Back in August, I wrote about the discovery of the remains of Gilmer Ramiro León Velásquez, Pedro Pablo López Gonzáles, Denis Atilio Castillo Chávez, Pedro Federico Coquis Vásquez, Jesús Manfredo Noriega Ríos, Jesús Roberto Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Alberto Barrientos Velásquez, Carlos Martín Tarazona More y Jorge Luis Tarazona More, all from the town of El Santa. The bodies were found in three graves by the side of the Panamerican highway on the arid Peruvian Coast, a short drive north of El Santa.

At the time, I mentioned that the late finding, which took place 19 years after their abduction and execution at the hands of the sadly infamous Grupo Colina, was symptomatic of the lack of attention being paid to the issue of the 15,000 Peruvians that were disappeared during the period of the internal armed conflict (1980-2000) and the plight of their relatives by the Peruvian State and successive governments since the end of the conflict.

The graves containing the bodies were discovered by accident, and not as part of an investigation to find the remains. Given the numbers of disappeared in Peru, this might not be very surprising, except for the fact that when the members of the Grupo Colina were tried and convicted for the El Santa disappearances, they provided relatively precise indications of where the bodies had been discarded and buried.

To make matters worse, over the weeks and months that followed the discovery, the relatives of the victims repeatedly complained of the excruciatingly long time it took before the remains were returned to them. For largely unexplained reasons, the Public Ministry’s Instituto de Medicina Legal deemed that DNA testing was necessary to establish the identity of the victims, leading to an inordinate amount of time before the remains could be recovered by the families.

To many observers, this seemed unnecessary given that during the exhumation, the clothing worn by many of the victims was recognized by relatives. In addition, the circumstances in which the nine campesinos were simultaneously abducted from El Santa left no doubt as to the identity of the other bodies. Not to mention that the findings corresponded in number and location with the indications that some of the members of the Grupo Colina had given during their trial.

To re-emphasize what I wrote then, because I think it gets to the crux of the matter regarding the way the State has (or, perhaps more to the point, has not) been dealing with the problem of its disappeared, the clear lack of a humanitarian concern in the way the El Santa case was handled demonstrated an obvious disregard for the needs and priorities of the relatives of the disappeared.

A humanitarian approach to the search of Peru’s disappeared would mean that the investigation and collection of evidence are realized with the objective of providing answers to the relatives and returning the remains of the missing for their proper burial. Instead, the approach preferred by the State can be characterized as judicial: the search of the missing is typically only allowed to take place as part of judicial processes (a grave problem given that for the wide majority of the crimes committed, the evidence to convict specific individuals simply does not exist, so that judicial processes are very unlikely to take place).

Under this approach, the evidence that is collected as part of the investigation is strictly limited to evidence that can be used to prove guilt in a court of law. In the case of El Santa, sufficient evidence was found to convict the members of Grupo Colina of the crime without the bodies. The official search for the remains was therefore put aside. In other cases, the difficult task of determining the identity of remains that may be found is not necessarily a priority.

This is why organizations working on behalf of the disappeared and their relatives are calling for a National Plan for the Search and Identification of the Disappeared; one­ with a humanitarian focus. The first step would be to know exactly how many are missing and who they are. Then, a strategy would need to be elaborated to locate mass graves, perform exhumations, identify the remains, and return them to their rightful owners. It is not that Peru does not have the capacity to elaborate and carry out such a Plan. The problem is one of clear lack of political will and leadership, worsened by a near total absence of popular pressure and interest in the issue.

Respect and concern for the suffering of the relatives, which is initially magnified when the remains of loved ones are exhumed, would mean ensuring that the bodies can be recovered as rapidly as possible after an exhumation. Yet took three months before the El Santa victims were returned to their families. Be that as it may, promptly upon recovering the recovering the remains, a mass funeral was organized in the town of El Santa to finally put the nine victims to rest. I travelled the 6 hours up the coast from Lima to attend the event with EPAF’s Percy Rojas, Gisela Ortiz, and family.

