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In the adobe house she built with her husband in a small village in Peru, Antonia Huillca pulled out a stack of documents that once represented hope.
She was part of the investigation into the death of her husband, Quintino Cereceda, who left one morning in 2016 to participate in a protest against a new copper mine and never returned.
Mrs. Huillca couldn’t read, but he was able to identify key documents: a photograph of his wife’s body, a bullet wound to the forehead; a question-and-answer format in which police officers describe firing live ammunition while protesters throw rocks; logo of a mining company sending a convoy of trucks through an unpaved road, sparking protests among villagers tired of the dust.
But today, the investigation has gone cold.
“All these years and no justice,” Ms. Huillca, a 51-year-old Quechua farmer, said as the storm gathered in his village, Choquecca, in Peru’s southern Andes. “It’s as if we weren’t there.”
For years, many similar cases in Peru have suffered a familiar fate: Investigations into the killing of unarmed civilians in protests where security forces were deployed, mostly in Indigenous and poor rural areas, opened while drawing headlines , just made headlines. closed quietly later, with officials often citing lack of evidence.
Now, the extraordinary death toll during anti-government demonstrations following the ouster of the country’s president last year has put allegations of abuses by security officials in the global spotlight, raising questions about why so many previous killings remain unsolved.
At least 49 civilians have been killed in clashes with police or the military during protests after President Pedro Castillo was ousted last December when he tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, according to figures from the state ombudsman’s office.
A New York Times investigation in March found that in three cities where deadly clashes took place, police and soldiers fired on civilians using lethal ammunition, fired assault rifles as protesters fled and killed unarmed people, often in violation of protocol. self.
“We are going through the same thing,” said José Cárdenas, whose brother, Alberto, was killed in 2015 in clashes with police during protests that also targeted a copper mine. “My brother did not die in an accident. He was shot.”
So far, the investigation has not led to charges.
The lack of accountability for excessive use of force by security agencies is a serious human rights failure, according to civil rights organizations, undermining people’s faith in authorities.
In Peru, more than 200 civilians have been killed by the police and the military fighting protests over the past two decades, according to a list compiled by the National Human Rights Coordinator, an advocacy group.
However, during the same period, prosecutors have not won a single conviction against police or military officers or their superiors for killing during protests, according to human rights activists, lawyers and two state prosecutors who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media. .
In most cases, investigations don’t even lead to trials, he said, adding that protesters and protest leaders are accused of vandalism or causing public disturbance.
“It’s backwards – when they punish the campesinos, they’re quick,” said David Velazco, a human rights lawyer who has defended more than 200 rural protesters on various charges, including vandalism and disturbing public order.
The prime minister’s office and the national prosecutor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, while the Interior Ministry declined to answer questions.
The country’s current president, Dina Boluarte, who took over after Mr. Castillo was ousted, has blamed the deadly clashes on protesters who have blocked roads and attacked security forces with rocks and slingshots.
Investigations involving clashes in rural areas can be challenging, legal analysts say, in part because it can be difficult to determine whether police face legitimate threats to their lives when they lose to protesters, said Rolando Luque, who monitors conflicts at the ombudsman’s office. .
“At some point, while doing his job, he could be “caught by the protesters,” he said, and “he could be killed with his own weapon.”
This happened during clashes in the Amazon between protesters and police in 2009 that left 23 officers and 10 civilians dead, said Mr. Luque, who witnessed the aftermath. The officer, he said, “was taken to the forest and executed.”
Complicating matters, the police and military often refuse to share details about the operation, according to lawyers involved in civilian death cases. And cases tend to be assigned to overworked prosecutors, some of whom manage more than 200 at a time.
Prosecutors have refused to investigate high-ranking government officials who may have authorized or encouraged the use of deadly force, or the role of mining companies that hire police to provide private security, human rights activists say.
“There is a clear lack of institutional capacity to deal with these problems,” said Carlos Rivera, a human rights lawyer.
Peru is not the only democracy in South America where unarmed civilians have been killed in protests due to popular discontent in the streets.
Javier Puente, a scholar of Andean studies at Smith College in Massachusetts, said that the military and police have long helped weak Latin American leaders overcome the shortcomings of strong parties and other institutions, normalizing violent solutions to political problems.
“The price Peru pays for the form of institutionalism offered by the military and the police is impunity,” Mr. Puente said.
Bali’s return to democracy in 2000 after years of authoritarian rule raised hopes for wider access to justice and political representation, along with an end to police and military abuses against Peruvians, especially indigenous peoples.
However, as Peru experienced rapid economic expansion, those hopes were left by the wayside.
The only democratically elected president was embroiled in a corruption scandal. Inequality remains high, social conflict is increasing and the global commodity boom is bringing large mining projects to rural Indigenous areas.
“They never listen to us. They just send the police,” said Melchor Yauri, a member of the Indigenous community in southern Peru.
He said his father, Félix, was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet by police during a protest in 2012 over pollution from a copper mine and died from an infection in his wound. The investigation into his death was closed in 2015.
Peruvian police could be given more immunity under a proposed congressional bill that would change trials involving officers from civilian courts to military-police courts.
While neighboring countries, including Chile and Colombia, have elected leaders who promise change to address excessive power, abuses and impunity in Peru appear to be stronger, said Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US research institute.
Mrs. Boluarte and most members of parliament “do not even seem interested in pretending to put pressure behind responsibility or reform,” Mr. Freeman said.
Days after nine civilians were killed in clashes with security forces in December, Ms. Boluarte promoted the defense minister to become prime minister. His government described the police’s handling of protests as “imperfect” and proposed longer prison sentences for those who damage property or disturb public order.
Families of victims of recent clashes say they do not trust the head of the prosecutor’s office, Patricia Benavides, after removing a prosecutor specializing in human rights violations from the investigation and moving cases from rural areas to Lima, the capital, to make it more difficult. family members to monitor progress.
After her husband died in a mining protest, Ms. Huillca said her herd of sheep was reduced to 30 from 500, because she had sold them to support her children’s education.
Until then, he froze when he saw the police. “I’m afraid they’re going to do the same thing to me,” she said.
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