The week in Peru

Former candidate for the Peruvian presidency, Lourdes Flores, has criticised proposed legislation dealing with negacionismo, i.e. the denial or playing down of terrorism. In a radio interview, she said she did not think the law would be effective and that it would restrict freedom of expression. If passed, the law could lead to jail sentences for those minimising Peru’s internal conflict and in particular the violent acts committed by the Shining Path. This is the latest in a chorus of voices doubting the wisdom of the legislation.

Flores Criticizes Legislation To Criminalize Downplaying Terrorism (Peruvian Times)

Two contrasting tendencies can be observed during Peru’s recent commemorative activities. One of them is the attempts by fujimoristas to discredit the country’s truth commission report. One manifestation of this is claims that “Comrade William”, the Shining Path leader recently killed in the VRAEM, featured on a list of missing persons compiled by the CVR. The government counters that this was not the case, and also that “William” was originally incorrectly identified as Rolando Cabezas. But Fujimori supporters will seize on any shred of doubt to undermine the report as it deals extensively with the incidents for which Alberto Fujimori was jailed (Barrios Altos, La Cantuta and the abductions of Samuel Dyer and Gustavo Gorriti). Ex-head of the CVR, Salomon Lerner Febres, has rebuffed the criticism and called demands for the report to be revised “short-sighted”.

“I would ask how many of those asking for the review of the [report] have read the report by the commission?” Lerner Febres said. “No one from the commission pretended to have the absolute truth, we said that from the beginning,” he added. “If one would take the time to read it, it is an open truth, perfectible, where there could be some things that have to be further sharpened, but the broader question is a moral truth.”

FormerTruth Commission Head Defends Final Report On Peru’s Internal Conflict (Peruvian Times)

By contrast, the 20^th anniversary of the capture of Abimael Guzmán seems to have been the focus for a general effort to rehabilitate the members of the GEIN involved in the operation. It has long been generally accepted that instead of heaping rewards on the police intelligence unit following their spectacular arrest, Fujimori quickly split up the team and attempted to brush their role under the carpet. Now, some of the members are to support counter-terrorism activities in the VRAEM.

Ex-Membersof Police Intelligence Unit to Work On Shining Path Remnants (Peruvian Times)

Ex agentes delGEIN reforzarán inteligencia para acabar con SL (La Republica)

La Republica has also done a couple of rather nice "Where are they now?" type stories about the members of the GEIN. Of course, the fact that two of them fell in love while staking out Guzmán's house is good for the human interest angle.

¿Qué pasó con los cazadores? (La Republica)
La historia secreta de ‘Ardilla’ y ‘Gaviota’; los primeros agentes del GEIN que capturaron a Abimael (La Republica)

Peru round-up

And so it goes on:

“...battles over memory are not won by punishment and bullets, but by arguments, offering specific testimonies, communicating the pain of the widows and orphans, transmitting the impotence of the wounded and the women who were raped, and above all, ensuring that the victims obtain justice.”

The Peruvian Times summarises coverage of the proposed law against negacionismo in English
Executive Sends Bill To Congress To Create Prison Terms For Downplaying Terrorism

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas draws attention to the confiscation of a magazine alleged to support Sendero Luminoso
Peruvian authorities confiscate copies of magazine accused of supporting armed group Shining Path

IPS discusses the slow pace of identification of victims of the conflict
Peru Identifies Civil War Victims – at Snail’s Pace

Finally, Silvio Rendon discusses flaws in the TRC's methodology for counting the number of victims and argues that the true number was far lower than estimated. His detailed analysis can be read in Spanish on his blog, here, or downloaded in full in English from here. (Incidentally, the number of victims in a situation like this is often contentious and difficult to determine, as I discussed with reference to Argentina some time ago, here.

Peru: The sound of the disappeared

This is a translation of a comment piece in La Republica by Jorge Bruce, which I felt it was worthwhile putting here:

Many of the misunderstandings that have plagued us in recent times are linked to our inability to process the terrible truths told in the report of the TRC, which was submitted nine years ago. These include the growth of MOVADEF and its unsettling amnesia, and the decision of the court led by Villa Stein to remove the character of crimes against humanity for the atrocities of the Colina group, and indeed the disgrace of the Peruvian State before the CIDH, which all come from the same reluctance to accept the complexity of what happened during two decades of devastating violence.

No one who has read the report or at least the summary of it, and done so in good faith, can doubt the historical importance of this document and its obvious room for improvement (is there any interpretive text which cannot be improved?). However, after reading it, it is impossible to ignore the deep and ancient social fractures that allowed the timing and extent of these violations against the most vulnerable people in our country. Or rather, it should be impossible, but the negacionismo [denial], to use a term in vogue, attacks from different ideological extremes.

I was present that day in 2003, at the Government Palace, listening to the words of Salomón Lerner, who gave that historic document to the nation. Several years later I had the privilege of meeting several women in the region of Huamanga and Huanta, relatives of disappeared people. The point is that these people are still waiting, until today, for news of the remains of their loved ones. The perpetrators of these crimes were Sendero, the Armed Forces or the rondas [peasant patrols], I was told. In none of them did I notice a grudge against anyone in particular, just an unquenchable desire to know and be able to achieve closure for this pain that never stops. We're talking about disappearances over twenty years ago, in many of these stories. In fact, several of those relatives have now died.

August 30 was the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. After more than a decade devoted to clarifying cases of enforced disappearances in our country, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) reminds us that there are more than 15,000 victims of this crime. That after three regimes, very little progress has been made "with respect to truth, justice and reparations for survivors of violence and the families of the victims." This is the most blatant proof that there is a stubborn desire not to know, because that would force us to accept the obscene inequality which our social contract is based on.

While the disappeared are members of the lower "castes", political noise is very faint and there are many interested in seeing that this remains so. This is the basis of a privilege system that interfaces with situations as seemingly remote as the imposition of mining concessions in the face of regional opinion or low wages (cholo barato). Where racism functions as a vital support. However, there are laws such as that against negacionismo which will enable us to confront these unsettling truths. Until there is a critical mass of informed citizens, able to discuss things instead of attacking, willing to tolerate the existence of complex and even contradictory truths, we will continue to be seduced by economic growth indicators, ignoring the bones of corpses on which we build our fragile prosperity.

Here's the original again: El ruido de los desaparecidos (La Republica)