We arrived to El Santa, just north of the city of Chimbote, on the evening before the funeral. The nine coffins had been laid out in the town’s main plaza for the traditional velatorio (performed privately in the relatives’ homes the night before but moved to the main plaza given the public nature of the deaths). A cultural act had been organized to honour the memory of the victims. As sombre as I expected the mood to be, the evening felt more like a celebration that the long-awaited moment when justice would reach this isolated place and finally bring some comfort to the relatives of the victims, many of whom are now elderly, had arrived. The coffins, surrounded by flowers, candles, and photos, created a sad but beautiful sight against the backdrop of the lit-up church. Many of the townspeople showed up to pay their respects to the relatives and partake in the event.

The following day began with a public ceremony in the main plaza in which the Bishop of Chimbote, local authorities, representatives from various NGOs, relatives and the general population participated. During the ceremony the Plaza’s flags were raised at half-mast, and Jorge Noriega, father of one of the victims, made an emotional speech, saying that as much as he was relieved that his son had finally been found, he felt ashamed that the Plaza’s flags should be raised at half-mast for a reason such as this one.

One by one, the nine coffins were then carried by relatives into the church for the religious ceremony. After, the coffins were slowly walked around the main plaza, as if to allow the disappeared to say one final farewell to their town, and show everyone that they were finally back in El Santa, after all this time. Then, under a blistering and unforgiving sun, the remains were taken by relatives to their final resting place, the Santa Municipal Cemetery, with townspeople and reporters in tow.

This is how the story of the disappeared of El Santa ends, and how the story of my time with EPAF ends as well. It has been an honour to be allowed to make a contribution, small as it may be, to the important battle that is being waged in Peru for justice, memory and reparation for the relatives of the victims of enforced disappearance. I take many memories away from this experience, and can only hope to one day be as strong as some of the people I have come to know during my time here; people who tirelessly fight day in and day out for what they believe is right.

And the battle continues… Today, on Dec. 16^th 2011, for the second year in a row the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team is holding a public event called “It Is Christmas and We Are Still Waiting For Them” in Lima’s Plaza San Martin. I wish them the best in this and all future endeavours for the sake of the relatives of Peru’s 15,000 disappeared.

I left off my previous post with EPAF staff and victims’ representatives from different communities of the Pampas-Qaracha River Basin region of Ayacucho boarding an overnight bus to Lima after spending four eventful days in Ayacucho (see The Relatives Unite Part 1 and Part 2). One major problem facing the relatives of Peru’s more than 15,000 disappeared from the period of the internal armed conflict (1980-2000) is that they are mainly from isolated regions of Ayacucho. Accordingly, their voices are very seldom heard in Lima, the economic and political center of the country.

Bringing the relatives to Lima, particularly after the leadership and empowerment workshops realized in the communities over the past year and in the previous few days in Ayacucho, was an attempt to break through this invisibility, and various public activities were planned to ensure that this objective was reached.

On the first day in Lima, the relatives from Ayacucho met with relatives and representatives from different victims’ organizations from Lima. This encounter was used to elaborate a letter to President Ollanta Humala that would be signed by all before being handed in directly to the President’s Office. The letter outlined eleven demands related to truth, justice and reparation;  such as the elaboration of a National Plan for the Search and Identification of the Disappeared and the provision of reparations to the victims in an integral manner; both collectively and individually.

In addition, the document expressed the total opposition of the relatives to any and all form of amnesty granted by the State regarding violations of human rights committed during the internal armed conflict: “We consider that the meaning of justice for the relatives entails the completion of the sentences received [by violators of human rights] so that it may serve as a lesson for future generations, and so that these events never occur again.” The letter closed by demanding respect and immediate attention to their demands. The full text of the letter can be accessed here (in Spanish).

Then, on the next day—All Saints’ Day—a commemoration was held at the Ojo que Llora memorial (The Eye that Cries) in honour of all of Peru’s disappeared. The event served as a symbolic and powerful reminder that while the rest of Peruvians flock to cemeteries to visit their dead every year on All Saints’ Day and the Day of the Dead (November 1^st and 2^nd), the relatives of the disappeared have nowhere to go to.

