Since May 2017, new evidence has become public corroborating longstanding allegations that Peru’s former president Ollanta Humala Tasso (2011-2016) would be responsible for egregious human rights violations committed by security forces in the early 1990s, during Peru’s internal armed conflict. The evidence concerns crimes committed by soldiers based in Madre Mía in the Alto Huallaga region.

This report provides an overview of that evidence, concluding that it credibly implicates Humala directly in the commission of atrocities and the attempted cover-up of incriminating evidence when he ran for president, and requires robust follow up by Peru’s prosecuting authorities. This new evidence provides a unique opportunity for Peru to clear its longstanding debt to many armed conflict victims who are still waiting for justice.

Human Rights Watch conducted our own research, interviewing victims and witnesses of violations in which Humala is implicated, the prosecutor in charge of the investigations, and a former high-level official working for the Defense Ministry. We also spoke at length with a journalist who interviewed some of the soldiers who were eyewitnesses to or participated in the crimes. Human Rights Watch also reviewed formal judicial statements that soldiers, victims, and witnesses gave to investigating prosecutors in the Attorney General’s Office, as well as media interviews by several different soldiers attesting that Humala was in command at Madre Mía at the time atrocities were carried out there, and that he often gave orders to soldiers to commit crimes.

Report by the Human Rights Watch