German president in Peru

German president Joachim Gauck was visiting Peru, although his visit was cut short by news of the plane crash in France. With that in mind, I've been reading some of the German media coverage. Below is my translation of an article from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on memory of the Peruvian conflict.

An empty place of memory

Peru has set up a place of memory for the victims of terrorism with German help – but powerful people are still struggling with the past. 

There is a memorial at the gate of the presidential palace on the Plaza Mayor in the heart of the Peruvian capital, Lima. It is a marble obelisk about four meters high on a black base. Then-president Alan García inaugurated it in May 2009. It is dedicated to the “4,357 defenders of the fatherland and democracy” who became “victims of terrorist crimes” – members of the armed forces and the police, politicians and officials. Every day around lunchtime, the colourful changing of the guards takes place in the space in front of the neo-baroque state building. 

The obelisk for the victims of terrorism is to a certain extent part of a ceremony which the Republic of Peru uses each day to reiterate its history –from independence won in 1821 from its Spanish colonial masters through to the stable and flourishing democracy of the present. The memorial in front of the presidential palace does, admittedly, not do justice to the painful era of terrorism from 1980 to 2000. In the years of the terror caused by the Maoist guerrillas of the Shining Path and the MRTA, it was not just the 4,357 military and state officials who lost their lives. Most of the about 70,000 victims of the bloody conflict between the leftist terror groups and the Peruvian armed forces were civilians, and the mother tongue of three quarters of these civilian victims was the indigenous language Quechua. 

Unlike the 4,357 victims of terror from the security forces and authorities, the much larger number of murdered and disappeared people from the mostly indigenous civilian population do not have a national monument, unless you count the various documentation and memory centres that have been set up in the particularly affected Andean region of the South by victims’ associations. Yet this gap in the national healing process of the now-secure Peruvian democracy could have been closed long ago. 

The impressive building of the “Lugar de la Memoria” (place of memory) has been ready for use in the district of Miraflores for nine months now and is waiting to be filled with content and life. Germany contributed EUR 4.5 million to the construction of the memorial, with Sweden also helping. But the design of the planned permanent exhibition is still politically highly controversial. Concepts developed by independent experts which are supposed to explain the crimes committed and experienced by both sides equally, have become bogged down in the bureaucracy of the ministries. 

There are a lot of indications that president Ollanta Humala, in office since July 2011, wants to have his say in how Peru will present its recent, bloody history in the national place of memory. After all, Humala is a former army office and in 1992 he was stationed at the Madre Mía base near Pacayacu in the Andes, from where soldiers are said to have committed human rights violations during actions against the civilian population, which was supposedly linked to the Shining Path. Former president Alan García, whose first term in office from 1985 to 1990 saw notorious massacres of the indigenous population by the armed forces, is also said to be doing his best to torpedo the exhibition plans. 

The visit of German president Joachim Gauck comes during this sustained phase of sometimes heated national debate. It is the first time a German president has visited Peru since 1964. On Saturday, Gauck opened a temporary exhibition on the history of the conflict from 1980 to 2000 in the presence of Nobel prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa, who has provided considerable support to the Lugar de la Memoria project in his role as intellectual mentor. “Germany has been a role model for overcoming the rule of violence by being open about it instead of hiding it,” said Vargas Llosa with a view to the situation since the reunification of Germany in 1990.

Certainly, the display boards put up for Gauck's visit and the museum opening were not able to fill the exhibition rooms - in terms of space or content. In the museum auditorium, Gauck made an almost imploring speech on the subject of "No future without the past" to the overwhelmingly young audience. As he did during his visit to Colombia in 2013, Gauck offered Peru Germany's help in working through the trauma of a period of history characterized by violence and injustice. The desire to repress the past and "look forward" is understandable, said Gauck, but what is buried will resurface, at the latest in the next generation. "A nation does not lose itself when it admits its guilt," said the German president. 

