The acts

At midnight, May 1, 1992, some of the villagers of La Huaca, Santa were still celebrating May Day and others were exhausted and sleeping, having taken place in the May Day feasts. The noise from radios and the voices of the villagers mixed in the celebration. However, two trucks and two cars without license plates interrupted the celebration.

Some of those who were present said that the vehicles were “similar to military cars.” From the vehicles, which had flashing lights like those used by the police, descended about fifteen unknown people who wore ski masks, black sweatshirts, olive green pants, and boots, and who were armed with automatic rifles.

According to the villagers, in the early morning hours of May 2, 1992, various subjects carrying arms, including a woman, broke into various houses of the shanty towns of La Huaca, Javier Heraud, and San Carlos, in that order. The troops, after searching the houses, marched nine people out of their houses, brutally beat them, and forced them to get in the vehicles which were driven to an unknown destination. Before leaving the kidnappers threatened the family members of the disappeared, telling them not to go to the police. Finally, they painted Shining Path graffiti.

The family members
Shortly later, the family members went to the police station to denounce the kidnapping. The police, in turn, refused to accept the accusation and directed the family members to Chimbote, but troops from the Navy blocked the Coishco Tunnel and did not allow the family members go to Chimbote. All of these obstacles led the family members to think that the police and the navy were covering the retreat of the kidnappers.

Other versions state that the family members led a trip to Trujillo and made an accusation before the Public Ministry, but the prosecutor didn’t act until more than 22 days since the kidnapping had passed. Furthermore, they claimed that the accusations were met with indifference on the page of the National Police and the Prosecutor’s Office.

Grupo Colina
In Santa there was a company named Molinera San Dionisio, located in San Dionisio between Santa and Tambo Real. The company was owned by the Fung family.

At the end of 1991, in different parts of Sante, there was a mobilization called “The Campesina March,” in which members of the Landless Campesinos movement took part. They protested against the abuses of factory owners and asked for them to surrender a parcel of their land to those who did not own any. In one of these mobilizations there was an incident between Jaime Fung, son of the owner, who, upon seeing the march, pointed his gun at one of the Noriega Ríos brothers who were leading the march. Later he confronted the campesinos and threatened them, warning "se van a joder conmigo porque no saben con quien están" ("you’re going to fuck with me because you don’t know who I am.")

On March 29, 1991, there was a fire in the San Dionisio Company which was caused by an attack by 30 subversives. The fire caused great material damage. In accordance with some versions, Jorge Fung was a friend of Nicolás de Bari, the Commander General of the Army, who Fung asked for help. In the meeting between Fung and Nicolás de Bari, Santiago Martin Rivas, who had summonsed the chiefs of the sub-units of the "Colina Detachment," was also present.

The first intervention was made in La Huaca, at approximately 12:30 at night. At the end of the kidnappings, Martin Rivas left the area together with Julio Chuqui Aguirre and Gabriel Vera Navarrete. Before leaving for Trujillo, he charged Carlos Pichilingüe with “finishing the job,” which is to say eliminating and disappearing the victims.

At midday on May 2, the rest of the members met in Trujillo in the house of Martin Rivas to “celebrate” the crime drinking liquor, like they did when they murdered the people present at the chicken barbeque en Barrios Altos on November 3, 1991. At that time, they had chosen to go to La Tiza Beach, where they also celebrated the birthday of Rivas and the Start of criminal operations under the name of Grupo Colina.

The most important revelations about the merciless disappearance and murder of the citizens of Santa were brought forward be some of the members of the Colina detachment who were detained in the last two years. One revelation that stands out is that Maribel Barrientos, witness and family member of one of the victims, recognized Martin Rivas as the subject that held him down on the floor while his brothers were brutally moved.

The investigation
The day of the capture doctor Julio Farro Soberón of the Second Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Santa attended the denouncement of the victim’s family members against the Santa Police and the commander of the naval base. It was in this was that the investigation found that the aggrieved were Jesús Noriega Ríos, Roberto Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Alberto Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Tarazona More, Jorge Tarazona More, Denis Castillo Chávez, Gílmer León Velásquez y Pedro López González.

The declarations that accused Major Percy del Carpio and Sub-Officer Juan Andrés Molina mentioned a "list" with the names of various people, including those where were kidnapped, were not attended to by the provincial prosecutor, Farro Soberón, who decided not to bring an indictment. Likewise, he arraigned that the accusations be reviewed by the Superior Prosecutor of the Tenth Judicial District of Ancash, who held that they were “unsubstantiated” without any legal foundation.

On August 31, 1995, the Fourth Mixed Provincial Prosecutor’s Office decided to permanently archive the investigation in accordance with amnesty laws Nº 26479 and 26492, which were for the members of the military and the police who committed acts that violated human rights. However, in this decision it was affirmed that "it has been determined that the presumed authors of the criminal act were soldiers and members of the National Police of Peru."

It was during the transition government of Valentín Paniagua when the investigation was reopened. On July 23, 2001 APRODEH presented an accusation before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office Specializing in Human Rights, created to investigate the violations of human rights during the Fujimori-Montesinos dictatorship and led by prosecutor Richard Saavedra. This is how the search for the disappeared and the investigation of those responsible began once again.

On January 3, 2003, the Provincial Prosecutor Ana Cecilia Magallanes, taking note of the sentence of March 14, 2003 of the Inter-American Court, formulated the criminal accusation against the presumed authors of the disappearances. The CIDH considered the case in the light of the existence of a policy of disappearances between 1980 and 1993, to have been “ordered or tolerated by authorities in the public sector… who made the recourse of Habeas Corpus completely ineffective.” In accordance with this premise, the case conforms to the exception contemplated in Article 46, Clause 2 of the Convention, and therefore its archiving was admissible. According to that clause, the requisite exhaustion of internal recourses within the domestic jurisdiction is not applicable while "there does not exist, within the internal legislation of the state, due legal process for the protection of the violated right or rights."

Currently, the case is found bundled with the Barrios Altos, Cantuta, and Pedro Yauri cases in the open trial against Grupo Colina which is in the trial stage.