Peru is still haunted by the ghosts of its disappeared

Peru is still haunted by the ghosts of its disappeared

Members of the National Association of Families of Kidnapped, Detained and Missing Persons of Peru, in Ayacucho, in February 2020. From left to right: Juana Carion Jaulis, Rodomila Segovia Rojas, Teresa Huicho Urbano, Adelina García Mendoza , María Elena Tarqui Palomino and Julio Chuchón.

(Loïc Ramirez)

From the street, it is barely noticeable. It’s a two-story building, in the middle of others, that appears to house modest apartments. Only the fresco on its facade attracts the more attentive on-looker. There are military boots, women with sad faces and children, all against a blue back-ground that merges with the sky. Located in the city of Ayacucho, in central Huamanga province, Peru, the Museum of Memory is the result of a long collective struggle. An exploit, almost. “The state has not shown any interest in the victims of the conflict,” says Adelina García Mendoza politely. Born in 1965, this small woman, wearing a hat and dressed in the traditional full skirt of the Andes, is today the president of Asociación Nacional de Familiares de Secuestrados, Detenidos y Desaparecidos de Perú (ANFASEP, or the National Association of Families of Kidnapped, Detained and Missing Persons of Peru in English). Along with other volunteers, she welcomes tourists who come to visit the museum’s permanent exhibition. “We inaugurated this building in 2005,” says García, before adding that the association “was founded in 1983, a few years after the violence began.”

Spared from the wave of revolts that shook the south American continent in the autumn of 2019, Peru is nonetheless a country used to upheaval.

Despite enjoying constant economic growth for several years, social inequalities persist. And it is inequality that has always been at the root of the conflict that has engulfed the Andean country. ‘Violence’, ‘internal conflict’ or ‘terrorism’ are the various words used – depending on whom you are speaking to – to describe the period be-tween 1980 and the end of the 1990s. At the time, the state was in the throes of political transition. The military regime, resulting from a coup in 1968, had come to an end, leading the way to new elections which were won by Fernando Belaúnde Terry in May 1980. As he pursued his liberal policies, he found himself in conflict on national territory with various Marxist-inspired armed groups: the MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement), and above all the Maoist guerrillas of the Shining Path (officially called the Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path) which emerged that same year. Founded by a group of academics, the Shining Path launched a ‘people’s war’ against the central state and went on to establish its presence in almost the entire country including the capital.

The repression of the civilian population

The location of the Museum is no coincidence; the Shining Path was born in Ayacucho. Marked by a long tradition of social conflicts and populated mainly by poor peasants, the region became the epicentre of a civil war which was to cost the lives of more than 69,000 people, according to the report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC, founded in 2001 and composed of representatives of the state and of civil society) published in 2003. The main causes were the actions (bomb attacks, executions and armed attacks) carried out by rebel groups on the one hand, but above all, on the other, the ‘scorched earth’ policy chosen by the army to remove any support for the insurgents. A strategy that mainly affected the civilian population.

One of the victims of this repression was Angélica Mendoza de Ascarza, better known as Mama Angélica. Born in 1929 in the department of Ayacucho, in a very poor neighbourhood, she stood by helplessly as she watched the arrest of her son Arquímedes, a 19-year-old university student, by a group of soldiers on 2 July 1983. Despite her search, the teenager was never seen again. On 2 September of the same year, Mama Angélica founded ANFASEP with other mothers of the disappeared. “We met outside the offices of the prosecutors or lawyers who agreed to help us, some-times free of charge, to put together the case files and denounce the disappearance of our loved ones,” recalls Mendoza. She joined the association in December 1983, following the detention and then the disappearance of her husband by the army.

“In 1984, then 1985, the violence increased and every morning we woke up to news of more kidnappings or assassinations. Mothers, wives, sisters, they all came to join us, we were nearly 400 women at the start.”

From 1985, the association decided to create a community kitchen for children whose parents had disappeared, or who had simply fled the war in the mountains. With no premises of their own, they initially worked out of the teachers’ union’s premises, La Casa del Maestro. Then, in 1990, ANFASEP man-aged to buy its own premises which, a few years later, became the Museum of Memory.

From the beginning of 1992, things became more complicated for the association. President Alberto Fujimori, elected two years earlier, organised a ‘self-coup’: he suspended the constitution and dissolved the congress, then accelerated neoliberal measures, relying on an army to which he gave a free hand in its fight against the insurgents. “Alberto Fujimori even accused Mama Angélica of being a member of the Shining Path,” says Garcia. “They tried to intimidate her; as a result, many started to fear repression and withdrew from the association, until we were down to only 10 members.”

Dozens of faces are on display in the hallway of the museum. Hundreds. In reality, thousands. More specifically, “20,511 people disappeared during the internal armed conflict,” says a poster. One symbol of the horror of that time is the Los Cabitos military barracks, in Ayacucho, which be-came a torture centre. Many people were taken there and then disappeared. This is where, according to research, Julio Chuchón Prado’s relatives were last transferred in 1983. “My brother was arrested on 25 August by the soldiers and the next day my wife Nelly went to the base to demand an explanation; she too was abducted,” says Prado, who is one of the few male members of the association. The father-of-two joined the association in search of support. “He came with his two boys in his arms who fell asleep during the meetings,” says one of the members with emotion. “Today my case is under investigation, I hope there will be justice,” said Chuchón.

Slow justice

In matters of justice, the Peruvian authorities have a mixed record. While the TRC has shed light on the testimonies of numerous victims, sanctions against some of the accused, army officers, have not followed. “The truth is not enough,” said Lisa J. Laplante, a law professor at the Boston Centre for International Politics and Law and a former TRC investigator in Peru, in a 2007 article. According to the specialist, economic reparations to victims “play an important symbolic role” in “making the state responsible” but are only “a necessary complement, providing temporary satisfaction while awaiting criminal trials”. Having studied the Peruvian case for many years, she highlights “the influence of politics” which “delays and obstructs criminal investigations and judgments”. More recently, Peruvian lawyer and academic Jean Franco Oliveira Astete set out in a text the “legal problems” linked to the trials of crimes committed during the conflict, in particular “the refusal of the armed forces to communicate information about those in active service” at the time and the requirement of “traditional evidence” without taking into account “the time passed, the context and the complexity of the crimes”. A situation which therefore persists and which Human Rights Watch still denounces today: “Judicial investigations into serious human rights abuses committed during the armed conflict...remain slow and limited.”

In Colombia, the 2016 peace process with the FARC guerrillas resulted in the creation of a special tribunal to try crimes committed by the two warring parties, insurgents, but also the military and the police. There has been nothing like this in Peru where the state emerged completely victorious from the conflict.

“There have been cases of people who have come to insult us,” says María Elena Tarqui Palomino, secretary of the organisation. “It’s people from Lima, mainly, who say we are lying, that the soldiers only killed terrorists; it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.” More seriously, in 2017, the museum became the subject of an investigation following accusations of “glorifying terrorism” from politicians on the far right. “Police from the Dircote (Counter-Terrorism Directorate) came, accused us of praising Shining Path and interrogated us,” says García. “In the end, their report cleared us.”

Despite all the difficulties, the struggle has paid off and ANFASEP has made some limited progress. On 17 August 2017, the National Criminal Court convicted two officers, stationed at the Los Cabitos base in 1983, for kidnapping, torture and murder. A historic sentence, but one that does not completely satisfy the members of the association, especially since the two accused fled the country and have not yet been found. “The years go by and there are still 150 cases under investigation related to this military base,” says García. “For us there is almost no justice.”

This article has been translated from French.