in a press conference at a Miraflores, Lima hotel, Mrs. Nelly Montoya de Espinoza and Dr. Carlos Robles Espinoza, respectively wife and brother of the general, delivered to the media the denunciation of Div. Gen. EP [Ej‚rcito Peruano, the Peruvian Army] Rodolfo Robles Espinoza, in which he accuses "a mafia" headed by presidential "advisor" Vladimiro Montesinos and CGE [Commander General of the Army] Div. Gen. EP Nicolas Hermoza Rios of having taken over the army and in fact over Peru, with the complicity of international drug traffickers, and to further their ends having perpetrated horrible violations of human rights, of which the kidnaping and murder of a professor and nine students at La Cantuta University is but the tip of the iceberg.
While the media were addressed, the rest of the Robles family had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy [TNF: As usual, the U.S. supports both factions of the big Peruvian bourgeoisie -the fascist comprador faction in power or the bureaucratic demoliberal faction regardless they find themselves colluded or in conflict], and later would fly to Buenos Aires, where the general and his family would remain in exile for two years. The news filled Peruvian newspapers and airwaves on May 6-9, 1993 and it impacted even notorious or suspected mercenary hacks of the media; for instance, Senderologist Gustavo Gorriti (with ties to the intelligence services during the APRA regime), no friend of the Peruvian people, had to "denounce": "Fujimori's svengali, that traitor to Peruvian democracy [such as it was!]...Montesinos."
The "investigator" for Americas Watch in Peru, a rat in the imperialist pay named Robin Kirk, was filled with self-righteousness, calling La Cantuta "the most important case of human rights violations since the internal war in Peru began in 1980." Why the massacre of La Cantuta, grievous as it was, was more "important" than the massacres of hundreds upon hundreds of Ayacucho peasants, Kirk did not say. "Covert Action," an U.S. progressive magazine commented that shortly before Gen. Robles' denunciation, "tank units began to move into and around the streets of Lima in an open show of force. The Congress (CCD) recoiled. It was into that powder keg that Gen. Robles threw a lit torch .... His petition for political asylum in Argentina, and later well substantiated denunciations (continued from exile) were explosive.
With this act of defiance, Robles turned a routine run-of -the-mill disappearance case into an international incident. In short, nothing that a coup by "the right generals" would not cure. If "democracy", say APRA-style, not a military junta, were to return to Peru, would that erase or even make more bearable the crushing foreign debt? Would it permit industrialization or a renewal of economic growth? Would semi-feudalism or semi-colonialism be eradicated by a such government? Even if there were to be no more massacres like El Fronton? Of course not! At any rate, the denunciation goes like this:
"I am Gen. EP Rodolfo Robles Espinoza. In 1992, I was Commander General of the Third Military Region. On Jan. 1, 1993, I was named General Commander (CG) of COINDE [Comando de Instrucci¢n y Doctrina del Ej‚rcito Peruano, the army's instructional and doctrinaire unit], although by seniority and by being the third highest ranking officer in the army, it corresponded to me to be named General Inspector of the Army. On April 28, 1993, I was surprisingly removed from my post, and by Presidential Resolution RS No. 0158/DE (4/28/ 93) designated as Army Delegate before the Inter-American Defense Council (JID) and permanent military attache of Peru to the OAS. I have always accepted my employments without doubts or complaints. But the motives behind this last assignment imply an intolerable demotion as a soldier and as a man, since it is related to the systematic violation of human rights of the population of Peru by part of a group of hit men under the command of former army Captain Vladimiro Montesinos Montesinos, and the servile approval of Gen. EP Nicolas de Bari Hermoza Rios." [A cushy post in Washington as attache to JID, to keep a powerful general who is not an unconditional servant to "the mafia" out of the way!] Gen. Robles continues:
"The crime of La Cantuta in which a professor and nine students were victimized, was committed by a 'Special Intelligence Detachment' that operates under the direct orders of presidential advisor and virtual chief of SIN [Peru's CIA] Vladimiro Montesinos, and whose actions are coordinated with SIN and Intelligence Direction of the Army's General Major Staff (DINTE), but are always approved and known by the General Commander of the Army (CGE.) This detachment was commanded by Army Major Santiago Enrich Martin Rivas, NA:108521200 [his service number], who worked for DINTE in 1992 and for SIE [Peruvian army intelligence] in 1993. Also involved was Army Major Carlos Portella Nu¤ez, NA: 114141400, belonging to DIFE [Special Forces Division] and later on assigned to DINTE; this officer is nicknamed 'Lieutenant Medina' and was in charge of identifying the victims delivered to the DI [Intelligence Detachment] commanded by Martin Rivas.
