Peru, 20 Years of Terror (1980 - 2000)

Perhaps it is not widely known that Peru is just coming out of 20 years of terrible violence; some may have heard of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) Guerillas, but are not aware of the full extent of the years of terror & violence they have inflicted on the Peruvian People.

We did not know ourselves until we reached Casa Marcelino and we were told the extent of the work that the charity gets involved in, the background of the projects. An important part is the work they do for Human Rights. They have Human Rights lawyers acting to fight the individual cases of Human Right breaches within the local community. Another very important area is their involvement in the "Para Que No Se Repita" (So that it is not Repeated) movement active throughout Peru. The movement aims to educate the population, especially the poor and cut off communities, about the 20 years of violence their country has endured.

69,280 people are dead or are still missing...

With the awareness of what happened and how the Shining Path became the horror they were, the hope is that with education of the events a tragedy like this cannot happen again.

The 20 Years of Terror

• 1968, Military Revolutionary Government took over Peru and introduced widescale land reforms to reverse white dominancy.
  


• The Shining Path were formed in the late 1960s by former university philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán, whose teachings created the foundation for its militant Maoist doctrine. It was an offshoot of the Communist Party of Peru of the time.
  


• Peru's military government allowed elections for the first time in a dozen years in 1980, Shining Path was one of the few leftist political groups that declined to take part. They thought that the left parties involved in the elections were abandoning their principles. Instead they opted to launch a guerrilla war in the highlands of the province of Ayacucho.







• Shining Path grew in both the territory controlled and the number of militants in its organisation, particularly in the Andean highlands. Support from local peasants grew by providing "popular justice". The Shining Path beat and killed widely disliked figures in the countryside, often executed cattle rustlers, killed managers of the state-controlled farming collectives and well-to-do merchants. These actions caused the peasantry of many Peruvian villages to express some sympathy for the Shining Path, especially in the impoverished and neglected regions.

Many mourners at a Shining Path members funeral

• In 1981 terrorism attacks intensified. The government orders the military to restore order. 1982 state of emergency is declared. Army take control of Ayacucho. The military used this power extremely heavy-handedly, arresting scores of innocent people, at times subjecting them to torture and rape. In several massacres, the military wiped out entire villages. Military personnel took to wearing black ski-masks to hide their identity as they committed these crimes. The Shining Path start wearing civilian clothes to blend in with the rural communities. The Military torture the poor for information. Slaughter and disapperances are widespread in the rural communities with attrocities on both sides, the poor are stuck in the middle. Lima tolerates this brutality from a distance.








Sendero Luminoso poster celebrating 5 years at war

• Shining Path's attacks were not limited to the countryside. It mounted attacks against the infrastructure in Lima, killing civilians in the process. In June 1985 it again blew up electricity transmission towers in Lima, producing a blackout, and detonated car bombs near the government palace and the justice palace. In one of its last attacks in Lima in 1992, the group detonated a powerful bomb in the upscale district of Miraflores in Lima, killing more than 20 people and destroying several buildings. Poeple take to the streets to protest the government´s handling of the situation.

• Shining Path also engaged in armed conflicts with Peru's other major guerrilla group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). They differed from the Shining Path by a more "Robin Hood" approach, robbing the rich to give to the poor. They acted more in the urban environment targeting the police, army and the rich powerful members of society in cities like Lima. Their aim was to combat the uneven distribution of wealth and government. They killed very few people in comaprision with the Shining Path, but added to the feeling of terror in the country. They also made alliances with drug producers in the lowland jungle regions late in their campaign.

• Shining Path has been frequently participated in particularly brutal methods of killing of its victims. The Shining Path explicitly rejected the very idea of human rights. They held the belief that an indiviuals human life held no value, only the overall cause; any losses of life were completely tolerable, part of the "war". A Shining Path document stated:
  We do not ascribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For us, human rights are contradictory to the rights of the people, because we base rights in man as a social product, not man as an abstract with innate rights. "Human rights" don't exist except for the bourgeoisie man...

• While Shining Path quickly seized control of large areas of Peru, it soon faced serious problems. Shining Path's Maoism was never popular. It never had the support of the majority of the Peruvian people, and quickly lost almost all sympathy that it once had. Many peasants were unhappy with its rule because of its disrespect for indigenous culture and institutions, the brutality of its "popular trials" that sometimes included "slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning", and also for its policy of closing small and rural markets in order to end small-scale capitalism and to starve Lima.

Maoist slogans painted in universities and schools by the Shining Path

• Faced with a hostile population, the guerrilla war began to falter. In some areas, peasants formed anti-Shining Path patrols, called rondas. They were generally poorly-equipped despite donations of guns from the armed forces. In March 1983, rondas brutally killed Olegario Curitomay, one of the commanders of the town of Lucanamarca. They took him to the town square, stoned him, stabbed him, set him on fire, and finally shot him.

