Human rights lawyers have accused Peru’s government of a cover-up, after at least fifty people were killed in clashes between indigenous people and police. The indigenous groups were protesting against laws which allow foreign companies to exploit natural resources in what they consider to be their land.
Rumours have circulated for several days that bodies are missing. Some people in the area claim to have seen bodies taken away by the police, to El Milagro barracks and even to a nearby river. The lawyers making the allegations complain that they cannot get in to the region to to investigate.
The government denies accusations and says that the police were victims.
Ernesto de la Jara, of the Institute for Legal Defence, urged the government to perform a full independent judicial investigation. “I say to the authorities they should take care because sooner or later the facts of what happened will come to light,” he is reported as saying. “Dead bodies may be covered up for now but, little by little, the truth will come out and they will have to respond.”
According to the BBC’s Dan Collyns in the region, indigenous groups are calling for the government to be tried for crimes against humanity. The government, however, denies any wrongdoing.
“It has been irrefutably proven that the police were tortured and killed,” said Maria Zevala, Peru’s ambassador to the Organisation of American States, publicly in Washington.