April 17, 2009, Denver, Colo.: A photographic exhibit depicting a mass grave at Putis, Peru will be shown this weekend at the 10th Annual Symposium of the Center on Rights Development (CORD) at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), an Advocacy Project partner, exhumed the mass grave at Putis in May 2008. The photo exhibit, titled “If I Don’t Come Back, Look for Me in Putis,” is the visual testimony of Domingo Giribaldi, who documented EPAF’s trip to Ayacucho for the public display of the clothing found in the grave. Over the course of one week, more than 300 people, including family, friends and neighbors from the area, arrived at the clothing exhibition to give testimony and assist in the search for their missing loved ones.

The largest of Peru’s mass graves, Putis marks one of the most brutal incidents in the country’s 20-year internal conflict. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that in December 1984, 123 men, women and children from the communities of Cayramayo, Vizcatampata, Orccohuasi and Putis were executed by units of the Peruvian Army and buried at Putis.

EPAF team members Ellen Salter-Pedersen and Hayden Gore will speak at the symposium about Putis, the current human rights situation in Peru, and the recent ruling in the trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

The symposium will take place at the Univeristy of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, located at 2255 E. Evans Ave in Denver.