The leftist terror, as well as the retaliatory terror of the army and police, were primarily directed at the Andean region of Ayacucho in the south of the country. In the capital, Lima, on the Pacific coast, terrorism made itself felt with occasional bomb and other attacks, but it did not come to the “war of liberation” in the cities which the student sympathisers of the guerrillas hoped and worked for. In June and September 1992, the Peruvian security forces achieved two decisive strikes against the terrorists when they captured Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, and Víctor Polay Campos, leader of the MRTA. It would take another eight years for the era of terror to come to an end in 2000. Guzmán and Polay Campos are now 80 and 63 years old, respectively. They have been sentenced to long prison terms and are both held in the high-security jail at Callao, in the port region of Lima – incidentally, the same prison where the notorious former secret service chief Vladimiro Montesinos is also held. He was responsible for many massacres committed by the State and ultimately toppled due to his connections to drug cartels and widespread bribing of politicians, military officials and the media. 

The independent truth and reconciliation commission was founded in 2001. Its exemplary work, including listening to about 16,000 witnesses, is regarded as a milestone in Peru’s process of dealing with its past. The commission found that 54% of the victims were killed by the Shining Path, while the Peruvian military and paramilitary groups were responsible for 42%. 

Victims become gracious when perpetrators admit their guilt, said Gauck during his speech at the opening of the museum. He also stressed this belief during his private conversations with president Ollanta Humala. Whether his advice was taken on board remains to be seen, not least in the Lugar de la Memoria. The consensus about dealing with the past in Peru was stable enough to build a place of memory, but so far, it has not been strong enough to fill it. 
  
Ein leerer Ort der Erinnerung (FAZ.net)

Peru: Cipriani calls for Fujimori pardon

Peruvian cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani has given an interview to paper Correo in which he says that "the time is ripe" for former president Fujimori to be pardoned. 

I think that the division created by terrorism will not be closed while there is not a dimension of reconcilation and forgiveness. I think it will be difficult for Peru to regain its unity while we do not venture [to seek] reconciliation, forgiveness and mercy. I'm not just talking about the case of president Fujimori. [...] I think that the pardon is mature enough to take a decision. It's a benefit which is in the hands of the President when certain circumstances make it appropriate to pardon a certain person. [...] We are still living in a climate of hate, vengeance and disqualifications which is not reasonable.

Here's the whole interview:
Cardenal Cipriani sobre indulto a Fujimori: "No nos escondamos en el médico o la ministra" (Correo)

Of course, we wouldn't expect much else from Cipriani - who was also opposed to the truth and reconciliation commission. He sits on the fairly extreme end of the spectrum of church officials, according to whom anyone complaining about human rights terrorists is either a) a terrorist b) baying for revenge, or more probably c) both. Nevertheless, it's disappointing that a public figure displays such little understanding of justice and such a lack of compassion for the families of Fujimori's victims.

Chile: Church Calls for Amnesty

Chile's bishops' conference is calling for an amnesty which could affect some members of the military imprisoned for Pinochet-era crimes. They describe this as a "humanitarian act which will contribute to reconciliation".

According to the BBC, the Catholic Church in Chile is suggesting that "any members of the country's military who show repentance for the crimes they committed under military rule" should be pardoned, but AP specifies that "the church's proposed amnesty would apply to prisoners who are sick or older than 70 or those who have served half their sentence". The prospective amnesty is in fact not exclusively for or limited to military criminals, but includes them, and this is the group which will receive attention from the media and rights groups.

The president of the bishops' conference, Alejandro Goic, has defended the appeal in the face of outrage from relatives and human rights group, demanding, "Do they want us to call for hate?" (La Tercera).

Sigh... I don't know. I accept that my position on organised religion in general and the Roman Catholic leadership in particular is not unbiased, to put it mildly, but it still gets to me: how do they manage to be on the wrong side every single time?! Where are they with their demands for justice for the victims? Why do they insist on confusing justice with "hate" or revenge? It just seems like a wilful attempt to misrepresent the struggle of the victims' families, to be honest. Please, go ahead and forgive the torturers, if you want - give them all the Christian love you like. I just don't see why you have to fight for their freedom when there are innocent people out there waiting for a fair deal from the Chilean judicial system. But honestly - if anyone wants to explain to me how this will assist reconciliation, fire away.

