Memory Matters in Transitional Peru

M. Saona

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349450435, 9781137290168
• eBook ISBN: 9781137290175
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

Commemorating traumatic events means attempting to activate collective memory. By examining images, metonymic invocations, built environments and digital outreach interventions, this book establishes some of the cognitive and emotional responses that make us incorporate the past suffering of others as a painful legacy of our own.

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Introduction: Peruvian Memory Matters

The CVR and the mandate to remember

The transitional government of Valentín Paniagua established the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (known by the acronym CVR), after Alberto Fujimori left the country in 2001.¹ Its charge was to investigate and make public the truth regarding two decades of political violence in Peru, starting in 1980 when the Shining Path appeared on the public scene and ending with the collapse of Fujimori’s regime.

Throughout its history, Peru has experienced many violent episodes: the territory that now constitutes the Republic of Peru had seen the imperial domination of the Inca over different ethnic groups, the violent conquest by the Spaniards, internal and territorial wars, and the abuse and exploitation of indigenous populations. However, in the collective memory of the nation, there has been no record of a historical period as traumatic as this one. The CVR estimated that there were over 69,000 deaths resulting from political violence. The report establishes that the number of victims of the internal armed conflict exceeds the number of deaths caused by both the wars of independence and the war against Chile, which had been considered the most violent in the country’s history. ²

The period the CVR denominates “the internal armed conflict” starts with the first public actions of the Shining Path in May 1980 – the burning of electoral ballots in a small town in Ayacucho considered by the organization the beginning of its “popular war” – and ends with the fall of Alberto Fujimori’s government in a scandal involving the corruption of the government and its relationship with paramilitary groups. The burning of ballots in Chuschi in 1980, during an electoral process marking the return to democracy after 12 years of military rule, was followed by other terrorist attacks that were mostly dismissed as “banditry” by the government during the first few months of the offensive. However, the government unleashed a counterinsurgent campaign carried out with ruthless force and a total disregard for human rights.

In his study of the Shining Path, Qué difícil es ser Dios: El Partido Comunista del Perú – Sendero Luminoso y el conflicto armado interno en el Perú: 1980–1999, Carlos Iván Degregori remarks that the most striking difference between the Peruvian armed conflict and similar processes in the region was the fact that both the guerrilla and the armed forces brutally targeted civilian populations, particularly indigenous peasant groups (2011, p. 90). Already in 1981 the Shining Path had established the idea of a “blood quota”: in order to overthrow the establishment, its followers had to be ready to die, but especially to kill, and to do so in the most brutal ways (CVR, Hatun Willakuy, 2004, pp. 109–11). Death and destruction ruled both the actions of the insurgent groups and the state responses. The extent of the effects of the “internal armed conflict” was not truly brought to light until the CVR released its report, but in the last ten years human rights organizations, victims associations, and independent artists have participated in the public sphere in an attempt to carry on their mandate to remember. ³

The purpose of my research is to elucidate the ways in which, in the Peruvian case, collective memory is elicited by works of art and other forms of intervention in the cultural arena. My guiding premise when I use the term collective memory is that public memorialization delivers information and activates forms of empathy even in those who might not have actual recollection of the events, but are capable of understanding and identifying with the loss experienced by victims and survivors of social trauma. The proliferation of museums, memorials, art exhibits, and websites that resulted from the publication of the report of the CVR allows us to examine the different mechanisms of memory they activate, from the idea that photographs “capture” (and are therefore able to communicate) reality to the internet’s potential to send daily reminders of tragic anniversaries. My project consists of looking at diverse forms of memorialization – photojournalism, artistic photography, artisanal paintings, public monuments, exhibits, museums, and websites – in an attempt to understand the ways that art and representations of suffering mobilize the public and inspire solidarity towards the victims of violence.

The memorialization initiatives I analyze are aligned with a notion of human rights as universal: they rely on the belief that as human beings we should identify with others and recognize their rights. This concept might be criticized for not taking sides or for de-ideologizing or de-politicizing politics. Initiatives that focus on the defense of human rights tend to concentrate on the victim and the survivors. I feel that I need to clarify this since I am centering this study on initiatives that distance themselves from heroic narratives. In the Peruvian case, in recent years the emphasis on memory has led groups such as the armed forces and the new incarnation of the Shining Path, Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (MOVADEF),⁴ to create museums, websites, mural art, and so on. More than emotional identification and reflection, their goal is an explicit ideological message whereby victims become martyrs.

