Grupo Colina

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Grupo Colina was a paramilitary death squad created in Peru that was active from 1990 until 1994, under the administration of Alberto Fujimori and headed by Vladimiro Montesinos, who was also chief of Peru's intelligence service, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN).

In 1980, Peruvian radical Maoist Abimael Guzman launched a guerrilla war with his group Shining Path. This war, as well as a war launched by the radical leftist group the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement continued into the 1990s, when Alberto Fujimori was elected president. One of his most influential advisors, Vladimiro Montesinos was responsible for hunting out insurgent fighters.

Along the way, various acts of injustice were committed against innocent the civilian population, such as the Barrios Altos massacre or the La Cantuta massacre. During these, people who were suspected of being supporters or members of the insurgent organizations were tortured and; in some cases; executed, all in the name of fighting the Maoist insurgency.

When those responsible for the massacare were put on trial by the Peruvian Congress, Fujimori passed several controvertial laws stating that those responsible were to be given a military trial. They were subsequently given amnesty.

When the press found mass graves, opponents of the Fujimori administartion accused the government of intimidated witnesses and made them disappear. Some sources allege that Fujimori had full knowledge of these actions and gave Montesinos and General Nicolas de Bari Hermoza Rios his full consent for the creation and operations of Grupo Colina.^{[citation needed]}

Currently, a number of agents of the death squad, including its leader Santiago Martin Rivas, are under arrest and on trial. Vladimiro Montesinos is currently in Callao Military Prison outside of Lima.

[edit] See also

Rodrigo Franco Command