"That night the trap was set by DIFE [Special Forces Division], under the command of Brigadier General of the Army Luis P‚rez Documet, a.k.a. 'Tuto'. And the break-in, or actual hit, was done by BIC-19 [Batall¢n de Infanter¡a de Comandos #19, Commando Infantry Battalion No. 19] commanded by Infantry Liutenant Colonel EP Manuel Guzm n Calder¢n, for 3 years head of that unit (very unusual) and implicated in problems with drug trafficking.
The general also identified Spec. 3 AIO [Auxiliar de Inteligencia Operativo, Operative Intelligence Unit] Eduardo "El Chato"Sosa Davila (DINTE 1992, SIN 1993), SO1 [Sub Oficial de 1ra] Ramos, and other auxiliary personnel (technicians and intelligence subofficers), who join this detachment whenever some 'special operation' is ordered, e.g. a genocide or a "disappearance"; the general mentions the massacre at Barrios Altos, in midtown Lima, the massacre of the engineers in Huaral (crime maliciously attributed to the PCP by the State Department and its NGOs), or when they hired themselves to "moonlight" as "accounts adjusters" and hit men for the drug kingpins. The general attributes to this "drug connection" the strange fact that Mart¡n Rivas turned down a promotion to a diplomatic post abroad, and also that Manuel Guzmán has remained longer than usual at his present more lucrative post.
The general identified Martín Rivas' detachment (death squad Grupo Colina) of having murdered the lawyer Manuel Febres (attorney of political prisoners), while he was driving at the entrance of La Herradura tunnel (Lima), a decade earlier. How for these operations DINTE makes use of fronts or covers such as the COPRANSA consulting firm [Compañia de Proyectos y Asesores S.A.], and that those crimes are well-known by higher echelons in SIE and DINTE such as Brigadier Gen. EP Juan Rivero Laxo of DIFE, chief Colonel EP Federico Augusto Navarro Perez, NA: 105322100.
This "special intelligence detachment," part of BIC-19, calls itself the "Colina Group," or "The Magnificents," which allows the Ministry of Defense [and the intellectual authors of the crimes Fujimori, Hermoza, and Montesinos] to exercise "plausible deniability" by denying any knowledge of it, since officially it does not exist, although everyone of the high cadres knows about it. Apparently for the Army (EP), "intelligence" is synonymous with these ruthless murderers of civilians also known as death squads.
General Robles praises the "courageous and admirable position of some members of the congressional opposition [the Congress dissolved by Fujimori], for denouncing these abuses by army "special units." To them the general says, "I respect and present my salutations for their honesty, which I am sure is the sentiment of the healthy elements in our army, which is to say, the majority." After that Gen. Robles went to speak with men whom he trusted, among them Br. Gen. EP Jos‚ Picón Alcalde, whom besides being a classmate at EMCH [Military School of Chorrillos] was a godfather to one of Robles' children and a friend. Besides that, Picón was the President of Military Justice and was in possession of the investigative report by the Inspector General of the army, Division Gen. EP Victor García Gonzales. Those reports indict "whoever may be responsible" for the La Cantuta kidnaping and murders. Picón told Robles, in a visit April 17, 1993, at Robles' home: "Look, compadre, the Inspector General of the army has concluded that neither the Army nor any of its members had anything to do with this case. ... So I will shelve the thing until people forget about what happened."
"But, how is that possible?"asked a stunned Robles, "Whatever happened to military honor, so traditional in our army (EP), the pillar of our ? So now we EP generals must cower before common criminals, before ruthless drug traffickers and kidnappers? And you don't blink an eye! This is preposterous! I can't believe what my eyes see and my hearing hears!"
"Calm down, compadre, " replied Picón, "listen, how do you know the denunciation is not a powerless apocryphal document? All I hear is rumors, uncorroborated hearsay ..."
"Rumors!" exclaimed Robles suddenly jumping to his feet. "You call rumors the words of a widow who say a gang of assassins broke the patio door in her home and kidnaped her husband at 1:30 in the morning? How dare you ... you... whom I have known for so many years, since we were children, practically, how dare you condone such an undeniable smear on the honor of our army and of our fatherland? Rumors! I can't believe what my ears hear!"
Picón lowered his gaze, speechless, finally he said: "Look, compadre ... I am under direct orders from general Nicolas Hermoza to shelve the matter ... it's to avoid our army losing any more prestige, and I think Hermoza is right, let's try shelving it, the people will forget, the people always forget; haven't they always forgotten even worse things than this...this is a little thing? Look, OK, ... if you'll give some names, no hearsay, no rumors, real names, I'll see what I can do to deepen the investigation ..."
