Revista del Instituto Riva-Agüero

Introducción: Violencia política en el Perú 1980-2000, nuevas perspectivas de investigación

2024-08-16T08:09:24-05:00

The Ayacucho militias as agents of reconstruction and social transformation in the Peruvian civil war (1980-2000)

2024-08-16T08:09:25-05:00

This contribution examines why and how civilian militias, called rondas, self-defense committees (CAD) or anti-subversive civil defense (DECAS), emerged during the civil war in Peru. It seeks to explain how they evolved and interacted with other political and social actors at various levels of society during this war; and how they affected the dynamics of daily life during and after the period of political conflict. Most studies on the subject have emphasized the negative aspect of the militias for the excesses they perpetrated, and little attention has been paid to the decisive role they played in the defeat of the Shining Path, under the supervision of the Armed Forces. This text highlights the role of the militias as agents of social reconstruction and positive transformations in the Andean areas of the country, particularly in Ayacucho.

Acts of extreme violence and totalitarian Shining Path camps among the Ashaninka and Nomatsiguenga of the central jungle of Peru

2024-08-16T08:09:29-05:00

Studies on the internal war in Peru have ignored the acts of violence: recruitments, rapes, executions, massacres and totalitarian camps. From the anthropology of violence, this article exposes the central points of an ignored topic: the totalitarian Senderista camps in which thousands of Ashaninka and Nomatsiguenga natives were captives. The Shining Path leaders sought the transformation of thousands of natives who had to destroy their social identities to create a “new communist society.” The priority sources are the testimonies collected by the author between 2008 and 2017, and the testimonies collected by the CVR between 2002 and 2003. The analysis takes into account, in particular, the works of Françoise Héritier, Hannah Arendt, and Tzvetan Todorov.

Memories of the Ashaninka of the Ene River during the Peruvian internal war

2024-08-16T08:09:32-05:00

In 1990 I was a young photojournalist and foreign press correspondent in Peru. After having traveled through several war zones in Ayacucho, I ventured into the remote Ene River valley, where a great drama was unfolding. As the army advanced and the Shining Path retreated into the bush, hundreds of Ashaninka were being recovered and were arriving as refugees in the Ashaninka community of Cutivireni after having been kidnapped and taken captive by the armed columns of Shining Pathists. There are thousands of photographs and memories of those terrible days in the community that I want to share.
Memories of human beings barricaded to survive; without food, refugees, destitute against disease, with cholera raging, taking rifle fire, avoiding murderous mines, sharing fears and smiles, and death ever-present. Recurring images that keep coming back to me and remain vivid despite the years, in memory and on photographic paper, and which I now try to awaken from oblivion.

The humanitarian turn in the search for missing people in Latin America: The case of Peru

2024-08-16T08:09:36-05:00

In the last fifty years, a significant number of Latin American countries have faced periods of massive violations of the human rights of their respective populations, whether in dictatorial regimes, during internal armed conflicts, or in the fight against organized crime (Mexico). One of the tragic consequences of these contexts is the practice of mass disappearances of people, mainly by state agents, but also by non-state armed actors. The complaints raised by relatives of the disappeared and human rights organizations have had the effect of generating obligations for States related to the determination of the whereabouts of the disappeared. In recent years, this responsibility has led to the creation of governmental entities specialized in the search for the disappeared. Under the influence of humanitarianism, these entities do not seek to prove the crime or identify those responsible, but rather to provide answers to relatives who, for a long time, have not known the final fate of their loved ones. This article, after describing the pending task of searching for the disappeared, describes the recent humanitarian turn this task has taken in Latin America, establishing an initial balance regarding its possibilities and limitations, taking the Peruvian experience as the main reference.

Violence and memory in the Peruvian narrative about the internal armed conflict

2024-08-16T08:09:41-05:00

From the first years of the armed conflict between the Communist Party of Peru Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL) and the Peruvian State, literature burst onto the cultural and social scene with the aim of interpreting its immediate situation and thus contributing to the production of meaning to understand that historical experience, both in the representation of violence and in the construction of memory. This essay proposes a global and complex look at this phenomenon, cultural and political at the same time, to identify and map out —from a limited corpus of novels— relevant thematic axes and their respective modes of representation.

Representations of the internal armed conflict in Peruvian cinema: A panorama

2024-08-16T08:09:44-05:00

This text offers a panoramic view of some of the representations of the internal armed conflict offered by Peruvian cinema from the end of the 1980s to the present day. By mentioning some emblematic titles, we point out the coincidences and divergences shown in the cinematographic perspectives and treatments of political violence in Peru over the years.

