Peru’s president downplayed army massacres of peasants in 1988

Evidence

[Guzmán] called for a new stage in the struggle. “Our process of the people’s war has led us towards the apex,” he claimed, adding: “We have to prepare for insurrection, which will be the taking of the cities.” In May the discovery of five bodies in an unmarked grave confirmed the reported massacre by soldiers of 28 peasants in Cayará, but President Alan García, who had initially been critical of such excesses, indirectly defended the armed forces, who had been increasingly insistent that he should do so. (Annual Register 1988, 80-81) At the same time, the rival Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement was battling the Peruvian army in the mountains. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 36

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 36