The former head of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Salomon Lerner Febres, called recent criticism of the commission’s final report on the country’s internal conflict unfounded and biased.
Lerner Febres, a well-respected academic and former rector of the Universidad Catolica, said that calls for the commission’s report to be revised are “short-sighted.”
Opposition legislators loyal to jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori have called for the review of the report following the government’s announcement last week that it had killed a high-ranking commander of Shining Path remnants in a coca-growing region.
“Comrade William,” the alias of the Shining Path leader, was —mistakenly— said to be Rolando Cabezas, who local media reported was on a list of missing persons that was compiled by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, CVR, following the internal conflict during the 1980s and 1990s. Cabezas was reported missing in 1989 when he was 20, taken by force with two cousins by Sendero in Ayacucho.
Even though Cabinet chief Juan Jimenez later clarified that “William” was not on the list —and, in fact, it was later proved with DNA tests that the government had mistakenly identified Rolando Cabezas as being “William”— opposition lawmakers from the right-wing Fuerza 2011 party have called for Congress to review the commission’s report.