Chilean Church seeks clemency for aging prisoners (AP)
Church call for pardon angers Chile rights groups (Reuters)
Chile bishops seek pardons for military-rule crimes (BBC)
Indulto: Iglesia pide que se estudie caso a caso situacion de condenados por delitos de Derechos Humanos (La Tercera)
Obispo Goic defiende propuesta de indulto: 'Querian que llamaramos al odio?' (La Tercera)

Peru Round-up (II): Impunity and Intolerance

Accusations have been flying between government ministers and human rights activists over the past week.

Gloria Cano of APRODEH has claimed that the state is trying to create a 'favourable climate' for the release of the members of the paramilitary Grupo Colina.

And in general, groups such as the CNDDHH are denouncing a culture of impunity in the judicial system:

Since early 2009, the Sala Penal Nacional, the highest-level court dealing with the human rights cases against armed forces and police personnel, has acquitted 65 members of the security forces and convicted only 15, according to human rights organisations that defend victims of the 1980-2000 civil war. (IPS)

In the face of this, Defense Minister Rafael Rey has said that human rights defenders are "intolerant" and persecuting the armed forces.

In response, Cano has published a truly blistering speech which deserves to be read in full, but here is the opening:

The Peruvian Minister of Defense, Rafael Rey, has accused the defenders of human rights of being intolerant. And I respond, Mr. Minister, that you are correct: we are intolerant.

And we won’t stop being intolerant in the face of the crimes committed against our people, nor in the face of governmental abuse of or apathy before the outcry of hundreds of Peruvians—of women, children and families that, thirty years after the start of the internal armed conflict, continue to search for the bodies of their children, husbands, brothers and fathers that have disappeared. They continue hoping to uncover the truth and achieve justice.

We are intolerant when the state—whose role is to protect the life and integrity of its citizens—tortures, rapes, and kills in the supposed “defense” of democracy.

Read the whole thing here.

Severe Setbacks for Justice in Cases Involving Military (IPS)
"Buscan excarcelacion del grupo Colina" (La Republica, via APRODEH)
En defensa a militares, ministro Rey desafia a IDL y a CNDDHH (La Republica)

News Round-Up

Argentina
March Into Memory (New Internationalist blog)
Good English-language account of commemorations of 34th anniversary of the last Argentine coup

El Salvador
How we killed Archbishop Romero (El Faro)
El Faro's explosive interview with Alvaro Savaria now translated into English

Guatemala
Recognition: Yes, Reconciliation: Maybe, Justice: No (Guatemala Solidarity Network)

Peru
The Militarization of the Peruvian Countryside (NACLA)

Honremos su memoria (Espacio de memoria)
Post commemorating one year since the death of Edmuno Camana, also known as Celestino Ccente, survivor of the Lucanamarca massacre and subject of one of the most iconic photos of the Peruvian conflict

Brazil: What Will the TC Look Like?

Brazil's truth commission plan has not been presented yet - it's apparently planned for Monday - but already a debate is starting about the form it should take.

...the latest draft of the plan uses the phrase "Truth and Reconciliation."

"It's a contradiction for the government to propose reconciliation, when it has done nothing to make information available, and has refused to declassify its archives," said Elizabeth Silveira e Silva of the Torture Never Again Group in Rio de Janeiro, the sister of a student who was forcibly disappeared.

"It's not possible to reconcile people without the recovery of the victims' bodies, and without the truth," said Beatriz Affonso, head of the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in Brazil. The reconciliation that is needed is between state and society, but Brazil has not yet officially admitted the crimes committed during the 1964-1985 dictatorship.

It's an interesting point. Of the Latin American truth commissions, most - but not all - used the word "truth" in their titles and some chose to talk of "reconciliation". Brazilian rights activists want the commission there to be for "justice and truth" - a clearly different inflection to "truth and reconciliation". Some would argue that mentioning reconciliation at this stage is jumping ahead in the slow process towards societal forgiveness of crimes, and cannot be mandated or prescribed. Of course, in the end it is actions that will count.

