Published at: 12/08/2026 03:27 PM

EDMUNDO GONZALEZ URRUTIA

AND THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE TEACHER'S VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

CECILIA NÚÑEZ CHIPANA

(El Nacional, August 9, 1998)

• In February 1998, Cecilia Núñez Chipana, a Peruvian teacher living in Venezuela, as a politically persecuted member of the Alberto Fujimori government, was arrested by agents of the General Sectorial Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP) while she was teaching in a school in Caracas.
• From there, Núñez Chipana was taken to the headquarters of the DISIP and for 85 days she stayed in a very narrow, unventilated cell, which had 32 lights permanently on that maintained a suffocating temperature.
• During that time, she was prevented from going out to sunbathe or at any time of the day, and was frequently threatened with death and subjected to torture.
• Edmundo González Urrutia, then Policy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in open violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the system that governs the right to political asylum, said: “The State does not have to explain this case or extradition.” Thus authorizing the methods of torture and the subsequent extradition to which teacher Núñez Chipana was subjected.
• González Urrutia's decision, regardless of the law, violated the Principle of Non-Refoulement, which absolutely prohibits states from returning anyone to a country where there are well-founded reasons that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture and death.
• Consequently, on April 3, 1998, the Venezuelan State was, for the first time, charged before the United Nations Committee against Torture for violating Article 3 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment.
• Subsequently, the United Nations Committee Against Torture adopted an interim (precautionary) measure in which it demanded that the Venezuelan State: “Abstain from expelling or extraditing Mrs. Núñez Chipana to Peru while the communication is being considered by the Committee.”
• However, on July 7, 1998, González Urrutia, in disregard of the provisional measure and in contravention of the International Treaties governing the matter signed by Venezuela, authorized the illegal and unconstitutional extradition of teacher Núñez Chipana, supporting the illegal request of a foreign government, based on a ruling issued by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), which put the life of the Peruvian teacher at risk.
• Thanks to the statement of the Director General of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, teacher Núñez Chipana, with no criminal record inside or outside her country, for the crime of politically dissenting from the existing dictatorship in Peru, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a maximum security prison.
• There were well-founded reasons not to extradite her and to believe that González Urrutia's decision violated the requested right to political asylum:
  • During the decade 1990-2000, Fujimori established in his government the death squad known as the Colina Group, responsible for carrying out the Barrios Altos massacre in November 1991 and the La Cantuta massacre in July 1992, where dozens of people were killed.
  • Professor Núñez Chipana was on the blacklist of dissidents to that de facto government who should be captured and subject to the sentencing of these Fujimorista squads.
  • On April 5, 1992, Fujimori, with the support of death squads and some gorilla officers from the Peruvian Armed Forces, adopted the Green Plan and carried out a coup d'etat, dissolving all public powers to become a de facto dictator.
  • Following the dissolution of the National Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice of Peru, arbitrary arrests, searches without a court order, forced disappearances, selective assassinations and massacres of left-wing individuals and groups began. Indigenous communities in Peru had to migrate to remote areas, victims of political persecution, and their women were captured and subjected to forced sterilization.

Mazo News Team