Peru: 60,000 people died or disappeared

Past estimates spoke of 25,000 deaths and disappearances, while more recent estimates held that 30,000 were killed -- many civilians caught between the two sides -- and 6,000 disappeared during the 1980 to 2000 violence.

The new figures emerged as the commission -- an autonomous, government appointed group -- neared the end of its two-year investigation, which included interviews with nearly 18,000 victims.

As a result of cross-referencing data and consulting international experts, commission president Salomon Lerner Febres said "we have felt that there is a minimum of 40,000 deaths and it might be ... 60,000 -- that's the ceiling." This includes 7,000 to 8,000 people who disappeared, the majority at the hands of "the forces of order," he said.

There was no immediate comment from President Alejandro Toledo's administration.

Lerner told a news conference at U.N. headquarters that no one will ever know the exact total because there are "many, many variables that we're not in control of," including people who haven't testified.

According to the testimonies, the Shining Path was responsible for killing about half the victims, said Carlos Ivan Deregori, a commission member.

The Maoist-inspired rebel movement nearly drove Peru's government to its knees in the early 1990's with a campaign of car bombings, political assassinations and massacres of peasant communities that refused to support them.

The capture of Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman in 1992 and an anti-terrorism crackdown helped crush the rebel campaign and the violence dropped off sharply.

But earlier this month Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo blamed "remnants of the Shining Path" for kidnapping 71 workers from a pipeline construction camp high in the Andes Mountains. They were all rescued.

The commission also found that 75 percent of the victims spoke Quechua, the language of Peru's highland Indians, as their mother tongue, Deregori said.

Peru's indigenous people represent less than 20 percent of the population and are concentrated in the poorest, most isolated part of the country, but they suffered the most, said Sofia Macher, another commission member.

Rebels, government blamed
The commission's mandate provides for it to determine the causes of the violence, find ways to compensate the victims, recommend reforms to prevent future atrocities, and if possible gather information to identify human rights violators for state prosecutors.

The autonomous 12-member commission was appointed by interim President Valentin Paniagua after former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, fled into self-imposed exile in Japan in November 2000. The commission was given two years to investigate serious human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law.

Lerner said the commission's final report, to be submitted in August, will conclude that the subversive movements flourished in a climate where the government denied citizenship to all Peruvians and where "there has been and there still is discrimination, exclusion, together with poverty."

The commission wants its report to start "a true commitment phase by the Peruvian state and the Peruvian society for in-depth changes so that there will not be a recurrence of the tragedy which we have known," he said. "We believe that reconciliation ... can be achieved only through vigorous citizenship policies and institutional reforms in great depth."

The government must become "more democratic, more inclusive, more accessible to the demands of the population" and it must reform political parties, Lerner said. "Today political parties are precarious and so democracy is precarious."

The final report will also focus on the need to strengthen "the practice of justice," he said. "We need a judicial branch which is effective, fast, independent and accessible to all."

It will also call for reform of the police and armed forces so they don't "apply force willy-nilly" and education reform to ensure that every child goes to school, Lerner said.

The commission has already submitted six cases for possible prosecution and legal action has been initiated in three cases, Macher said.

Lerner said Fujimori refused to meet with him in Tokyo, but he expects the government to formally present a request for his extradition "in a few weeks."

Prosecutors have charged Fujimori with treason, illegal wiretapping, corruption, abandoning office and authorizing death squad killings. In March, Interpol placed him on its most wanted list.

Lerner said the truth commission also wants to question him about human rights violations during his term, "and in particular to explain the existence of paramilitary groups -- and apparently everything indicates he knew about this."

The commission believes collecting the testimony of those who suffered violence and previously had been "silenced and stigmatized" is part of the reparations, Macher said. But there must be "material" reparations as well as moral and symbolic reparations.

A great deal of money will be needed, Lerner said, and the commission will call for international funding to supplement the effort of the Peruvian government