Brazil's Turn for Truth and Justice (IPS)

Peru: Elsa Malpartida

Peruvian politician Elsa Malpartida is facing a storm this week following her admission that she was a member of Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso. The MP and former coca farmer claims she was forced to cook for the terrorists during the height of the conflict in the region near Tingo Maria.

Malpartida is now also claiming that the news stories are putting her life, and the lives of her family, in danger from Shining Path members, and this may well be true.

Naturally, there are pretty polarised reponses to these revelations. Is Malpartida a victim, like so many highland Peruvians, who was forced to work for the guerrillas for fear of her life? Or was she more willingly involved?

Part of the issue turns on whether Malpartida took advantage of the Ley de Arrepentimiento (Repentance Law) in the early 1990s. This gave former senderistas the chance to become re-integrated into mainstream society in return for officially renouncing violence and informing on comrades. Many news reports are reporting that she did turn to this legislation, although others are saying that she is denying this on the grounds that she had committed no crime.

As a politician, Malpartida must accept that the public will have an interest in her past. I don't think that it's realistic to exclude anyone who may ever have been involved with Sendero from any participation in public life; in a pervasive conflict like this one, so many were involved that cutting them all out would be very difficult. Besides, roles could be fluid and the same people could find themselves on one side of the battle at one time and then, a few years ago, on the other side. And that's without getting started on the issues of coercion and force. Nevertheless, difficult though it may be, a certain amount of openness would seem to be a prerequisite for those involved in politics - and for the 'reconciliation' part of 'truth and reconciliation' to get started.

Parliamentarian claims she was forced to be a member of Shining Path (Living in Path)
El Milagro de Malpartida (Caretas)
"Ella ha estado en el corazon del terrorismo" (Correo)
Fiscalia analiza vinculo de Malpartido con SL (El Comercio)

Peru: Articles on Museum of Memory (1)

La Republica has a trio of articles on the potential Museum of Memory today.

In an interview, former head of the TRC Salomon Lerner accuses the government of trying to avoid dealing with a past that makes it look bad. What he says is very interesting (trans and emphasis mine):

The Prime Minister claims that the government did not reject the German donation for the Museum of Memory, but asked the ambassador if the money could be used differently...

The Prime Minister is becoming less and less credible. The government gave a negative response via then ambassador Kauffmann and one way of covering that up was to propose that the money be administered by the State for other things, knowing that the donation was intended exclusively for the Museum of Memory.

Did [Prime Minister] Simon lie?

In the German embassy they told me that the donation had the exclusive objective of constructing the museum and maintaining it for 10 years. Saying that they suggest another alternative is turning it down.

Simon claims the opposite...

He says one thing when you're along with him, and then in public he gives a different version. I've met him, in the presence of a witness, and he regretted the negative response of the State.

What did he say?

That he would try to change the decision, that there were ministers who had opposed it, that they wanted to counteract the project with some cosmetic measures. He told me to write a letter to the President, and that he would give it to him. I wrote the letter and it was sent off. I haven't heard any more from him.

[...]

Isn't it also worthy of attention that the government wants to use the money for another type of reparations?

The request to use the money differently is immoral, it is about evading responsibility. If the situation is so bad in Ayacucho with the abandoned children, why didn't the government deal with it before? Why did they expect other people, not the goverment, to make a move so that the German goverment would help with something which has a very high symbolic and moral value in the field of reparations.

They're excuses, then?...

Why didn't they assist the poor of Huancavelica, Ayacucho, Junin, if they claim that there has been great economical growth? That's just a way out, not very intelligent.

What is the background?

It's about memory. They talk about culture, but they deny memory, which is a fundamental element which affirms our identities, our judgements, our mistakes, and which brings to light behaviour which wasn't the best, by citizens, but also by the State.

They don't want to take their share of responsibility for the violation of human rights?

