Butcher of the Andes

Reports and anonymous sources give this account: Authorities entered the place based on the 11-year-old warrant for Esperanza's arrest. Samuel initially lied, telling agents Telmo lived elsewhere. When they discovered the killer hiding in the bathroom, Samuel claimed it wasn't his brother. Then he attempted to block the search for Telmo's passport and was handcuffed. Soon they were all in custody.

Cirila Pulido Baldeón was 12 years old the day of the Accomarca massacre. Her family lived apart from the home where the killings took place. But Cirila recalls seeing her 29-year-old mother, Fortuna Baldeón Gutiérrez, wrap eight-month-old Edgar in a blanket, much like Teófila's mother, Silvestra, had swaddled her baby. Then they set off to visit family in the valley. Cirila's father was there too. He would, however, escape the bullets and fire by playing dead, says Cirila, who is now 34 years old and lives near Teófila Ochoa, now age 35, in Lima's outskirts. (The women are friends and work as maids.)

Cirila, Teófila, and her grandfather were among 20 survivors who returned to the scene after the killings to bury the victims. They sorted through the remains of loved ones and neighbors that were unidentifiable. "Their faces were gone," Cirila says. "There was nothing left to recognize them." Campesinos dug two big holes, buried the remains, and scurried back to their hiding places.

Last month a San Francisco human rights group, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), sued Telmo Hurtado on behalf of Cirila and Teófila. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami accuses him of torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It seeks monetary damages for suffering. (CJA also sued the other Accomarca patrol leader, Rivera Rondón, who was recently picked up in Maryland.)

Almudena Bernabeu is a 35-year-old, dark-haired, Spanish-born attorney for CJA who stands a head taller than her indigenous clients. She hopes to win some sort of reparations for the survivors. Bernabeu began investigating the Accomarca case in mid-2006 on a tip from a retired U.S. government employee whom she declined to name. The employee knew Hurtado was in Florida and that he was a "bad guy," she says.

Bernabeu's allegiance to war survivors is steeped in family history. Her grandfathers were held by government troops during the Spanish Civil War — one spent three decades in and out of custody. She believes neither the United States nor Peru has much interest in pursuing Telmo Hurtado. Why? First, the massacre came to light during Peruvian President Alan García's first term. Unearthing the mess could harm him politically.

Second, the U.S. government supported Peru during its civil war. Our government's payments to the Peruvian military ballooned from $8.7 million in 1989 to $168.8 million in 1992, according to an analysis by journalist Roger Atwood. Prosecuting Hurtado could tarnish relations with an old friend. "The U.S. is not going to be picky after these conflicts because, for the most part, it supported the action," Bernabeu says.

Like Bernabeu, Peruvian lawyer Karim Ninaquispe Gil wants Hurtado to pay for his crimes. A lawyer for the Peruvian human rights group ADEHR, the 30-year-old represents survivors of Accomarca. She has been threatened with death for trying to enforce an extradition order issued by a Peruvian court in 2006. "One of the ways to ensure that this never happens again [is to force] Telmo Hurtado and the others that participated in this massacre to pay their debt to Peruvian justice," Ninaquispe says. "I can't live with the injustice or be a silent accomplice in a society that turns the page like nothing ever happened."

Dr. Salomón Lerner Febres chaired Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and now heads the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He wants to see Hurtado in Peru "to face a penalty that conforms to the magnitude of the crime, the number of victims, and the cruelty they faced.... This was a person who, instead of killing people, should have been taking care of them."

Teófila and Cirila — the survivors who have sued in U.S. court — vow to never give up fighting for justice for their families. From the home where she lives with her husband and three sons, Teófila says, "The truth can take awhile, but eventually it will come out."