez, head of the Juliaca Police Division and the head of DINOES, Colonel Juan Manuel Herrera Ruiz. But the Prosecutor's Office has not yet released names, they have only indicated those who are ultimately responsible.

Wilmer Quiroz Calli, a lawyer who is part of the legal team of the Association of Martyrs and Victims of January 9, Juliaca-Puno, explains that the investigation was initially in charge of the prosecutor specialized in Organized Crime, Guido Pilco Delgado. Now it was referred to the Second Corporate Criminal Prosecutor's Office of San Román, represented by Ernesto Rojas Cayllahua.

Members of the Association of Martyrs and Victims of January 9, Juliaca-Puno, and photos of some of the victims of the Juliaca Massacre (photo Panchamama Radio)

For Quiroz Calli, it is known that it was the police officers who aimed and shot at civilians who were participating in the protests or were simply in the vicinity of the Inca Manco Capac Airport, where the clashes took place. The identification of the PNP officers is not specified, but being subordinates, the responsibility lies with the three police commanders who were in charge of Puno. "Unfortunately, the Prosecutor's Office has not summoned them to indicate their participation and how it is that they ordered the shooting of the civilian population, both on January 9 and February 9," said the lawyer.

He maintains that the DINOES delegation was made up of agents from Piura, Chiclayo and Callao. On another occasion, DINOES officers from the Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM) and Lima also participated. The government's version is that the police reaction was due to protesters trying to take over the airport facilities.

Due Diligence

The Public Ministry collected documented information on Legal Medicine (forensics), Police Operations Orders, and the role of PNP officers during the days of January 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2023. This will identify the police officers who participated in the massacre. Reports of the weapons used on those dates was also requested from the PNP.

For Quiroz, however, it is essential that the Public Ministry take the statements of the victims and their relatives be taken, which would provide the context in which the crimes were committed.

Likewise, it has been requested that the Prosecutor's Office obtain audiovisual evidence from the media, municipal citizen patrols and local citizens. Videos and photographs will help clarify the investigations. The collaboration of the Provincial Municipality of San Román is also essential to deliver the images from the surveillance cameras.

"The Prosecutor's Office has told us that they have immediately requested (the videos), but we do not know if there is a response from the municipality," Quiroz said.

Mayor Óscar Cáceres indicated that during the protests on January 6, the cameras stopped working, although he stated before the foreign press that these images were available.

Distrust in the Prosecutor's Office

Quiroz said that the victims have the perception that the Prosecutor's Office is being selective in its actions in order to prosecute people who allegedly carry out riots, but there is not the same speed in investigating the murders and injuries that occurred.

"The prosecutor's office carries out all the inquiries to arrest, prosecute and request immediate preventive detention, but when it comes to victims, a month passes and not even any provision is notified, nor the pertinent information to clarify these facts, despite the fact that it is their obligation to protect the life and physical integrity of people”, he emphasized.

In this sense, one of the objectives of the Association of Martyrs and Victims of January 9, Juliaca-Puno, and its legal team is for the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office to have a presence in Juliaca, or at least for the one that exists in Lima to have operations in the Puno region.

Human Rights Prosecutor

In January, a specialized Human Rights Prosecutor's Office was created in Ucayali, Madre de Dios and Trujillo. On behalf of the victims and their families, Quiroz demands one for Puno. At the same time, they seek support from international bodies such as the International Human Rights Mission, a California commission, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIHD), among other entities.

Caring for the injured

Salud San Román reported that 229 injured were treated during the protests at the Carlos Monge Medrano Hospital in Juliaca. Thirty-six of them correspond to injuries from bullets and thirty-two from shotgun pellets, forty poly contusions, nineteen from fractures, and the rest with other diagnoses.

Miriam Rodríguez, Area Manager of the People's Health, specified that 209 patients were men and twenty women.

Tags: #JuliacaMassacre #Juliaca #DDHH #MinisterioPúblico #AsociaciónDeMártiresYVíctimasDel9DeEnero #PNP #DINOES

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