DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE ALBERTO PÉREZ PÉREZ IN THE CASE OF THE PEASANT COMMUNITY OF SANTA BÁRBARA V. PERU 1. I have voted against the part of the judgment in which the brutal acts to which it refers are characterized as “forced disappearance” and not as an extrajudicial execution or massacre that constitutes a crime against humanity. The reasons for my opinion, which are set out below, include both a description of the facts and their legal classification from the standpoint of international human rights law. I. DESCRIPTION OF THE FACTS Context and background 2. The situation that existed during the period in which the facts of the case took place is described clearly and concisely in the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, hereinafter, “CVR”), under the heading “Context” (page 531): 1 “In June 1991, the extension of the State of Emergency was decreed in the Department of Huancavelica, suspending the exercise of the rights of inviolability of the home, free movement, assembly and the right not to be detained except by judicial order or in flagrante delicto. In addition, a curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 6:a.m was imposed in the city of Huancavelica. During those hours, the residents were forbidden to leave their homes or move around the city. However, on the pretext of maintaining order at night, members of the army or military patrols would enter the homes of villagers, steal their belongings and animals, and in some cases even committed murder and rape. In addition, in the Santa Bárbara area, there were continuous incursions by Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path), who committed murders, theft of food, tools and cattle, rapes and caused considerable destruction, so that the inhabitants found themselves between two fronts, forcing many of them to move to the cities and abandon their homes and crop fields. 2” 3. On July 2, 1991, two military patrols set off from the military base of Lircay. One of them was the “Escorpio” patrol, commanded by Infantry Lieutenant Javier Bendezú Vargas. This patrol arrived at the Rodeo Pampa annex, in the rural community of Santa Bárbara. According to the relatives of two of the victims, the patrol members: “After detaining members of the Hilario family, and accusing them of belonging to the insurgency, they [the soldiers] set fire to their homes to force them to 1 This description coincides with the one contained in the judgment, with one exception that is indicated below in para. 8. 2 Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru, volume VII, Section Four: Crimes and Human Rights Violations, Chapter 2, Cases investigated by the CVR, 2.50 Extrajudicial Executions in Santa Bárbara (1881), page 531.