News stories by Milagros Salazar, page 6

Sufficient evidence was presented to sentence the members of the Peruvian army responsible for the killings of 12 women, men, children and elderly persons from two highlands villages in Peru. But after a 24-year wait for justice, a court acquitted the defendants this week.

Four months after Peru's worst toxic spill of mining waste, workers at the Caudalosa mine are demanding that it be reopened, while local communities want more cleanup of the rivers they depend on for water supplies.

With one death and several injured to show for it, two regions in southern Peru remain tangled in conflict over water from one of the country's main rivers. A project would divert some of the river's flow from the Cuzco region to neighbouring Arequipa.

Women in Latin America have broken down barriers in education, and in several countries have more years of education than men. But the task now is to make sure that education reduces, rather than fuels, inequality between men and women.

In southeastern Peru, a message is circulating that has left some dubious, and others hopeful: 'The Inambari hydroelectric dam will end illegal mining and coca crops, and bring development and jobs.'

Human rights groups welcomed the revocation by the Peruvian Congress of a law that created a statute of limitations in human rights cases, which had sparked a flurry of criticism from home and abroad.

For 26 years, Gregoria Aguilar has been mourning the loss of her son, son-in-law and nephew, who were killed in the biggest massacre committed by the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas in Peru's highlands.

Peruvian President Alan García confirmed Wednesday that the permit of the U.S. mining and metallurgical company Doe Run to operate a major smelter complex was being cancelled because the firm missed the deadline for proving that it had the necessary financing to restart operations and complete an environmental cleanup.

Fifty-three percent of Peru is covered with native rainforest, but the agencies in charge of protecting and monitoring this vast area are toothless and have neither the staff nor the resources to cope with the job, according to a report from the Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsperson's Office).

Pluspetrol's Jun. 19 petroleum spill has left the Marañón River, in the Peruvian Amazon, with oil and grease levels thousands of times greater than the maximum allowed for human consumption, affecting more than 4,000 local residents.