MIAMI – Two women who as children survived a 1985 massacre of 69 people by Peruvian army units are suing two former commanders for war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity and illegal killings.

Lawsuits filed last week in federal courts in Miami and Greenbelt, Md., seek an unspecified amount of damages from Telmo Ricardo Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondon, who led Peruvian army units during what became known as the Accomarca Massacre.

“Hurtado and Rivera Rondon have both evaded justice for too long and must be held accountable for the atrocities they committed against the civilian population in Peru,” said Pamela Merchant, executive director of the Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights group representing the plaintiffs in the case.

The lawsuits were filed by Teofila Ochoa and Cirila Pulido, who were both 12 at the time of the massacre and survived by hiding from soldiers. Ochoa’s mother, four brothers and a sister were slain; Pulido’s mother and brother died.

The Aug. 14, 1985, massacre happened in the midst of a civil war in Peru between the government and the Shining Path guerrilla group that killed more than 26,000 people.

According to court documents, Rondon’s unit blocked an escape route in a village in the Andean highlands while Hurtado’s men searched from house to house. Many women and girls were raped.

Ultimately, dozens of people were forced into two buildings and Hurtado’s soldiers opened fire on them, according to the lawsuit.

Hurtado, who came to the U.S. in 2002, is serving a six-month sentence in a Miami federal prison for lying to U.S. officials to obtain a visa. Rondon, who has lived in Montgomery County, Md., since the early 1990s, is being held on immigration charges in Cambridge, Md.

Neither man had obtained a lawyer by Wednesday to represent them in the lawsuits, which were filed under the U.S. Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victim Protection Act. The plaintiffs live in Peru; their lawyers say the cases were filed in the U.S. because there is not an adequate alternative judicial forum in Peru.

Hurtado was convicted in 1993 in Peru on charges of abusing his authority and lying about his role in the massacre. He was sentenced to six years in military prison and fined, but was granted amnesty in 1995. Hurtado came to the U.S. after the amnesty was revoked in 2002.

In a statement provided by her lawyers, Ochoa said she hopes “the truth is told about what happened.”

“I want to make sure that nobody, no other child suffers what I had to suffer,” she said.

On the Net:

Center for Justice & Accountability: http://www.cja.org

A service of the Associated Press(AP)