• As a response, in April, Shining Path entered the province of Huancasancos and the towns of Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, Muylacruz and Lucanamarca and killed 69 people, many of whom were children including one who was only six months old. This was the first massacre by Shining Path of the peasant community. Other incidents followed, such as the one in Hauyllo, Tambo District, La Mar Province, Ayacucho Department. In that community, Shining Path killed 47 peasants, including 14 children aged between four and fifteen.

• In 1991, new President Fujimori issued a law that gave the rondas a legal status. They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by the Peruvian Army.
  The Peruvian government also dispatched the army to areas dominated by Shining Path, especially Ayacucho, to fight the rebels. Initial government efforts to fight Shining Path were not very effective or promising. Again military units engaged in many human rights violations, which caused Shining Path to appear in the eyes of many as the lesser of two evils. They used excessive force and killed many innocent civilians. Government forces destroyed villages and killed campesinos suspected of supporting Shining Path.

• On September 12, 1992, Peruvian police captured Guzmán and several Shining Path leaders. Shortly after the raid, most of the remaining Shining Path leadership fell as well. At the same time, Shining Path suffered embarrassing military defeats to self-defense organizations comprised of rural campesinos — supposedly its social base. When Guzmán called for peace talks, the organization fractured into splinter groups, with some Shining Path members in favor of such talks and others opposed. Guzmán's role as the leader of Shining Path was taken over by Óscar Ramírez, who himself was captured by Peruvian authorities in 1999. After Ramírez's capture, the group splintered, guerrilla activity diminished sharply.

Guzmán

• In 2002 the government set up The Commision for Truth and Reconcilation. Its aim was to investigate all the attrocites that had occurred over the years, and to discover what had happened to the thousands of people still missing. They made a list of all the people killed in each of the events to recognise the families' losses and to quantify the deaths. Payments could then be made to each family.
  

• Although the organization's numbers had lessened by 2003, a militant faction of Shining Path called Proseguir (or "Onward") continued to be active. The government claims that Proseguir is operating in alliance with drug traffickers.
  On June 9, 2003, a Shining Path group attacked a camp in Ayacucho and took 68 employees of the Argentinian company Techint and three police guards as hostages. The terrorists asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the terrorists abandoned the hostages. According to rumour, the company paid the ransom. In 2003, the Peruvian National Police broke up several Shining Path training camps and captured many members and leaders. It also freed about 100 indigenous people held in virtual slavery. By late October 2003 there were 96 terrorist incidents in Peru, projecting a 15% decrease from the 134 kidnappings and armed attacks in 2002.
  
  



Video footage from 2002



• Despite arrests of leading members, Shining Path continues to exist in Peru. On December 22, 2005, Shining Path ambushed a police patrol in the Huánuco region, killing eight. Later that day they wounded an additional two police officers. On February 19, 2006, the Peruvian police killed Héctor Aponte, who was believed to be the commander responsible for the killing of the policemen. In December 2006, Peruvian troops were sent to counter renewed guerrilla activity and, according to high level government officials, Shining Path's strength has reached an estimated 300 members. The return of President Alan García to office brings up his previous inability to clamp down on Shining Path just as many guerillas complete their prison sentences and their power continues to grow...

The truth must be known, diseminated to the people and not allowed to fade into the past, otherwise there is the risk that history may repeat itself.

Huamachuco & Marcelino Centre - Week 41

22nd June - 1st July

Our next stop was to visit a charity that our Norwegian friend, Henrietta, had told us about. The project is called Proyecto Amigo or Casa Marcelino and was set up 15 years ago by an Italian, Mario, and his Peruvian wife, Nury, as support for the children that have to work and have no time or money to go to school. These days, they have a new building with 8 classrooms and dorms where the children can stay (not quite finished). There are over 350 children that use the services, the centre fully supports the children in their lives, the children are fed and the peruvians that run the project are fully aware of the children's problems and are the nicest people in the world!! They have a library for everyone in the community to use, there is a lawyer who campaigns constantly for the people's human rights and the project is very well thought of in the community. All this has been achieved by a lot of hard work from a few local people and charitable donations. If you want to see more info or donate some cash, have a look at their website: http://www.marcelino.org/.

The daily reunion

Queueing up for free food

Huamachuco is 100 miles from Trujillo up in the sierra but as the roads are completely rubbish it is a 6 1/2 hour very bumpy train ride! We arrived at about 3.30pm and were met by Carmen, the librarian. We dumped our bags in our room (we were staying at the centre) and met Rocio, the stand-in director for the week. All the teachers and support workers are called Tio (Uncle) or Tia (Aunty) by the children and so we started our week ahead as Tia Katarin and Tio Jaime! None of the people working at the centre speak any English so we knew we had a pretty tricky couple of weeks ahead speaking only Spanish!

