Also in La Republica today, columnist Rocio Silva Santisteban considers the issue of places, and museums, of memory in her article, ¿Museos?, ¿memoria?, ¿para qué?.
es of memorial sites.
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.
The idea of belonging to a community of men and women who are truly free and equal causes us to grieve when one dies. This feeling forces us to remember them and not ever to forget. Remembering must always be an act of reflection and wisdom, an act which - when we are free of hate, racism and intolerance - allows us to project ourselves into the future with firmness and hope that there is better to come.
The unity of nations is founded in equality, freedom and justice, not in intolerance, hate and injustice. From this basic, inalienable promise, the pressing necessity of truth arises, and that peoples need to get to know each other through this truth.
The international tendency to build Museums of Memory derives from this tendency, as well as the recognition of these as spaces of reflection against forgetting, by means of the awarding of Prizes such as that which the Prince of Asturias gave to the Museum of the Memory of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, in Israel, at the proposal of the German Chancellor.
Without doubt, the images of the Photographic Exhibition 'Yuyanapaq' constitute a dramatic and moving testimony, intended to make us aware of its objective: the victims have the right to memory by society and the State. The memory which is recorded there - in impressive images - belongs to the women and men of Peru, so that, in seeing [the images], they feel for those mothers and sisters, those fathers and son, who lost everything in that storm, and so that they can be surrounded by solidarity and so can we, as Peruvians.Because of this, I want to exhort the Executive to reconsider its decision and accept the donation from the generous German people.
Beatriz Merino, Defensora del Pueblo
The government in Lima initially failed to respond to the offer, saying the money would be better spent tackling poverty and hunger.
Peruvian Defence Minister Antero Flores has said a museum to remember victims of the conflict would be of no use to anybody.
When the news of the rejection was first leaked, the government refused to comment.
Now it has changed tack.
Prime Minister Yehude Simon has suggested the money go towards reparations for the victims not a museum.
...the German donation has opened old wounds between those who want to remember and those who would rather forget.
For example, service members can now choose their own lawyer rather than being appointed one by the military. The measure also means troops are no longer subject to the death penalty and cannot be imprisoned for engaging in homosexual acts.
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