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Letter to the President of Peru

December 9, 2009

By pwrdf

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The following letter was written to Alan Garcia Pérez, President of Peru by members of Inter Pares and PWRDF in response to the news that due to lack of funding, the Reparations Council is unable to continue its work.
November 24, 2009

Dear Mr. President:

On behalf of Inter Pares, a Canadian international cooperation agency, and The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, the development agency of the Anglican Church of Canada, we write to express our profound concern regarding the implementation of reparations for victims of the internal armed conflict in Peru that were approved under Law 28592 — the Law for an Integral Reparations Plan.  On November 1, 2009 in a public communiqué, the members of the Reparations Council (CR) made known that a lack of funds had paralyzed the work of the CR, despite the fact that there are approximately 28,000 cases still pending review, and despite that to date not a single victim has received any economic compensation on an individual basis.

We recognize that in its three years of work, the CR has achieved considerable advances in the recognition of persons and communities affected by the armed conflict with more than 60,000 affected individuals and 5,000 affected communities registered in the Sole Registry of Victims (RUV), an indispensible step for obtaining reparations.  However, we lament that there are thousands of cases still pending review, that the registering of new victims will likely be halted, save in those regions where local and regional governments are providing support, and that due to a lack of personnel in the technical secretariat, there would be only minimal attention to those victims who seek to have themselves registered.

We agree with the members of the Reparations Council and the Human Rights Ombudsman when they highlight in their communiqués about the paralysis of the CR’s activities, that the reparations constitute a duty of justice and an indispensible condition for the reconciliation process in Peru.  Given that this State obligation cannot be postponed, the Peruvian state needs to renew its commitment to it.

Reparations must soon reach the victims who have waited many years for this attention by the State to their demands for reparations and justice, and which in their majority pertain to the poorest and most excluded sectors of the country.  Many victims were motivated to tell their stories and seek their registration in the RUV, and now feel that the State is once again, with the paralysis of the CR, ignoring them.

Through this letter therefore, we wish to express our confidence in the Peruvian state authorities to respond to the petition formulated by the Reparations Council, and we ask:

•    That the necessary economic resources be assigned and designated to the appropriate budgets, in order to avoid the closing of the Reparations Council, and to end the paralysis of the victims registration process, therefore ensuring the continuity of the integral reparations process for the victims of the internal armed conflict.

Canadians will be waiting for the response of the Peruvian state to the petition of the Reparations Council in order that it be able to complete its institutional mandate.

Attentively,

Rita Mobia
Executive Director
Inter Pares

Cheryl Curtis
Executive Director
PWRDF-ACC

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