Peruvian mobs lynched officials accused of corruption as routine extra-legal control.

Evidence

In April 2004, a furious mob lynched Cirilo Robles, the major of Ilave, Puno, who was accused of corruption. Another government official was seriously injured. During the same month, men armed with planks, machetes, and other weapons attacked townspeople in Lagunas, on the Peruvian Amazon, injuring more than forty, some seriously. The townspeople had surrounded the town hall to prevent the mayor from evading an accounting audit. (Human Rights Watch 2005, 230) Elsewhere, discharged military officers took hostages to demand Toledo’s resignation, highland farmers attacked American-owned gold mines, and opposition politicians staged street protests to publicize their causes. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1300

Categorization

• SHARE: The Lagunas detail — townspeople surrounding the town hall to force a mayor into an accounting audit — is a vivid, specific justice-from-below case worth sending to anyone working on informal accountability or police-averse communities.
• XREF: Direct material for the reader’s test: this is contention in a weak-absorption regime — citizens bypassing formal institutions because prosecution is slow and hesitant. — connects to: Mafia leaders justified their role as legitimate social arbiters — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 976
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1300

Broader Connections

• Mafia leaders justified their role as legitimate social arbiters #complicates (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 976