But circumstances demanded that Picón act quickly, and if that meant he would snitch on and turn in his compadre and lifetime friend, so be it! Gen. Picón thus went to Gen. Hermoza's office, filling him in on what Robles was up to; for which treachery Picón was promoted that same year to division general, and on Jan.1, 1994 to General Commander of the Fourth Military Region (based in Cusco). On April 28, 1993, two days after he gave Picón "some reliable names," Gen. Robles was summoned to Gen. Hermoza's office, to see a man whom Robles considered a snake "for his background as a liar, treacherous and disloyal to his subordinates," but who nonetheless was General Commander of the Army (CGE) and had the complete trust of Fujimori.
Things were not as usual at all at Gen. Hermoza's headquarters. Has Peru declared war, or been declared war against by anyone? Chile or Ecuador? Perhaps Brazil? If not, why this deployment of soldiers, SIE agents, paratroopers even, all armed to the teeth and ready for combat? Trying not to pay attention Gen. Robles presented himself before Hermoza's door; the sergeant saluted smartly and opened the door; Robles walked in.
"At ease, Gen. Robles .. My dear friend Rodolfo, please have a seat. Close that door, sergeant, and no calls; I'm busy whoever it is, or out in the field, understand? Sit down, Rodolfo ... coffee? Cognac? Cigar? Make yourself at home. It's a day to celebrate, who better than yourself to defend our beloved Peru from international intrigues threatening our fatherland? Your name came to me at once when I faced the question. We're in trouble internationally, in the OAS, slanderous, heinous lies against our country, and we need a patriotic man at the post ... I have here your orders, directly from the President, you are going to Washington as military attache before the Inter American Defense Council JID. Here's RS No. 0158/DE signed today by Fujimori. Don't let us down, Rodolfo; I know you won't; If Bolivar and San Martin themselves were available, I'd still recommend you over them, that's how much trust I have in you. Oh, and of course, have a good time; Washington can be a fun city... anything you need, just charge it to this mission ... I'll have it approved at once. Er... this is a very important and highly secretive mission, my dear friend Rodolfo; only the President, the Chancellor, the Minister of Defense and myself, the CGE, know about it."
"I'd rather ride in a close compartment with a deadly cobra than turn my back to this beast," thought Robles as he put his "walking papers" in his pocket and walked away ... not even bothering to salute his Comandante General (CGE.)
Robles was not the first "beloved friend" General Picón turned in. Earlier Picón had stabbed in the back the man who had been his patron, role model and close friend: Division General DN Jaime Salinas Sedo at the parody that was his court martial. But the reward was brief for Picón: on February 9, he perished in a helicopter crash near Cusco.
"Rodolfo! Hey, guy, long time no see!" someone greeted Gen. Robles as he walked down the hallway outside Hermoza's office. "Oh, I'm just back from Upper Huallaga, fighting those damned Senderistas ... but his time we hit them hard! Yes, sir! ... Come on, I'll walk you to the coffee bar ... my treat."
Both men engaged in small talk as they walked out of the building. His friend faced him outside: "Hey, I couldn't talk inside there, too many ears... but something big is about to happen, I don't know what or why... see all that deployment? In the office next to Hermoza, the CG of DIFE, the CG of BIC-18, the CG of the 18th Armored Division, the Colonel Director of the Commando School, a few other rats unworthy of carrying our uniform are meeting! Hermoza is afraid, rats always are, but more so than usual... And I'm afraid for you, Rodolfo, the army needs men like you! You are not alone: you know that! But be careful, that snake, and that traitor Vladimiro Montesinos --he is a traitor, convicted in court martial of selling secrets to Ecuador-- they are up to no good; God save Peru! Be careful, my friend, be careful!"
"Any news from Huallaga, real news, not Hermoza propaganda?" asked Robles.
"It's as bad as usual; Sendero keeps on, hits us and disappears! Not just our recruits, but even our honest officers don't see a way out. Why are we fighting, some ask. Many see they are defending a hopeless, failed degenerate project. Bad news for our Peru!
"Your son is well, Army Lt. EP Rodolfo Robles Montoya, with the Sword Honor of his Promotion, and doing well. But he has enemies, the same enemies you have, who are trying to implicate him in 'drug trafficking' of all things! Drug trafficking in the Huallaga! Even Fujimori knows many officers are bribing their way into the Upper Huallaga, Sendero be damned, because of the profits they'd share, the bribes they'd be paid by drug kingpins! NOT your son, by God! But varmints like that General R¡os Arauco, now [military attache] in Israel, or Gen. Bellido Mora, Hermoza's brother-in-law... even the media knows it! Men who are a disgrace to our uniform and our fatherland! But they try to implicate your Rodolfo Jr. as the weak link, because the target is you! The targets are all honest, patriotic officers. Meanwhile, honest to God, I think we are being beaten by Sendero! No matter how slowly, it's a steady pace, and we are losing the war! All thanks to that gang of mafiosi that's taken over Peru. May God help Peru!"