The first couple of days were pretty shocking. A lot of the kids coming to the project are very, very poor and it is very sad to see. Katie Cry-At-Anything just about managed to hold it together in front of the kids but had a few tears in secret... They are all lovely friendly kids and massively interested in where we are from and learning English (favourite question: Are there just gringos in England, Tia?). On our first full day, Saturday, we met all the support workers (tia/os) in the morning to find out what they all do and then the children arrived in the afternoon. The first part of the afternoon at the weekends is to support the children with homework. I think it was a bit more educative for us than the kids, trying to understand 'The boy who cried wolf' in Spanish and brushing up on the words for sheep, wolf, shephard, liar etc. After the lesson we had a couple of hours of games which was great, we felt like we were back in our school playing fields, teaching them all our old favourites!

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On Sunday morning we went with Tias Joba and Rocio to visit two brothers, Romario and Ernesto, that come to the centre. The teachers make time to visit all of the kids in their classes at home to see how they are living and understand more about their problems and what can be done to help. The families usually have very little but always invite you in and make tea, if not a whole meal. Romario and Ernesto live 1 1/2 walk away from school. We were exhausted by the time we got there - what a journey to make to and from school every day. Proyecto Amigo are hoping to have the money soon to start using the dormitories so that children like this can stay at the centre for a couple of nights a week and don't have to walk for hours in the morning before school.

Romario and Ernesto and their family

Their mum cooked up soup and fried meat and then had a long conversation with us about their lives. They scrape a living in the country, growing crops but cannot afford to send the boys to school as the uniform alone would cost too much, let alone the books and equipment they have to have to get through the doors. The whole family were really friendly and kind and insisted that we walk down to the village (a square of about 8 adobe huts and a little adobe church) with them as they were having a fiesta. All the women and children were dressed in their traditional sunday best and all the men were absolutely rat-arsed on the local firewater that they carried round with them in buckets...!

Sunday afternoon involved more fun and games with the kids:

From Monday to Thursday, there is a school at the centre from 8am until 1pm for children that cannot afford the uniform and all the equipment they need for state secondary schools. We moved round all the different age groups, helping out. Highlights being James describing a lesson in momentum in spanish, Katie giving an explanation of triangles and their angles in Spanish and James giving a group of 25 twelve year olds (and their teacher) a 1/2 hour English lesson!

The centre has also just started to rent a plot of land in order to teach lessons in farming methods and productivity. We went for a couple of lessons to help out and learnt a lot about farming!

On Fridays, a group of the kids have also set up a cooperative and they work really hard planting and cultivating in order to sell the produce at the market (Katie in orange in the thick of the good works!!):


While the lads 'work the fields', some of the girls cook an enormous meal for them all:


The kids bring their families to help including parents and little brothers and sisters:


After a morning of hard work down at the fields (for Katie, James not feeling well - hmmm!), we took a taxi with a couple of the tios to a nearby lake which was holding a 'Trucha de Oro' (Golden Trout) festival:

There was traditional dancing and we went out on the lake on a rowing boat which was beautiful. And the food was brilliant - 2 quid for a great big fried trout!

On Friday night James had an early night while Katie went out and 'danced it up' at the local disco with all the teachers. It was hilarious, the music was terrible, we didn't stop dancing all night and we managed to leave at 3am completely, stone-cold sober!!! We drank 7 pint bottles of beer between 11 of us. Trying to explain that at a club in England one bloke alone would drink 8 pints and a girl 5 pints was a bit tricky!

We had the morning off on Saturday and then organised games with the kids on Saturday afternoon. All the 'proper' teachers were in meetings so it was just us two for two and half hours which was completely chaotic but good fun!

On the Saturday evening we went to a concert with all the people that work at the project. The bands were pretty good but the only problem was the it was outdoors and by midnight we were all freezing. Highlight was the drummer of the second band who must have modelled himself on Rick Mayall's character in 'Bad News' (sorry if that means nothing to anyone except Suse, Dad and Mum!). It was hilarious, a lot of hair swinging and tantrums when the speakers weren't working properly. Wish we had pictures...!

On Sunday, we joined the final day of a meeting that had been running for 3 days for various workers for peace around Peru. Between 1980 and 2000, Peru went through an horrific civil war that we knew very little about before arriving at Casa Marcelino. We are writing a separate blog about the work that they are doing at the project to help educate the people of Peru so that nothing similar happens again so please see next entry for more info.

On Sunday night, the teachers had all prepared a little party for us which was lovely. We ate cake and icecream and fruit salad and Katie cried (again). After we had eaten, the evening took a very strange corner and turned into a sort of talent show. Tia Rocio nominated people to 'perform' and they duly did. We had dancing, singing, jokes, poetry recitals - it was very funny. James and I could see what was coming, our turn (horror!), so James found a Jive Bunny cd in a dodgy collection of one of the teachers and we got up and jived - us, JIVING, bloody hell, you should've seen it!!!

We bought a wheelbarrow and some supplies for the school as a donation and promised to pass on the word of all the help needed to the UK.

It was really sad to leave all the kids and just before we left for the bus on Monday morning, they all got in a line and gave us a kiss and wished us on our way! We really hope to go back one day and seem to have promised all the women there that we would return with kids of our own in the not too distant future!!