The thing is, this is 15 years of government by Alan Garcia and Alberto Fujimori which is immortalised in these photos, which do not lie; they are not paintings, fruits of the artist's imagination, but photos, evidence of facts.

Did they reject the donation because of the photos from the Yuyanapaq exhibition, which is in the Museo de la Nacion?

They say that it doesn't help reconciliation, but that contradicts all the testimonies of the thousands who have seen the exhibition and who have left their views written in the visitors books at the end*. What is happening is that, in the end, the government does not want to face the past which in some sense is incriminating, and they also don't like that the museum is a way of accepting those who have always been excluded.

Like the photos of the murder of prisoners in El Fronton(1)...

There are photos which deal with El Fronton, and los Molinos, I don't know if there are any of Cayara, but there are also photos of what happened to the villages because of Sendero, of Guzman in a wild state when they arrested him, of the Shining Path indoctrination in the prison. It is a balanced exhibition.

Do you believe that the President decided not to accept the donation?

I believe that we live in a democracy, strictly speaking, but that there is a very authoritarian tendency, and a personal, wilful, autocratic one, and in this sense the President Garcia is the one who decides, beyond the opinions of the ministers, those who are convinced by his arguments and cling to them.

“El gobierno no quiere enfrentarse a un pasado que es incriminatorio”

* I've seen the books and this is true.

(1) The prison massacre that occurred during Garcia's first presidency. The prisoners staged an armed uprising that was put down so brutally by the armed forces that there were hardly any survivors. The few who did survive suggest that even those prisoners who surrendered were summarily executed. Such an order is likely to have come from the very top of the chain of command; in any case, ultimately the buck stops with Alan.

How far is too far?

The BBC is running an article about the continued prosecution of suspected human rights abusers in Chile, pointing out that some people think that bygones should be bygones and minor military figures should not be prosecuted for crimes committed during the Pinochest dictatorship.

They accuse the judiciary and the centre-left government of conducting a witch-hunt of the armed forces, in a vindictive bid to put everyone associated with the Pinochet regime behind bars.

A witch-hunt? Vindictive? That's a bit rich, surely, when you consider the persecution levelled at the left during the military regime and the limited and rather feeble legal responses since redemocratization.

When, if ever, does one draw a line under the horrors of history in the interests of reconciliation?

Well, this is the big question of course. But it's my belief that you can't achieve true reconciliation without first acknowledging the extent of the events, the memory of which you are supposed to become reconciled to. (Or, in the words of Eelco Runia, by asking, "who are we that this could have happened?"). While steps have been taken in this direction, there are still sectors of society in Chile that do not accept that crimes were committed during the dictatorship.

...these days, for the most part, the only men left alive to try are the "youngsters", Pinochet's foot soldiers who were on the bottom rung of the military ladder at the time of the coup.

Some say it is unfair that they should bear the brunt of the investigations.

I suspect there is an element of unfairness here. Still, it is "unfair" that political progress was so slow and legal proceedings so protracted that Pinochet died without being committed of a crime. It is "unfair" that young men and women of the left were tortured and killed by a murderous regime and that their families do not even have the cold comfort of seeing the perpetrators jailed. Just because there were people out there who committed greater crimes, does not mean that somewhat lesser crimes should go unpunished.

The military figures interviewed in the article are now attempting to portray themselves as the victims, driven into the underground and even to suicide by the vicious, vengeful behaviour of crazed human rights activists. I'm not surprised that they see themselves in this way - after all, they desire gratitude for "saving" Chile from socialism - but I do not see that the rest of us need to buy into it. It's quite sick to hear the language of human rights coming from the mouths of perpetrators who are still trying to get out of facing their pasts. Even the language of the BBC article seems to support this, choosing a violent metaphor for its headline, 'Pinochet's foot soldier's in firing line'. Actually, there will be no one facing a firing squad in this round of prosecutions, jail will be the maximum punishment, and given many of those accused's advanced ages, I'd be surprised to see many very lengthy jail sentences handed down in the near future. This is very far from a witch-hunt.

Pinochet's foot soldier's in firing line (BBC)