Many relatives from Lima and Ayacucho showed up for the event, and so did many of the television channels invited by EPAF, providing an opportunity for the Ayacuchan relatives to break the silence they are often forced to live with. The following is a short video I filmed during the event:

The rest of the week was spent lobbying different persons and entities. The relatives met with Congressman Javier Diez Canseco, official from the Ministerio de la Mujer, the Ombudsman’s Office, the CMAN, etc. By the end, one could tell they had gained experience and confidence in presenting their case, making demands and generally requesting that their voice be heard.

I believe the relatives went home to Ayacucho feeling energized to continue their long battle for the truth, justice and reparation. I hope that hearing the experiences of other relatives, be they from other rural communities, Ayacucho’s capital, or Lima made them feel like they were part of a community rather than alone in their fight. I was also encouraging that many of the authorities contacted were willing to receive the relatives and listen to them—even if that represents no real guarantee that they will do something about the issue.

There is a real need for this not to be a one-off event, but for empowerment and leadership work with the relatives of Peru’s disappeared to be ongoing. It is only by publicly repeating the same stories and the same demands over and over again that they have a chance of becoming part of the national consciousness, allowing for memory and justice in all senses. Although I will no longer be there to document it, EPAF’s work in Ayacuchan communities affected by the political violence will continue. Moreover, the relatives that took part in this “meeting of relatives” were given the responsibility of transferring what they had learned and experiences to the other relatives of their communities. As I see it, small as they may be, these are all steps that will hopefully eventually allow for the issue of Peru’s disappeared to be given the attention it rightly deserves.

It’s done; my fellowship is over. As a matter of fact, I have already left Lima. I am currently sitting in a coffeeshop in the gorgeous southern city of Arequipa, and tomorrow I will try my luck at ascending the 5,822 meters of the mighty Misti volcano, before moving on to Bolivia for a few weeks of travelling. Nevertheless, over the next few days and weeks I will continue to process the material I have collected during the last very hectic weeks I spent at EPAF.

So, without further ado, the Relatives Unite Part II.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the first part of a week-long meeting of relatives from the Pampas-Qaracha river basin region of Ayacucho took place between October 27th and 30th in Ayacucho’s capital, Huamanga.

After a presentation and warm up activity, the first morning of activities began with a workshop aimed at elaborating a common agenda and a set of common demands that would later be communicated to various authorities. The reasoning behind this was that the scheduled meetings of the next few days would be much more effective if the relatives were able to express clearly and succinctly a set of demands reflecting the common needs and rights of the relatives of victims of enforced disappearance.

To begin, the representatives were asked to divide into groups representing each community, and write down their demands for each of the relevant entities they would later meet representatives from: the Seguro Integral de Salud (SIS), the Consejo de Reparaciones, the Comisión Multisectorial de Alto Nivel (CMAN), and regional authorities.

During this activity, it was easy to see the difference between those communities where EPAF has been realizing empowerment workshops or communities that have long-standing victims’ associations (Raccaya and Sacsamarca, for instance) and communities where EPAF has only just started working. There was a noticeable difference in the level of information and awareness about what the institutions were, their respective roles and responsibilities, and recent developments affecting the relatives’ right to justice and the truth, such as the Supreme Decree 051-2011 on reparations, about which I have written before (link).

The delegates were then asked to choose one person to present their community’s demands to the rest of the group. While some of the demands were specific to each place; many others reflected common issues and problems, which made the next task of synthesizing the morning’s work into a set of common demands much more manageable. Many of the demands centered on the difficulties of accessing the health benefits they are entitled to as victims and around their opposition to the terms of reparation set out by the Supreme Decree 051-2011, especially with regards to the amount established, time limit, and age requirements.

In the afternoon, the group took a break from this intense activity and made its way to the Universidad Nacional San Cristóbal de Huamanga’s Cultural Center, where the 7th annual Latin American Forensic Anthropology Conference was taking place. As organizer of the event, and given its emphasis on working with and for the relatives of the disappeared, EPAF insisted on including a roundtable on the experiences of the relative at what was an otherwise scientifically-oriented conference.

The roundtable was moderated by EPAF operations director, La Cantuta relative and activist extraordinaire Gisela Ortiz, and included the participation of Alfredo García from Raccaya, Adelina García from ANFASEP, Dionisio Arguedas from Huamanquiquia and Felipe Huamán from Sacsamarca, who all shared their experiences with the substantial crowd of professionals from all over Latin America, students and others.