The encirclement of the mafia ruling the Army EP began to tighten around Robles and his family, including his two sons, officers in the Army EP. The latter were ultimately denied their request for voluntary retirement they had requested as early as April 30, 1993 as a way to avoid the constant harassment. Anonymous phone calls called Robles a coward for not having taken up arms at once, or stupid for daring to confront the SIE and SIN, or threatening to kill all members of the Robles extended family, one by one, La Cantuta style. In all appearances an actual ambush was prepared for Robles at COINDE headquarters, which he wisely avoided.
"If, according to Hermoza, only four people knew about his job change, Hermoza must be the one ordering all those phone threats," thought Robles. Word was that if Robles dared to call his military base EM to assess the situation, BIC-19 and /or commandos would attack them at once: P‚rez Documet and BIC-19 quarters were located barely 50 meters away from Robles' office! So it was constant, real danger from very powerful and ruthless enemies, who besides had all the cards in their favor ... at least for the moment. It was under those hopelessly disadvantageous conditions that Gen. Robles opted for a strategic retreat, so as to be able to continue the struggle, hoping for a better day.
All of a sudden it was not just La Cantuta, or Barrios Altos, or SIE's and SIN's massacres in the Ayacucho countryside, or in the Huallaga countryside, or the complicity with drug traffickers, but matters that showed a much deeper rot corroding the Peruvian Army and the whole of the Peruvian old State: the murder of lawyer Febres; the abolishing of the Constitution; the murder of trade unionists Pedro Huillca, Valentín Pachas, the execution of miner leader Saul Cantoral, all attributed by the regime and the international press to "Sendero Luminoso"; so many other murders, attributed to "Sendero" by the press! What would the ruthless murderers who dishonor the Army EP uniform do without a Sendero Luminoso to blame their murders on? Oh sure, there's always MRTA. But the "M-rats" surrendered!, they surface again but capitulate over and over again. So that makes Sendero all the more vital for the Hermoza-Montesinos-Fujimori clique's "social cleansing." --Including perhaps some troublesome generals of the "old school" who'd shudder at such business like a toast with Don Demetrio Chavez Pe¤aherrera, a notorious Huallaga drug kingpin. All those thoughts and even deeper and more transcendent questions troubled Div. Gen. EP Rodolfo Robles Espinoza in late April and early may of 1993. "My poor Peru!"
Still, one must wonder at Robles' persistent naivete when one reads his appeals to, of all men, that genocidal tyrant Fujimori. It appears that initially he only wanted to expose the regime's hitman and spare the tyrant himself so as to meet the conditions upon which the U.S. Embassy [the master of lackey Fujimori] would provide safety for him and his family.
"For the facts exposed in this denunciation, it is necessary that the Honorable President of the Republic, as Supreme Chief of the Armed Forces, urgently tends to the great malcontent now existing in large sectors of the Army, particularly due to the facts described in paragraph 1," e.g. la Cantuta ... Barrios Altos ... Huaral ... `Which most assuredly are not of his knowledge [sic] because certainly they are hidden from him by Montesinos and Hermoza R¡os, since they do not agree with his directives of respect for Human Rights, which he so strongly defends in his speeches."
"It is necessary that this couple of crooks be exposed" --Hermoza and Montesinos, but why exclude a killer of children such as Fujimori?-- "be separated from the near environment of the presidency, for the good of the country. That the high command of the Peruvian Army be reconstructed, respecting the seniority of the general officers and which has always been the solid base of discipline, professionalism, unity and tradition of our army, concentrating the experience of many years of institutional life."
From there the general recommends that Fujimori ought to name as General Commander of the Army "honest soldiers" like Div. General EP don Jos‚ Valdivia Due¤as [a narcotrafficker and a former hooded judge!]; or ratify as Army's General Major Staff (EMGE) Division General EP don Roberto Salda¤a V squez [another goon with debts of people's blood in his hands], and as Inspector General of the Army --the post that by seniority belonged to Gen. Robles-- Gen. Robles himself. Whereupon the three of them and Fujimori would join hands and walk joyfully into the sunset! That would be like changing a bloody mucus for spit! Finally, in early October 1997, we learned that General Robles joined a political party run by old opportunist hacks of the ilk of Gustavo Mohme (owner of daily La Republica), a former supporter of IU, APRA, AS, even Fujimori in first term. With these kind of friends General Robles doesn't need to confront anymore crooks like Montesinos, Fujimori and Hermoza -the three musketeers of U.S. imperialism.