Abstract

Como tratar os Índios? Durante a primeira metade do Século 20, com a ascensão do indigenismo e sob a influência das ideias positivistas, esta antiga questão colonial reapareceu na América Latina no campo da legislação criminal. Uma grande parte do debate sobre o status legal dos criminosos indígenas girava em torno de quem exatamente seria o Índio que mereceria ou precisaria de um tratamento penal especial. Esta questão será examinada aqui, principalmente no contexto do Peru, onde o Código Penal de 1924 introduziu novas categorias legais de criminosos Indígenas, e também em duas propostas legislativas Bolivianas que procuraram adaptar a legislação criminal à “realidade Indígena” do seu país. As maneiras como estas categorias criminais foram interpretadas pelas cortes Peruanas, e reformuladas por diversas propostas legislativas Peruanas e Bolivianas, redesenharam as fronteiras interiores destas nações, e implicitamente redefiniram o termo “índio” em si mesmo. No contexto Peruano, elas também refletiram as mudanças do Indigenismo durante os anos 1920/1940.

Highlights

  • On April 1940, Zacarías Asencio and Ezequiel Rivera were sentenced by the Criminal Court of Puno (Peru) to ten and nine years in prison, respectively, for the murder of a man whom they considered insane

  • How to treat the Indians? During the first half of the 20th century, with the rise of the indigenismo and under the influence of positivist ideas, this old colonial question reappeared in Latin America in the field of criminal law

  • The ways by which these criminal categories were interpreted by Peruvian courts and reformulated by various Peruvian and Bolivian legislative proposals, reshaped internal boundaries within these nations, and implicitly redefined the term “Indian” itself

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Summary

Introduction

On April 1940, Zacarías Asencio and Ezequiel Rivera were sentenced by the Criminal Court of Puno (Peru) to ten and nine years in prison, respectively, for the murder of a man whom they considered insane. The criminal act committed by the Espinoza brothers was not related to social conflicts between Indians and non-Indians, neither to customs, beliefs or cultural practices that could be considered “Indian” or “indigenous.” in its verdict of September 1925, the court in Cuzco referred to the essence of the crime and to the nature of its perpetrators, who were described as “illiterate, semi-civilized Indians, with absolutely no sense of culture.” This classification of the defendants under the provisions of article 45 enabled the court to reduce their prison sentences significantly and for two of them, that reduction resulted in an immediate release from jail.. El Mito del Socialismo Indígena en Mariátegui, Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1999, p

30. On “the two Perus” see also
48. For Jiménez de Asúa’s biography and vast influence in Latin America see
Findings
Conclusion

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