Recent estimates of missing and disappeared persons resulting from the period of internal violence from 1982-2000 in Peru is over 13,000, yet evidence of new victims continues to surface. The 2003 Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated the number of victims of enforced disappearances to be 11,319.  Evidence of more victims continues to surface.  

The proposed program: The Canines Searching for the Truth (CST) activity focuses on the use highly trained human remains detection dogs to locate human remains at clandestine burial sites in Peru to support forensic investigations linked to human rights violations. Currently, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) has an urgent need to employ a canine team to help locate up to 200 clandestine burial sites at the Peruvian Army garrison of Los Cabitos in the city of Huamanga, Department of Ayacucho.  This base was the site of enforced disappearances of at least 500 persons between 1982 and 1992.  Evidence already collected has confirmed the remains of fifteen people found buried on the base and approximately 300 persons’ remains which were burned in a crematorium constructed on the military base.  There are a remaining 200 victims of human right abuses who have not been found but are presumed to be buried somewhere on the 17 acre army garrison.   The Government of Peru is mandated to conduct forensic investigations; however, during the last two exhumation seasons, the Institute for Legal Medicine did not recover any remains using traditional techniques and the government has decided not to invest anymore into the Los Cabitos’ field investigations. The urgency in recovering the remains from these human rights abuses that occurred over 20 years ago is that the State prosecutor must file suit for the Los Cabitos cases of enforced disappearances by November, 2007.   

EPAF wants to conduct an intensive, two week search for the remains of up to 200 victims before the November deadline.  The Institute for Legal Medicine forensic teams have attempted traditional methods for locating the remains on a flat area the size of about 13 American football playing fields and with no surface features to help detect gravesites, without success.  Encouraging scientific breakthroughs using dogs to locate ancient and more recent human remains appear to be the only technique available to conduct a successful search during the dwindling time period.  

About the organization: The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense - EPAF), founded in 1997, is a non-profit civil society organization based in Lima, Peru. EPAF applies forensic anthropology in the search for forcibly disappeared persons during the period of Peru’s internal political conflict from 1982 to 2000. This expertise is accessed through participation in legal procedures as defense or expert witnesses and as field experts conducting exhumations of physical remains. EPAF is a member of the National Coordinator for Human Rights (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos) and provides forensic expertise to other organizations such as the Association for Human Rights (APRODEH), the Episcopal Commission for Social Action (CEAS), and the Peruvian National Association of Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared Family Members (ANFASEP), and the Peruvian Government Attorney General’s Office of Prosecution and the Judiciary, among others.  

You can help: All donations will be used to fly the dogs and handlers to Peru. Please consider making a donation. Please contact Carola Mandelbaum at 202-772-2106 for more information.
________________________________________________

Photo: EPAF investigation (Photo courtesy of EPAF)