From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 03:07:29 +0000 Subject: M-I: Peru: Ex-Agent Accuses Army Of Espionage, Murder (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 16:50:49 -0700 From: Arm The Spirit <ats-AT-locust.etext.org> Subject: Peru: Ex-Agent Accuses Army Of Espionage, Murder Peru: Ex-Agent Accuses Army Of Espionage, Murder On March 27, Peru's Congress rejected an opposition bloc demand that government officials appear before Congress to answer charges made by a former agent of Peru's Army Intelligence Service (SIE), Luisa Margarita Zanatta Muedas. Zanatta fled Peru last December 15 and has been living in exile in Miami, where she is seeking political asylum. Zanatta charged that as part of her job at the SIE's Department of Special Operations (known as SIE-4) she participated in telephone espionage of opposition politicians. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/27/98 from AP; Notimex 3/17/98] In testimony taped in Miami and aired on Peruvian television channels 9 and 13 on March 16, Zanatta also charged that the SIE murdered opposition leaders and alleged rebels from the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). "Even if the detainees are terrorists they should not be tortured, or massacred", said Zanatta. Zanatta also verified that the paramilitary "Colina" group tortured and murdered political enemies of the government, intelligence agents suspected of being "traitors", and alleged "terrorists" in the basement of the army's general headquarters in Lima. "Even in our offices where we were carrying out recording of conversations, you could hear the cries of the people being tortured", said Zanatta. The former agent said that she regretted having joined the army and felt ashamed about what happened. Zanatta entered the Intelligence School in 1990 at age 18, and started active duty in 1993. After spending a year as an operative agent, she was reclassified as a specialist in "communications interception", monitoring the wiretapping of phone calls of opposition congresspeople, top military leaders, politicians and journalists. At the end of 1994, the wiretapping systems were upgraded with sophisticated Israeli computer equipment. Zanatta and 30 of her co-workers were trained by an Israeli specialist in how to use the new equipment, which allowed the conversations to be easily recorded and transferred. Zanatta said she left the SIE shortly after her co-worker, Mariella Lucy Barreto Riofano, confessed to having leaked information to the Peruvian magazine Si that led to the discovery of the remains of a professor and nine students abducted from La Cantuta university in July 1992 [see Updates #180, 181, 188, 202]. Barreto told Zanatta that she was part of the Colina group, which was responsible for the execution of the 10 victims, and that she had been an infiltrator at the university and had participated in the intelligence operation that culminated in the abductions, although she did not participate directly in the murders. After Barreto was tortured, murdered and dismembered by other SIE agents last year [see Update #376], Zanatta said she began to be persecuted by Peruvian intelligence agents under the command of Maj. Martin Rivas, head of the Colina group and Barreto's former companion. "I began to be psychologically harrassed when I was pregnant", explained Zanatta, "and after my son was born they kept me locked up for a day in a basement of the Number One General Barracks, known as the Pentagonito", (located in the residential Lima neighborhood of San Borja). Zanatta then fled to Miami with her husband and young son; soon afterwards SIE director Col. Enrique Oliveros ordered her passport cancelled and accused her of having leaked information about telephone espionage. Zanatta admitted to having given information to a Peruvian journalist from television Channel 2 about telephone interceptions. Zanatta also said she had alerted prominent opposition journalist Cesar Hildebrandt about an SIE plan for his assassination, called the Bermuda Plan. [Notimex 3/17/98; El Pais (Spain) 3/18/98; La Republica (Lima) 3/18/98; Caretas (Lima) #1508, 3/19/98] According to the opposition daily La Republica, Zanatta was a frequent target for sexual harassment from Maj. Ricardo Anderson Kohatsu - her boss - and others. La Republica also reports that Zanatta's work as an infiltrator involved having an affair with a member of a rebel group - probably the MRTA - who the SIE ended up murdering. [LR 3/18/98] After Zanatta's accusations of espionage first surfaced last July, Congress moved on August 21 to create a special commission headed by ruling party legislator Martha Chavez to investigate