Grupo Colina

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The Grupo Colina (Spanish for "hill group", pronounced [ˈɡɾupo koˈlina]) was a military anti-communist death squad created in Peru that was active from October 1991 until November 1992, during the administration of president Alberto Fujimori. The group committed several human rights abuses, including an eight-month period of 1991–1992 that saw a total of 34 people killed in the Barrios Altos massacre, the Santa massacre, the Pativilca massacre [es], and the La Cantuta massacre.

In a declassified CIA document dated 1994 and published by the NSA, the names of the group include "El Equipito", "Grupo especial de inteligencia de aniquilación"("Special Annihilation Intelligence Group") or "Los Magníficos"("The Magnificents").^[1] The names were provided by Mesmer Talledo and Clemente Alayo,^[2] who claimed to be part of the group (although in reality they were not).

In reality, the group, because it was an intelligence unit, had no official name. The name was given by a member of the group in honor of infantry captain José Colina Gaige who was shot by a military patrol in 1984, when he was operating as an infiltrator within the Shining Path. However, said name was an informal name. According to Sosa Saavedra (a member of the aforementioned group), Martín Rivas gave the detachment the name "Lima".^[3]

In 1980, Peruvian Maoist Abimael Guzman launched a guerrilla war with his group Shining Path. This war, as well as a war launched by the leftist group known as the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement continued into the 1990s, when Alberto Fujimori was elected president. It was then that suspected guerrillas and civilians began dying at the hands of Grupo Colina.

The Grupo Colina, under the mandate of Fujimori, victimized trade unions and activists that spoke out against the Peruvian government, by intimidation or sometimes murder.^[4]

The first major action of the Colina Group was the so-called " Massacre of Barrios Altos ", which occurred on November 3, 1991.^[5] The operations of the Colina Group were secret and the members of this group could not clearly define whether they officially had license to carry out the executions.

The actions of Grupo Colina were as follows:

• November 3, 1991, Lima, Barrios Altos Massacre: The Colina Group entered the first floor of a building located in Jirón Huanta in Lima and murdered fourteen people, including an eight-year-old minor; apparently due to a confusion, since they had received information from an intelligence agent that there would be a Shining Path meeting at said property.
• January 29, 1992, Pativilca Massacre: Kidnapping, torture and murder of six people allegedly linked to the Shining Path: John Calderón Ríos, Toribio Ortiz Aponte, Felandro Castillo Manrique, César Rodríguez Esquivel, Pedro Agüero and Pedro Arias Velásquez.^[6]
• February 1992, Lima, Henri Cherriere Affair: Operation aimed at liquidating an alleged high-ranking Senderista (Celis Pomatanta) to achieve the promotion of a collaborating Senderista identified as "Henri Charriére" through which they could obtain the location of Abimael Guzmán. It was discovered, however, that "Charriére" (Clement Alayo) had lied with Mesmer Talledo and that their real objective was to rob Celis Pomatanta, who was actually a drug trafficker.
• May 2, 1992, Santa Massacre: Kidnapping and disappearance of ten farmers in the Santa Valley supposedly linked to the Shining Path. The massacre would have been instigated by private interests through Nicolás Hermoza.^[7][8]
• May 6–9, 1992, Lima, Operation Mudanza 1: The Colina Group entered the Canto Grande prison, while an operation was being carried out to regain control of the prison in the hands of the Luminous Combat Trenches, to liquidate the captured members of the Shining Path Central Committee.
• June 23, 1992, Lima, Assassination of Pedro Yauri: Murder of journalist Pedro Yauri, supposedly linked to the MRTA , who advocated for the freedom of the Ventocilla family after four members of this family were kidnapped by military personnel on May 25, 1992.^[9]
• July 9, 1992, Lima, Assassination of Santiago Gómez: Santiago Gómez Palomino, an Israelite leader, was kidnapped when he was mistaken by members of the Colina Group for another subject. Gómez ended up being murdered.^[10][11]
• July 18, 1992, Lima, La Cantuta Massacre: Kidnapping and murder of nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University allegedly linked to the Shining Path.

In November 1992, Grupo Colina was dissolved.^[12] The Colina Group has been linked to the murders of the unionist Saúl Cantoral (February 1989, murdered by the Rodrigo Franco Command ), Colonel Edmundo Obregón Valverde (August 1991, killed in a Shining Path ambush), the unionist Pedro Huilca (December 1992, murder claimed by Sendero Luminoso in El Diario) and Grupo Colina member Dámaso Pretell (1997, died in a traffic accident).^[13]

When the Democratic Constitutional Congress investigated the La Cantuta massacre, Nicolás Hermoza Ríos, Commander General of the Armed Forces, put tanks on the streets and declared that he would not tolerate the Congress insulting the armed forces. The Congress largely backed down.

Later, some members of Grupo Colina were put on trial. Fujimori signed a controversial law that granted amnesty to anyone accused of, tried for, convicted of, or sentenced for human rights violations that were committed by the armed forces or police. When a court found this law unconstitutional, Fujimori signed a new law removing the right of judicial review over amnesty laws. This second law was known as the "Barrios Altos Law" because it ensured that those members of Grupo Colina who committed the Barrios Altos massacre would be freed. Eventually, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights struck down both amnesty laws.

Since the collapse of the Fujimori government, several people have been tried for Grupo Colina's crimes, including Fujimori himself, who was tried and convicted for the La Cantuta massacre and the Barrios Altos massacre. Testimony in defense of Fujimori has been offered by group leaders, Jesús Sosa Saavedra and Santiago Martin Rivas, who claim that Fujimori was an unwitting participant in Grupo Colina's actions.^[14] Other trials have established that Grupo Colina was not an informal group of renegade officers but an organic part of the Peruvian state.^[15] Julio Salazar, former de jure chief of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), was sentenced to thirty-five years of prison for his role in the La Cantuta massacre. During Salazar's tenure at the SIN, Vladimiro Montesinos was the de facto SIN chief and national security advisor. Montesinos is currently imprisoned in the Callao Military Prison outside of Lima and faces over seventy trials for various human rights abuses, as well as charges of arms trafficking, drug trafficking, and political corruption. The operational chief of Grupo Colina, Santiago Martín Rivas, is also imprisoned.

• Rodrigo Franco Command

• Amnesty International report on Peru.
• APRODEH. The La Cantuta Case.
• APRODEH. The Barrios Altos Case.
• APRODEH. Basements of the SIE.
• APRODEH. The Santa Case.
• APRODEH. The Yauri Case.
• APDODEH. The Ventocilla Case.
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission.El Destacamento Colina.