The memory initiatives I study are the ones that make the spectators witnesses of the witness, engaging the interactive aspects of testimony.⁵ My own use of the terms victim and survivor does not assume passivity or lack of agency. It refers simply to the fact that political violence shattered the lives of human beings. Different modes of cultural expression now present themselves as testimony of this suffering. In turn, these expressions (photographs, museums, public monuments) attempt to engage the public in the works of memory, interpellating us. In his analysis of the effects of the CVR, Carlos Iván Degregori problematizes the notion of “the victim”: those who presented their testimony to the CVR had access, often for the first time, to the public sphere as a “victim.” However, the mere fact of speaking up was already a claim to agency. Even more, these witnesses did not limit themselves to the presentation of the abuses they had suffered: they presented their demands. They asked not only for economic reparations, but also demanded justice, education, psychological support, and so on (Degregori, 2011, pp. 282–3). “Victim” becomes, then, a legal category that asserts the subject as a citizen with undeniable rights. The CVR testimonies therefore granted the possibility of full citizenship to thousands of individuals who had been previously ignored by the state.

According to Degregori, even when the general public’s initial response to the CVR report was tepid, the photo exhibit where it presented a “visual narrative” of its findings, Yuyanapaq. Para recordar, achieved enormous success and sparked other events which were an undeniable sign that at least a sector of the population was willing to engage with the need to remember (Degregori, 2011, p. 286). These initiatives came to life as a result of the CVR’s work and the narrative it articulated about the 20 years of terror experienced by the country, against both the will to forget that declared that the country needed to face the future and leave the past behind and a narrative that simply subscribed to the idea that the militarized, ruthless counterinsurgency had saved the country from terrorism (Degregori, p. 285). But what made the creation of the CVR possible, when the country had experienced such a long and fiercely repressive period?

Degregori explains that a particular set of circumstances enabled the formation of the CVR. At the beginning of his mandate, Alberto Fujimori achieved popular support even when he closed congress and started an authoritarian regime where freedom was seen as contrary to order and safety. Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the Shining Path, was captured, and the leaderships of his organization and of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, the other major guerrilla group in the country, were collapsing. In a narrative accepted by the majority of the population at the time, the human rights violations had been a necessary cost to regain peace. However, when in 1995 Fujimori attempted to pass an amnesty law, close to 85% of the population rejected it. For Degregori, this fact belies the image of an ingrained authoritarian nature in Peruvian culture (pp. 275–8). Organizations that had advocated for human rights since the early 1980s kept their message strong and carried out opinion polls showing a firm belief in the need for truth and a rejection of impunity. This message remained a fundamental part of the demands against the government when Fujimori’s efforts to perpetuate his mandate alienated a population already distraught by the economic crisis at the end of the decade.

In the midst of a scandal involving Fujimori’s main advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, who had recorded videos of himself bribing politicians, businessmen, and even owners of TV stations, the extent of the government’s corruption led it to its demise. The demands against the corruption of the government and in favor of a representative democracy incorporated a strong protest against human rights violations (p. 278).

According to Degregori’s analysis, the creation of the CVR was in part possible because the transition to democracy was not co-opted by political parties. In fact, political parties were very weak at this time, and civil society protests brought together popular sectors and the middle class. Degregori remarks that this situation was very different from transitional governments in other countries, such as Chile, where political parties had to enter into alliances to achieve governability at the cost of not addressing the human rights violations in their recent past, at least for a while. In the Peruvian case, not only the ousted Fujimori government that was indicted, but – at that time – other political parties also lacked the ability to assemble a coalition. If the Peruvian traditional parties that had governed the country during the 1980s, Acción Popular and APRA, had been in charge of the transition, the egregious human rights violations of the two previous governments would not have been scrutinized (p. 279). This allowed the CVR to investigate not only Fujimori’s government, but also the crimes and abuses committed since the first public act by the Shining Path in 1980.

In the introduction to her book Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth Telling in Post-Shining Path Peru, Cynthia Milton (2014) also explains the exceptional place the CVR held.⁶ While other truth commissions had to compromise with several factions, the Peruvian CVR had more leeway:

[ . . . ] since Shining Path and the Revolutionary Movement of Túpac Amaru [ . . . ] no longer posed a threat, the interim government did not need to negotiate with an armed movement, nor did the government need to make large concessions, such as a blanket amnesty, to the political and military elites, since they had been weakened by scandal. (p. 6)

The Peruvian CVR was also made possible by an international context in which truth commissions were emerging across the region as a consequence of investigations regarding Southern Cone dictatorships and armed conflicts in Central America. According to Amnesty International, between 1974 and 2007, 28 countries created truth commissions, starting with a Commission of Inquiry that investigated the disappearance of people in Uganda.⁷ In Latin America, Argentina pioneered the demand for truth regarding human rights abuses in 1983 with the National Commission on Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) that investigated the crimes of the Argentinean military dictatorship of 1976–1983.