The roundtable was concluded by an emotional tribute to the relatives during which flowers were distributed among the audience so that each person could personally pass them on to one relative as a symbol of the recognition of their suffering and as a way to apologize on behalf of Peruvian society, which generally stood idle from the safety of its cities while the Ayacuchan countryside was being torn apart and massacred by both sides of the conflict.

On the next day, the ladies from ANFASEP came to visit the relatives. ANFASEP is probably Peru’s oldest victim association, created in 1983 by mothers tirelessly searching for their disappeared son. Their determination is legendary and they are a true symbol of the fight for human rights and the search for justice of the relatives of victims of enforced disappearance in Peru.

The morning turned into a rich and fruitful exchange—conducted entirely in Quechua—between the ladies of ANFASEP and the relatives gathered in Huamanga. For most of the relatives coming from remote villages, it was the first time that they had heard of ANFASEP or were exposed to a victim’s association that had been active for so long. Hearing about ANFASEP’s experience left them captivated and they had many, many questions.

I think an exchange of experience like this one was invaluable for the relatives; more than teaching them about the importance of organization and persistence in the fight against impunity, they also recognized their story in the ladies’ story—fully realizing perhaps for the first time that their communities were not alone in their suffering; that the same horrors had actually happened all over Ayacucho. This sense of solidarity, of shared experience, can—and seemed to—be very empowering for the relatives.

Perhaps the motherly aspect of the “madres de ANFASEP” also helped to create a strong bond with the other relatives. By the end of the meeting, everyone had vowed to keep in touch and collaborate together, and the relatives made sure to invite the ANFASEP ladies to visit their respective villages.

That afternoon, another meeting was held with representative of the CMAN’s office in Lima and Ayacucho (responsible for the elaboration of policies on reparation), CONAVIP-Ayacucho (an umbrella organization of organizations of people affected by Peru’s political violence), the regional government’s human rights office, and a former human rights activist recently elected to the regional government. It was an occasion for the relatives to share their concerns with these regional authorities and bring forth the demands they had jointly discussed and elaborated the previous day. Once again, the meeting was productive; it offered a chance for people who often feel isolated and helpless to express their concerns and demands to the pertinent authorities, and feel like at the very least they were listened to.

The next day was spent with an leadership workshop with REDINFA’s Raúl Calderón in the morning, and a visit in the afternoon to some of Huamanga’s “memory” attractions such as the ANFASEP museum, the “Memory Park,” and a memorial to the journalists killed in Uchurracay in 1983. In the evening, we all packed into a bus for the night-long trip to Lima, where the meetings, workshops and other activities would continue.

This post is already too long so I will limit myself to making a few observations. During the workshop in Huamanga, an aspect that struck me was that men were generally appeared much more informed than women. As a result, the few women that were present did not participate as much as the men did.

Moreover, women from isolated Quechua-speaking villages often cannot not express themselves as fluently in Spanish as the men. While everyone was fully encouraged to speak in their native Quechua and every effort was made to translate the Spanish portions, I still got the sense that there were at times language barrier issues; that they were holding back somehow.

This is something that should be taken into account by any organization working in Peru’s post-conflict communities. There are specific issues affecting women much more than men, such as the widespread use of sexual violence against women during the conflict and the psychological marks this has left, and these are unlikely be given the attention that they should unless women are specifically targeted and attended to.

Also, the meetings made me realize the power and importance for these communities to be organized. News simply do not travel to them the way that we are used to. Developments at the national level highly relevant to their search for truth, justice and reparation can take months to reach them, if they ever do. More and better communication is necessary among communities, and between the communities and the capitals Huamanga and Lima. These communities are so isolated that it is difficult to foresee them realizing major achievements unless they are very organized and put their collective weight down.

Coming soon, The Relatives Unite Part III (in Lima).

I feel like this is the first time in the past two weeks that I am able to sit down long enough to catch my breath and reflect on everything that has occurred since then. A lot has been going on, so this will probably turn out to be a two- or three-part blog entry!

