ICTJ in the News

April 23, 2002

Political parties in Peru implicated in abuses throwing roadblocks up against the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

NPR Morning Edition

Transcript

BOB EDWARDS, host:

In Peru, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has begun a series of televised public hearings. Members are determining the political climate that led to 25,000 deaths and another 6,000 disappearances over two decades of guerrilla insurgency. The hearings are the first step in a two-year government mandate to identify victims, investigate human rights abuses and make recommendations, which could include legal action and financial reparations. While many victims have high expectations that justice finally will be served, political parties implicated in the abuses are throwing up roadblocks and threatening the success of the effort. Anne Moncrieff reports from Ayacucho.

(Soundbite of bell)

ANNE MONCRIEFF reporting:

On a recent evening, villagers gathered in the main square at the small Andean town of Juanta(ph). They lit candles and joined in a remembrance of loved ones tortured, killed or disappeared during the 20-year war between the army and the pro-Maoist Shining Path revolutionaries. The Truth Commission chose to begin their hearings in this isolated mountain province, where the war began. As the villagers marched around the center plaza, victims told their stories over loudspeakers.

Unidentified Woman #1: (Kachor(ph) spoken)

MONCRIEFF: This campesina, speaking in her native Kachor(ph), recounted the night 15 years ago when hooded soldiers broke down her door and took her teen-age son. There are many like her who have stories to tell.

Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)

MONCRIEFF: The afternoon sun cut across the long, graded lecture hall in Juanta, as Ebram Fernandez(ph) recounted how his little village of Chaka(ph) got caught in the cross fire between a repressive military and the brutal Shining Path guerrillas. 'Over the course of seven years,' he said, '61 members of the town were murdered, leaving 40 widows and 92 orphans.'

Unidentified Woman #2: (Foreign language spoken)

MONCRIEFF: Another woman described how soldiers dragged the men from her village from a church service and killed them, while forcing the women to sing hymns. At the end of her testify, the widows, accompanied by their priest, once again sang the song.

(Soundbite of group singing in foreign language)

MONCRIEFF: These stories are not unique. Between 1980 and 2000, over half a million rural Peruvians fled the countryside to Lima, breaking up families, destroying communities and throwing many of the country's most marginalized citizens into desperate poverty. Now, after years of frightened silence, these same citizens are asking for justice.

Ms. JULIA CASTILLA(ph): (Foreign language spoken)

MONCRIEFF: 'Hopefully we will have the truth and things won't stay like this,' says Julia Castilla, who fled to Lima 19 years ago after her mother and two brothers were murdered by the military, and her father was taken to jail. 'We are angry, and our family has been destroyed,' she says.

Commissioner Sofia Macher says vast numbers of victims, like Castilla, will make it virtually impossible for every case to be resolved.

Ms. SOFIA MACHER (Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission): (Through Translator) The concept of justice is very complicated. We have to find a viable path, and we have to be realistic. When we did a public opinion poll last year, it showed that, for the public, the measure of success for the commission at the end of the process will be if we put the big fish in jail. That's how people are going to judge us. It's overwhelming because we don't know if we'll be able to do it, but at least I hope that the responsible politicians will have to give a public accounting of what happened.

MONCRIEFF: That may be difficult. The period of time covered by the commission includes three different political administrations, none of which seem eager to reopen the past. The most contentious is the APRA Party, headed by former President Alan Garcia. Forty-one percent of all human rights abuses took place during the five years that Garcia was in office. And with political aspirations for 2005, he and his party are doing everything possible to publicly discredit the commission, criticizing the organization's dollar-based salaries, attacking commission members in Congress and even staging protests outside the hearings.

Priscilla Hayner of the International Center for Transitional Justice says all that is typical, but it can seriously derail the process.

Ms. PRISCILLA HAYNER (International Center for Transitional Justice): Really getting to the heart of the truth is always a threat. I don't find it surprising that there is a reaction against this commission. I think the stronger the commission is and the better it does its work, the more likely there will be certain sectors or certain individuals that are resisting it. What's important is that this does not turn into something that really limits and constrains the commission considerably. I think over the next weeks, we'll begin to see if that will be true.

Right now, the commission is continuing its work, as it should, staying on a straight line. It knows what its mission is, and I think it's doing that well. But I think the fact that it's doing it well, and I think the fact that there's suddenly going to be public hearings was the event that's caused people to react. There's a lot of sectors, or at least some sectors, in this society that really would be better off if the truth did not come out.

MONCRIEFF: That may be true, but as the vigilant Juanta showed, there is a deep hunger for the truth.

(Soundbite of drum)

MONCRIEFF: Commissioners are hoping that as hearings take place around the country, the groundswell of public pressure will force politicians like Garcia to take responsibility for their actions and finally allow the country a chance to heal. For NPR News, I'm Anne Moncrieff in Ayacucho.

EDWARDS: It's 11 minutes before the hour.