"YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AS DAZZLING AS YOUR SUBJECTS"

Saturday, December 31, 2011

LUIS GIAMPIETRI TURNS SEVENTY-ONE


LUIS GIAMPIETRI ROJAS
b. December 31, 1940


RETIRED ADMIRAL LUIS GIAMPIETRI
AS VICE-PRESIDENT OF PERU

WITH HONOR GUARD FOR THE 2008 APEC SUMMIT
GOVERNOR'S PALACE, LIMA, PERU

Admiral Giampietri was in the news recently in connection with the Lori Berenson case (discussion here). As a Navy admiral he had, in his own words, for twelve years "led navy, marine and army commandos in a vicious war against two terrorist groups intent on forcing a Marxist regime on Peru" (the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA). In 1986, in charge of naval special operations, he was "ordered" by then President Alan Garcia to "put down a prison riot, resulting in the death of more than 300 Shining Path inmates," and leading to a 2000 ruling by the Inter-American Court that the Garcia government "had violated the American Convention on Human Rights" (see here).

Giampietri himself was among those taken hostage by the MRTA during the Japanese Embassy crisis, from December 17, 1996, until April 22, 1997, while Alberto Fujimori was president. The by-then retired Admiral gives his account here.

When Garcia successfully ran for a second, non-consecutive presidential term, Giampietri was his vice-president (2006-2011).

More on (now former-) President Garcia here and here and here and here.

No comments:

Post a Comment