On Tuesday, October 25th, I left for Ayacucho on the night bus with EPAF’s Gisela Ortiz and the Red para la Infancia y la Familia—REDINFA’s Raúl Calderón. We were going to a “meeting of relatives” organized by EPAF in the city of Huamanga from the 27th to the 30th, to be continued in Lima from October 31st to November 4th.

This encuentro was in some ways the culmination of the work that EPAF has been realizing in the communities of the Pampas-Qaracha river basin for the past year or so, but in other ways it was also the beginning of new endeavours.

December 2011 will mark the end of “Paraguas Humanitario,” a project funded by the Open Society Institute and whose overarching goal has been to empower the relatives of the disappeared from communities of the Pampas-Qaracha river basin to be the main promoters and defenders of the search for their loved ones. Nevertheless, work in the region will continue as part of the newer “Iniciativa” project, which shares many of the same objectives.

As I blogged a few months ago following my first visit to the region, the Pampas-Qaracha river basin was where the Shining Path first violently imposed its authority in the early 1980s, and was the main theater of the internal armed conflict. It is an extremely isolated region that has been one of the most affected by the violence and repression—and the sequels are still visible to this day. The community of Hualla, just to name an example, counts the highest number of disappeared in all of Peru, and was reduced to a fraction of its former self by the years of violence.

EPAF’s work in these communities revolves around three main axes. First, forensic investigation; which includes everything from preliminary investigation, collection of testimonials, verification of gravesites, determination of the number of victims, etc. On the basis of this information, the processes of exhumation and identification of victims may be undertaken by EPAF if granted permission by the Public Ministry.

The second mode of intervention in affected communities is psychosocial support, which is done with psychologists from REDINFA. Even decades after the end of violence, the “post-conflict” reality in Ayacuchan communities is made up of a heavy mixture of silence and fear, of unspoken truth and tension, with catastrophic results for the social fabric. For instance, countless women were victim of sexual violence during the conflict—yet this is not something that is spoken about. Through group sessions, the victims and victims’ relatives can begin the process of healing their wounds and acquiring the self-confidence needed to join collective action.

The last, but not least, mode of intervention is the formation and empowerment of victim’s associations. This is done under the understanding that the reinsertion of the victims into society as full rights-bearing citizens can only be achieved once they have the capacity do exercise their right to speak, participate, and organize themselves; and perhaps more importantly, to effectively make demands to the government.

An important part of EPAF’s work in communities of Ayacucho is therefore to help them establish a common agenda, identify opportunities of participation in various bodies, develop awareness-raising strategies, and lobby relevant authorities. Before all this, however, victims and victim’s relatives must know their rights, for example their right to a formal investigation over what happened to their loved one, and recognize the importance of having them respected.

The past two weeks’ encuentro fed squarely into these objectives. It reunited representatives from victims’associations from communties where EPAF has been working for a while—such as Colcabamba and Racaya—but also communties where they have just started working, such as Apongo (see a post on my visit to Apongo here). The main idea was to help them join forces and develop a set of common demands, which would then be passed on the relevant regional and central authorities. By uniting with other associations in Huamanga (such as the iconic mothers of ANFASEP) and Lima, the intention was also to create political pressure and turn the plight of the relatives of the disappeared into a national issue.

The delegates from each community began arriving to Huamanga on the 26th. No activities were planned on this day for the relatives given the lengthy travels some of them had to undertake to get to the city. Gisela, Raúl and I, now joined by Virgilio Vallejo, a Huamanga-based, Quechua-speaking anthropologist that recently started working for EPAF, took advantage of this fact to attend the inauguration of the 7th Latin American Forensic Anthropology Congress. The Congress was organized by EPAF, and we met up with a large part of the team there.

 

The inauguration speech of the Congress was given by the ex-Prosecutor Dr. Avelino Guillén,  who served as one of the key Prosecutors in Alberto Fujimori’s trial. He commented on the battle between impunity and justice raging in the country, and suggested that forensic sciences had an important contribution to make to tilt the balance towards justice. He also reflected EPAF’s position by emphasizing that forensic anthropologists can not and should not limit themselves to “collect remains”, but should act in a humanitarian perspective to help end the relative’s pain. He further commented that the state should facilitate the work of civil society forensic experts such as EPAF, rather than place obstacles in their way.

