Jailed Peruvian uprising leader released

Antauro Humala’s release follows surprise reduction of 19-year sentence, and his lawyer hints at a political return.

A former Peruvian military officer who led a failed 2005 uprising has been released from prison, following a surprise announcement that his 19-year sentence had been reduced.

A lawyer for Antauro Humala, the leader of Peru’s Ethnocacerist nationalist movement, which seeks to put the country’s disenfranchised Indigenous peoples in power, quickly hinted at a return to politics upon the release on Saturday.

Speaking to supporters who chanted “President Antauro”, he praised the 2005 uprising, in which he and his supporters attacked a police station in the Andean city of Andahuaylas in an attempt to force the resignation of then-President Alejandro Toledo. Six people, including four police officers, were killed in a days-long standoff at the station.

“Now we are obviously outside and I can tell you that we all feel very proud of what we did in [our rebellion in] Andahuaylas,” said Humala.

Antauro Humala and his brother, Ollanta Humala, also led a smaller rebellion in 2000 against then-President Alberto Fujimori, who was later convicted of ordering massacres during Peru’s two-decade civil war.

Ollanta Humala went on to become Peru’s president from 2011 to 2016, but governed as a centrist at odds with his brother’s ideology and repeatedly refused to pardon him.

Humala’s Ethnocacerist movement combines obeisance to the ancient Inca empire with an anti-colonial movement, but has been accused of having xenophobic and totalitarian aims.

As a candidate, current left-wing President Pedro Castillo had spoken positively of Humala and raised the possibility of pardoning him but fell silent on the subject after taking office in 2021.

Agencies