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Guadalupe Ccallocunto Olano: Peruvian Human Rights Activist

By Louis De Benedette

On June 10, 1990 my friend and Peruvian Human Rights activist Guadalupe Ccallocunto Olano was kidnapped and disappeared by Peruvian soldiers as she lay sleeping with her youngest daughter in her arms. She was in her Andean home in the city of Ayacucho. Seventeen armed and hooded men entered the house, terrorized the family, and dragged her out into the night at gun point. She has never been seen again. She was 31 years old.

I first met Guadalupe in Lima in 1984. I was in Peru helping at an orphanage with Vietnam veteran Father Joe Ryan. She had just completed a march with a group of relatives of the disappeared and a priest, Neptali Liceta. Guadalupe's husband Elario had been disappeared in 1983. Guadalupe, 24, a mother of four small children, helped found a committee of relatives of the disappeared and joined SERPAJ ("Service for Peace and Justice"), a non-violent activist group.

I had kept in constant contact with this dear friend, and campaigned for her release from prison in 1986, when she was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. It had always been an honor to serve her, and she named me the godfather of her children when they were baptized. In 1990, I went to Peru to search for her and helped the children who were still young. I returned again in 1992 to see the children. I was joined by Dave MacMichael, ex-CIA in Nicaragua.

Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path") is not the "champion of the people" some ignorant opportunist groups such as the RCP would have us believe. Sendero wants violence, just like the fascist elements in the military who disappeared Guadalupe. Peru is full of non-violent resistance, and many like Guadalupe suffer the ultimate fate at the hands of either the military or Sendero (the military kills about twice as many people as Sendero).

None of us know what we would do given certain situations of repression until we are in it. Guadalupe always dreamed of peace and life for her children. She chose a non-violent way in the face of horrible violence. I hope that her non-violence fell somewhere. We always shared and encouraged each other towards non-violence, but she did it much better than I did.

I returned again to Peru to visit my godchildren who were adjusting to their new life in Lima and being cared for by Guadalupe's oldest sister. In 1993 the UN truth commission published their report on the disappearance of Guadalupe and concluded that the Peruvian military had violated the human rights of this activist and asked the Peru government to seek justice. Under Fugimore, the new president of Peru, nothing has been done about the case. Fugimore had dis banded the congress and has now been re-elected for five more years. He is a dictator and totally in control of the military. Now that Sendero Luminoso is all but eradicated, Fugimore has granted amnesty to all military personnel who were or could be responsible for human rights abuses from 1980 to the present. During my most recent visit to Peru in 1995 a war broke out between Ecuador and Peru over border land. Peru is not going to get any better for Quechua Indian people and it would seem that elements of the military would just as soon see the Indians die. In most of the Indian regions there remains political-military command. We can't let this evil continue.