Guillén concluded his speech with a searing remark: “How is it possible that Peru still has not clarified grave human rights violations that occurred 20 years ago? It is because we lack the will, because we do not care about the disappeared.”

I don’t want to make this post too long so I will stop here for now. Coming soon: The Relatives Unite Part II!

Alfredo García, the relative of a victim of the Peruvian political violence, relates his personal experience and that of his community, Raccaya (Víctor Fajardo Province, Ayacucho) during the violence. He eloquently touches on many different acpects, such as the difficulties he encountered in Lima as a displaced person from Ayacucho, the experience of the community with the Public Ministry, and the differences between the legislation on paper and what is done for the relatives of the disappeared in reality. I am reproducing his testimonial here because it is emblematic of the experience of many Peruvian communities affected by the violence. This was recorded at the Symposium “Forensic Sciences in the Search for Justice in Peru” organized by EPAF at the Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú on September 16th 2011.

As the end of my fellowship with EPAF is fast approaching, I feel like somehow I have gone a full circle (or at least half of one!). Lima is a different city now than the city waiting for me when I arrived almost 6 months ago, and which I have learned to love. It is now often sunny, something I never thought was possible, and some days are actually warm. And there is something in the air, some latent energy that reminds me of the Canadian sprintime I love so dearly.

Ciro Castillo’s body was finally found at the end of last week, after more than 200 days of frantic searching. I have written about Ciro’s disappearance before, so I won’t repeat the details. The search for Ciro has been a constant backdrop to the months I have spent here, and I think that it is the fact that he has finally been found, more than the few weeks left before my departure, that makes me feel like a cycle is somehow ending.

Today, the EPAF office was bombarded by television and radio channels requesting interviews with its executive director, José Pablo Baraybar, hoping to get his views on the events leading up to Ciro’s death. This media circus has made me realize, once more, the contrast between this one very high-profile disappeared and Peru’s 15,000 disappeared. In the months I have spent at EPAF, very rarely has a news channel resquested an interview to talk about the disappeared.

Peru’s disappeared are, for all intents and purposes, still invisible in a country so focused on its potential and future.

Forget the doom and gloom, I have decided today’s post will be a light one. An informative event on the disappeared last week at Lima`s San Marcos University included a exhibit consisting of blown-ups of caricatures by Carlín. Carlos Tovar, commonly know as Carlin, is an excellent political cartoonist published daily in La República newspaper. Given the human rights theme, the caricatures chosen for the exhibit were mostly on the Fujimori family, and I am reproducing them here for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

Two weeks ago I went to Callao, Lima’s port, to attend an event organized by the Coordinadora Contra la Impunidad (CCI). The conference was held at the Universidad Nacional del Callao during the 5th Inter-university Day for Human Rights and Against Impunity, and in commemoration of the 18th anniversary of the disappearance of two of its students, Martin Roca and Kenneth Anzualdo. Speaking were the respective fathers of the two students, Javier Roca and Felix Anzualdo, as well as EPAF director José Pablo Baraybar, who testified as an expert in the trial for the Anzualdo case.

Martin Roca Casas was detained by members of the Marines’ Intelligence Service on October 5th, 1993. He was never seen again. In the weeks previous to his disappearance, he had been the victim of harassment by intelligence officials, reason for which his father sought legal assistance, and Martin contacted Callao’s police department by writing to request guarantees for his life and personal safety; a request that was denied.

Kenneth Ney Anzualdo Castro was also a student at the university, and Martin’s friend. Since he had been with Martin on the last day the latter was seen, he was scheduled to testify at the prosecutor’s office regarding his friend’s disappearance. He never did, however, as he was himself disappeared by members of the Army’s Intelligence Service on December 16^th, 1993. It was later established that, like his friend, he was detained, tortured, executed, and cremated in the basement of the Intelligence Service headquarters.