the case; in the eight months since, the commission has made little or no progress in its investigation. Chavez has tried to downplay the espionage charges by arguing that espionage was also carried out under the government of Alan Garcia Perez (1985-1990). [ED-LP 3/27/98 from AP; Notimex 3/17/98] Zanatta told the TV channels that she personally intercepted the conversations of prominent individuals, including former United Nations (UN) secretary general and presidential candidate Javier Perez de Cuellar. Zanatta said that every morning the transcripts of these intercepted calls were sent to presidential security adviser Vladimiro Montesinos. The legislative commission investigating the espionage reacted to Zanetta's charges by claiming that the TV station that aired them had invented them. [Notimex 3/17/98; El Pais 3/18/98; LR 3/18/98; Caretas #1508, 3/19/98] On March 20, Congress president Carlos Torres y Torres Lara said that the Congress would carry out an in-depth investigation into Zanatta's charges, and that the case would be pursued until those responsible for the violations have been found and punished. Torres y Torres Lara said that congressional investigations will be carried out by the Human Rights Commission, the Commission Against Abuse of Authority, and the commissions of Monitoring and Defense. On March 20 Daniel Espichan Tumay, President of the Commission Against Abuse of Authority, tried to dismiss Zanatta's charges, saying "we don't even know whether she exists or not." Espichan said that if Zanatta has something to say, she should come to Peru to say it. [LR 3/21/98] On March 17, 10 minutes before Hildebrandt's controversial TV show was to resume broadcast after several months off the air, the area where the station is located was hit with an electricity blackout. Hildebrandt charged that individuals tried unsucessfully to force entry into the home of cameraperson Mario Vizcarra, who videotaped the interview with Zanatta in the U.S. "Apparently they are looking for the video", said Nora de Azcue, producer of the program "Hildebrandt en Vivo." [El Pais 3/18/98] Zanatta's charges are being supported by Leonor La Rosa Bustamante, a former SIE agent who is receiving medical treatment in Mexico for injuries from torture inflicted on her by other SIE agents last year [see Updates #376, 383, 386, 396]. According to La Rosa's lawyer, Heriberto Benitez, La Rosa confirmed Zanatta's charges about the Colina group and about the murder of Barreto. [Benitez is the same lawyer who represented the families of the La Cantuta victims - see Update #202.] Speaking from Mexico, Benitez said that La Rosa told him she knew Zanatta, and knew that Zanatta had been intimately involved with Anderson Kohatsu and had been physically abused by him. Anderson Kohatsu is one of the officers who was charged with torturing La Rosa; he was subsequently acquitted of the charges and has since returned to active duty. [LR 3/22/98] La Rosa's health is deteriorating, according to Benitez. La Rosa arrived in Mexico on February 9 for medical treatment at the Mexican government's National Orthopedics Institute; she left the hospital 16 days later because medical authorities refused to tell her anything about her diagnosis or treatment, on orders of the Peruvian government. Benitez said La Rosa hopes that Mexican authorities will soon resolve the question of her readmittance into the Orthopedics Institute. According to Mexican specialists, cited recently by the Peruvian press, the physical damage to La Rosa is worse than described in the official documents sent to the Mexican government by the Peruvian government. La Rosa suffers from problems with her spinal cord and neck as a result of the torture. [ED-LP 3/21/98 from AFP] (Source: Weekly News Update On The Americas #426 - March 29, 1998) Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of New York 339 Lafayette St. New York, NY 10012 USA Phone: 212-674-9499 Fax: 212-674-9139 WWW: http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html E-mail: wnu-AT-igc.apc.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide variety of material, including political prisoners, national liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our writings, research, and translation materials on our listserv called ATS-L. For more information, contact: Arm The Spirit P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A Toronto, Ontario M5W 1P7 Canada E-mail: ats-AT-etext.org WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/ ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/ats-l ----------------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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