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in its Transitional Justice Handbook for Latin America (2011) recognizes that the proliferation of truth commissions in the region is a consequence of its troubled recent history (p. 34). However, it is remarkable that such violent history resulted in “pioneering experiences seeking justice through democracy and peace restoration processes” (p. 35). The ICTJ explains that there are two kinds of violent events that have led to the creation of truth commissions during transitional governments: there are, on the one hand, crimes committed during the brutally repressive regimes of recent dictatorships and, on the other hand, there are armed, violent revolutionary movements that spread through the region with practices ranging “from guerrilla strategy to the practice of terror.” While in some cases it is the state’s counterinsurgency strategy that bears the greatest responsibility for the violation of human rights, in others, such as Peru and Colombia, non-state armed groups also committed atrocities against civilian populations. The peace processes, which accompanied the return to democracy in several Latin American countries, steered initiatives to confront the past, which eventually became known as truth commissions (p. 36). At the same time, the search for the “truth” was accompanied by the efforts to bring justice to the region embodied in institutions such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The ICTJ in its Handbook on Transitional Justice explains the role of truth commissions in transitional processes:

The recognition of the truth regarding past criminal acts and the adoption of this truth in the public sphere is the platform from which victims’ demands can be made with a hope of success. Moreover, it is in the practice of truth and memory that groups of people who have been abused “discover” their status as victims, in the sense of being entitled to specific benefits from the State. (p. 40)

Transitional justice is understood as the attempt to establish sustainable peace in a society emerging from a recent violent conflict. In the words of Paul van Zyl, “Transitional justice involves prosecuting perpetrators, revealing the truth about past crimes, providing victims with reparations, reforming abusive institutions and promoting reconciliation” (ICTJ, p. 45). Although many truth commissions are not empowered to preside over the justice systems of their countries, their truth-seeking processes establish a way to acknowledge officially the brutal past. This prevents the entrenchment of revisionist positions and empowers citizens to recognize abusive practices, fostering an awareness that would hopefully avert the return of such practices (pp. 48–9).

The very title of the pioneering report – Nunca más, written by the CONADEP – puts forth the notion that the function of truth commissions is not only to establish the truth about past events, but that it is also a necessary step in the construction of a future where such abuses do not happen again. Truth commissions, therefore, are not only about the past. They are not just recording history. One of their primary functions is to prevent the repetition of these traumatic events. This is why they often produce memory projects as attempts to connect the past and the future. It is important to recognize, nonetheless, that prevention should not be the only goal of truth commissions, and that the vindication of victims’ rights is their priority (vanZyl, p. 52).

As Rebecca Saunders and Kamran Aghaie explain, truth commissions need to balance “a formidable if not impossible array of goals, such as justice, individual and societal healing, the revelation of truth, assignation of blame, punishment, reparation, and political stability” (p. 24). Truth commissions might not live up to the expectations invested in them, but offer transitional societies certain mechanisms to recover from their violent past in ways that are more flexible than traditional judicial systems:

[ . . . ] they evoke less procedurally-constrained testimony, incorporate expressions of memory and emotion regularly expunged by the rationality of the law, pursue a more expansive field of investigation, and focus more extensively on the experience of victims rather than the culpability of perpetrators.

(Saunders and Aghaie, p. 24)

Eduardo González Cueva explains the evolution of truth commissions in relationship to transitional justice systems (González Cueva, 2011). According to González Cueva, truth commissions “arose in a process that combined creativity and pragmatism” in societies where the justice system was not ready to handle the prosecution of crimes committed by recent dictatorships or by parties involved in internal armed conflicts (pp. 315–16). This is seen as an early stage in the development of truth commissions that corresponds to those created in Chile, El Salvador, and Argentina. In a second stage, embodied in the Truth Commissions of Guatemala and South Africa, the value of the quest for truth as independent from the judicial process was made explicit. In Guatemala, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) proposed a multidisciplinary approach that consisted in both the legal determination of the facts and an assessment of the experience of the victims. This methodology that included the experience of the victims was clearly distinct from the one used to prove facts in the courts. In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) also underscored the value of truth as a social construction cap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• 1. Introduction: Peruvian Memory Matters
• 2. Seeing, Knowing, Feeling: Conveying Truth and Emotion through Images
• 3. Plain Things and Names
• 4. Places to Remember
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index