Peru: Who called the shots?
The body of evidence presented in this report reveals a series of actions and omissions from the highest levels of the Peruvian State that appear to have had lethal consequences over a prolonged period during protests from December 2022 to March 2023.
International human rights law contains clear criteria for assessing the responsibility of superiors in the chain of command, including those in the highest positions of hierarchical institutions, and who knew or should have known that grave human rights violations were being committed or were about to be committed. Similarly, the report presents multiple examples of a possible omission on the part of police and military commanders and senior civilian officials to prevent or punish any repetition of repressive tactics. Far from condemning the illegitimate acts committed by security forces, which grew in magnitude every day and could be configured as crimes under international law, superiors in the chain of command endorsed the actions committed during operations in protests. As such, it is more urgent than ever that authorities tasked with ensuring justice for victims prioritize the analysis of the chain of command in its entirety.