Despite the unrelenting efforts of his relatives, the disappearance of Martin Roca has occurred in complete impunity, as the case was archived permanently for a purported lack of evidence. Meanwhile, the Interamerican Court of Justice found the Peruvian State guilty of the enforced disappearance of Kenneth Anzualdo in 2009.  According to the ruling, the State is obligated to investigate, take to court, and sanction those responsible for this crime, to proceed to the search and localization of his remains, and pay an indemnization to his family. This sentence has yet to be carried out.

This was the second university “conversatorios” I attended—a previous one was organized by EPAF back in September during the Pontifica Universidad Católica’s Human Rights Festival. At both events, the turnout was disappointingly low, despite EPAF’s best attempts at promoting the events.

I have been wondering about the reason behind this low attendance, trying to understand, for example, how it is that out of a total of 15,000 students at the Universidad Nacional del Callao, only a few dozens would be interested to learn about the abduction, torture, and execution of two of their own.

It may be the fact that this occurred 20 years ago; that students feel like this is not relevant to their reality. I had an interesting conversation about this with Marly Anzualdo, Kenneth’s sister. According to her, today’s youth are subtly (and not so subtly) taught not to question the “official” history of Peru’s dark period, even not to think about it. This indifference is very hard to break through.

During the period of political violence, the mere fact of being a student made you suspicious of being a terrorist in the eyes of the government. Military bases were even set up on the grounds of many universities. Consequently, as Javier Roca recounted during his presentation, many parents would tell their children to avoid becoming involved in any type of activities or protests on their campus. Which is exactly what the government wanted: “Leaders of this type always need people that are asleep, people that never do anything, so that they themselves may do anything they wish, as if they were on their plot of land. This is what happened.”

According to Javier, the general indifference to the themes being discussed at the conference suggests that this tactic has been successful. “In meetings, in Congress, in seminars, I always hear people ask: “Why did this happen?” But in this fight, I have found the resounding answer, and I no longer have doubts. This happened because, just like now, the rest of the country’s population was indifferent. Of all the people that were in the sector where [my son] was, no one did anything, no one said anything.” Javier continued: “I don’t know if one day, we will be able to shake ourselves up, react, and be able to show unity and protest when faced with an injustice.”

At the beginning of the conference, a representative of the Coordinadora Contra la Impunidad emphasized to those present that the goal was not merely for them to become more informed about what happened. The objective, rather, was for them to become actively involved in the search for justice and the truth; for them to mobilize their friends, their colleagues, and their families in this fight. Likewise, Marly Anzualdo concluded the conference by commenting that everyone had a responsibility to ensure that the death of her brother, and of so many others, not be in vain.

Javier Roca was one of the people interviewed and photographed in 2009 by Renzo Aroni and Jonathan Moller. Here is a video montage of the material I have produced for EPAF’s “Not One but Fifteen Thousand Voices” series.

Finally, following is a poem written by Marly Anzualdo in honor of her brother:

Kenneth – Hermano

Tú no tienes una tumba
Porque eres como el viento.

Tú no tienes una tumba
Porque eres como el tiempo.

Tú no tienes una tumba
Porque eres esperanza.

Tú no tienes una tumba
Porque eres libertad.

Tú no tienes una tumba
Porque tú no estas muerto.

Tú naciste para vivir por siempre
Te amo.

To learn more about the Roca – Anzualdo case, visit the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos - APRODEH’s page (in Spanish).

On my last trip to Ayacucho last week, I was fortunate enough to witness first-hand the investigative work of realized by EPAF. Much of it feels like attempting to place together the piece of a grim puzzle. We know such a person was disappeared from such a village. Villagers say that there are bodies buried in such and such a place. By reconstructing the events through interviews with relatives and witnesses, EPAF tries to link the who with the where. But the thing with enforced disappearance is that where the body ends up can often not be deducted from the crime itself. As José  Pablo Baraybar,  executive director of EPAF, once wrote: “Those that disappear people do it so that the people never re-appear, otherwise it would be too easy.”