Moments of Peru at war: Testimony of a life dedicated to portraying reality, despite its severe limitations

2024-08-16T08:09:46-05:00

Talking about internal war in Peru is doubly difficult. Because of the issue of political violence that we had to live with and our role as journalists in tow, away from the passions and standard bearers of the famous objectivity whose meaning hammered us every time we took the camera to record what happened. Then came the self-censorship that took us away from the flags that the participants brought as pretexts for the violence unleashed or to unleash. We were interested in the roots of this violence, its origins and the “why” in each case. Thus, we began to see what others did not see: the significance of our documents for history, for its reconstruction. Reviewing my experience of those years (half a century of journalistic work) I have managed to synthesize some objective, transcendental and valid criteria to contribute to history. My search spanned 14 years of conflict. From 1978 (the beginnings of land grabs) until 1992, when they captured the insurgent leaders of the Shining Path. Of course, there are thousands of unpublished images left in the archives. But the demands of the present testimony force us to choose the best (or the worst) of those moments.

The uses of memory in contexts of political violence: The cases of Cambodia and Peru

2024-08-16T08:09:50-05:00

The human being is distinguished from the other animal species by the consciousness he has of being inscribed over time. He knows that he is mortal, that his life will have an end, he also knows that it had a beginning which links this initial moment to the present moment. This continuity presents itself to his consciousness in the form of a narrative, rewritten throughout his existence. Human communities do not have a clear image of their birth and even less a prefiguration of their death, yet they act in a manner analogous to that of individuals, except that they are content to transmit narratives concerning the common past, shared by an important part of the population. This awareness of the past is what we call, in a very general sense, individual or collective memory. This text deals with these themes and evokes the cases of political violence in Cambodia and Peru.

Veinte años después de la publicación del Informe Final de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. Entrevista al Dr. Salomón Lerner Febres, por la Dra. Mariella Villasante Cervello (Lima, 25 de septiembre de 2023)

2024-08-19T08:12:49-05:00

There has been no concern on the part of the State to educate young people about what Peru experienced between 1980 and 2000, nor has the work of the CVR been sufficiently valued. Since Fujimori’s time, a parallel history was created, and all the crimes perpetrated by the State, especially those whose main leader was Fujimori, remained unnoticed, hidden, despite the fact of being State crimes. But at least in the judicial field progress was made and it was one of the causes for Fujimori’s extradition and conviction. Furthermore, the forced disappearances were hidden, as far as the military leaders were concerned, by the State itself, because when the Ministry of Defense was asked for the names of the soldiers who had acted under pseudonyms, the CVR did not receive any names. Likewise, there is the Reparations Council for victims, created in 2006; Financial reparations have been made to individual and collective victims due to social pressure during the time of President García. But in moral reparations, education, and health, not much progress has been made. Those who have followed the IF better are the populations where there have been victims, they are the ones who best remember and vindicate the work of the CVR. Finally, where the most progress has been made is in the field of the arts, through films, theater, and literature.

Towards a land of memories, stories and tragedies: The image of Peru in the Anglophone press in China (1874-1939)

2024-08-16T08:09:58-05:00

The article analyzes the representation of Peru in the English-speaking press in China between 1871 and 1939. During this period, China was interested in learning about Latin America and Peruvian’s economic, political, and social situation, particularly the living and working conditions of Chinese immigrants in Peru. While much of the research regarding the Chinese presence in Peru has focused on how Peruvians perceived Chinese immigrants, this work seeks to contribute to the analysis of the imaginary of Peru in China, particularly in the English-language media regularly published in Shanghai.

Poetic prose: A format in revival

2024-08-16T08:10:01-05:00

This essay points out a revival of poetic prose in contemporary literature. It underlines that some poetic prose shares a poem’s main verbal features, while others assume what is typical of short stories: the exactly right word. It comments on some poetic prose by Charles Baudelaire and César Vallejo illustrating these ideas, intertwingled with some of Julio Cortázar’s stands on the notion of short story. Then, this essay focuses on Leo Almeida’s poetic prose, in which he uses his anti-system and irreverent point of view to innovatively highlight people’s marginality and ancestral cultures’ dispossession.

Tourism in Peru: History, chain and problems

2024-08-16T08:10:04-05:00

The text develops, within the framework of the construction of tourist activity, how it was organized and the role that the entities involved had, reviewing the literature on the matter. It is concluded that tourism as an economic sector was built from various global and local events that affected demand and supply, highlighting the nature of the business chain formed. This text also addresses and delimits problems that have affected tourist activity in the past and affect it still. The study can help to better understand this economy and social activity today.