In Apongo, one of the villages I visited last week, the rumor is that some people from Hualla are buried. Hualla is a community I have visited before on a previous trip, and counts one of the highest numbers of disappeared in Peru . To think some of them may be in found in Apongo touched me deeply, and made me fully grasp the significance of EPAF’s work on the ground in these communities. If we can go back to just one of the numerous people who were kind enough to let us into their home and strong enough to recount in details what was undoubtedly the most difficult period of their lives—if we can go back to just one of these people, and tell them we have located their loved one, then all EPAF’s efforts are worthwhile.

This recent trip to Ayacucho was the first time that I was in prolonged contact with relatives of the disappeared outside of Lima. If there is one thing I can take away from the experience, it is that their concerns are very much in line with what EPAF is advocating for. They want the truth, and they want the remains of their loved ones. Apart from that, what they want is reparation. They have been waiting for years, they say, and nothing has come forward. Nothing demonstrating that the state is acknowledging the harm done to them, and asking for forgiveness.

How long will this situation be allowed to linger? Many of the relatives are old; a good number have already died, without ever knowing the truth or seeing a hint of justice. EPAF’s efforts in the search and identification of the disappeared are crucial, but they are not enough in and of themselves. What Peru needs is a National Plan for the Search and Identification of the Disappeared. Nothing controversial, or politicized; just a little bit of goodwill, a lot of common sense, and a good old plan. Is it really too much to ask for?

 

A few weeks ago, one of the projects I have been working on took shape as EPAF launched the series Not One, but Fifteen Thousand Voices (No una, sino 15 mil voices). The series represents an intent by EPAF to bring to the public the stories of the disappeared though the relatives’ own words and voice. Given the majority of victims of enforced disappearance during Peru’s internal armed conflict were from remote Andean provinces, their voices are almost never heard in Lima, the country’s political, economic and cultural center.

In 2009, American photographer Jonathan Moller and Renzo Aroni from the Memory Area of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) set out to capture the personal histories of some of the relatives of victims of enforced disappearance. The motivation behind it is simple: Yes, there are 15,000 missing persons in Peru. Yes, that is an impressive number. But to understand the tragedy of enforced disappearance, one must look beyond the numbers and into the particular story of each of the missing and the impact left on each of the relative. Each has its own ways to process the pain and memories left by the enforced disappearance of his or her loved one. Each also has an inalienable right to truth and justice.

The first videos of the series, presenting the stories of Aurelia, Marina and Mauro—all from the village of Hualla, in Ayacucho—are available with English subtitles on EPAF’s website on the disappeared in Peru, Desaparecidos ¿Hasta Cuándo?.

Working with testimonials of relatives of missing persons—often in their original Quechua, translated by the ever helpful Percy Rojas—has made me reflect on ethics in a general sense, but more specifically ethics in the context of advocacy work. Advocacy is not only about raising awareness, but also about enlisting support for a cause. Thus, one is always tempted to use the image that will shock the most; present the most tragic story, etc, in order to ensure a strong reaction among the audience, whoever the audience may be.

But might that not amount to an exploitation of people’s suffering? Of course, it is for a good cause. Ultimately, it is to help the victims. But I still feel that the line between diffusion and exploitation is a thin one to tread.

It is difficult to describe the impact left by hearing a woman sob through her story, because even 25 years later she is unable to control her emotions when describing circumstances in which her loved one was taken away, never to return. Suffice to say that it is not something that is easily forgotten. But this is precisely the type of material that people will not see in the series, as we have made a conscious decision not to use material showing the relatives crying so as to avoid their re-victimization.

The same applies to the collection of testimonies itself. As a man from the small Andean community of Huacaña told visiting EPAF members last week, “Many organizations have come before you to collect our story, and it has not done anything for us”.

In some places people are eager to tell their stories. This is mostly the case in remote areas that feel abandoned by the State, and by Peruvian society in general; places that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigators never reached, for instance. In other places, however, EPAF researchers have been met by people that don’t want to tell their story anymore. Re-living traumatic events is painful. Too many people have come to collect their stories in all the gritty details, and left never to return, and what did that get them? The answer, locally and concretely, is often: very little.

How much does wanting to help justify using people’s pain as material for diffusion? This is a question I have no answer for. The best I can come up with is that this sort of question probably needs to be resolved on a case by case basis. Ultimately, it should be up to the victims themselves to decide whether they want their story made public.