Abstract, From Victims to Beneficiaries: Shaping Postconflict Subjects through State Reparations in Peru

:::::: Abstract ::::::

From Victims to Beneficiaries: Shaping Postconflict Subjects through State Reparations in Peru

by Ivan Ramirez Zapata and Rogelio Scott-Insua

The political and institutional coordinates that appear in official classifications of the victims of the Peruvian armed conflict (1980–2000) affect their subsequent recognition as beneficiaries of reparations programs. A review of the conceptual bases of the Comprehensive Reparations Program calls attention to the tension in the design and implementation of this program between a strictly reparative approach and another that addresses the structural disparities present in the aftermath of the war. Examination of the effects of that tension in two cases shows that the early stages of implementing housing reparations equated the concept of “victim” with that of “poor” and later made poverty a prerequisite for receiving housing reparations and points to the difficulty of making an appropriate offer of reparations for displaced persons, whose specific problems are not properly addressed by the traditional agenda of transitional justice.

Introduction, The Arduous Task of Recomposing the Future in Postconflict Peru

:::::: Introduction ::::::

The Arduous Task of Recomposing the Future in Postconflict Peru

by Kristi M. Wilson

In 2000, President Alberto Fujimori fled Peru in the wake of a corruption scandal and faxed in his resignation. Shortly thereafter, in 2001, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to investigate the atrocities committed between 1980 and 2000, a period of extreme political violence and human rights violations in Peru that included sexual violence against women, torture, disappearances, massacres, and extrajudicial executions. This violence, referred to as the “internal armed conflict,” included the actions of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) and state-sponsored and indiscriminate military actions against their suspected supporters in rural and indigenous areas especially. The years of the internal armed conflict were also characterized by authoritarian governance and high levels of corruption. This issue focuses on the postconflict period from Fujimori’s resignation to the present, challenging popular notions of Peru as an exemplar of postconflict reconstruction based on the presence of free and fair elections, separation of powers, a robust economy, and a powerful free press. A brief overview of recent political history will help to situate the period in its historical context.1

Political Report # 1350 Why Is the US Silent About Mexico’s New Internal Security Law?

by Santiago Navarro F. and  Renata Bessi,          Truthout

While Mexican governmental institutions are experiencing a credibility crisis, Mexico’s National Congress approved what is known as the Internal Security Law. According to Article 2 of the text of the law, its objective is “to safeguard the permanence and continuity of governmental order and institutions, as well as national development through the maintenance of constitutional order, the rule of law and democratic governance.” Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto enacted the law, which became effective on December 21, 2017, and has since caused a wave of protests throughout Mexico. Numerous social movements, unions and civil society organizations see the new law as part of a process of militarizing Mexican society, which could worsen violence in the county. In general terms, this law broadens opportunities for the armed forces to act throughout Mexican territory, even legitimizing the use of violence. It allows the armed forces to intervene in matters that concern civil authorities, such as disturbances and protests that are considered violent or acts of resistance. The law also permits the invasion of citizens’ privacy to collect intelligence information and entry into homes without a court order, including during criminal legal system investigations. Anneliese Danaé Echeverria, an attorney and professor who is a union member and legal affairs assistant with Section 22 of the National Organization of Education Workers (CNTE) in the state of Oaxaca, tells Truthout, “The Mexican Constitution established that the army could not intervene in civil matters, they had to resolve any conflicts through the military court system. Civilians have their own courts. But the new law guarantees military intervention in all aspects of civilian life throughout the country. Civil authorities that are already in crisis will have little room to interfere with these interventions, because the military will act immediately, without consultation or requesting a warrant.”

Abstract, Small Groups Don’t Win Revolutions: Armed Struggle in the Memory of Maoist Militants of Política Popular

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Small Groups Don’t Win Revolutions: Armed Struggle in the Memory of Maoist Militants of Política Popular
by Jorge Ivan Puma Crespo


Política Popular, an unarmed Maoist group operating from 1968 to 1979 in northern Mexico, developed as it did because of the attraction of the “mass line” in its interpretation as a direct-democratic model for political participation. This is why activists from the student movement of 1968 adopted Maoist ideas as an ideological guide. Maoism as a simple organizational catechism easily captured their imagination and persuaded squatters and workers to join them in challenging the authoritarian Mexican regime.

Abstract, Small Groups Don’t Win Revolutions: Armed Struggle in the Memory of Maoist Militants of Política Popular

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Small Groups Don’t Win Revolutions: Armed Struggle in the Memory of Maoist Militants of Política Popular
by Jorge Ivan Puma Crespo


Política Popular, an unarmed Maoist group operating from 1968 to 1979 in northern Mexico, developed as it did because of the attraction of the “mass line” in its interpretation as a direct-democratic model for political participation. This is why activists from the student movement of 1968 adopted Maoist ideas as an ideological guide. Maoism as a simple organizational catechism easily captured their imagination and persuaded squatters and workers to join them in challenging the authoritarian Mexican regime.

Political Report # 1272 'A social leader is killed every 4 days in Colombia': Report

By Stephen Gill,  Colombia Reports

A social leader is killed every four days in Colombia, according to a report from the Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation (PARES). The organization that monitors armed conflict in the South American country recorded 55 assassinations of community leaders and human rights activists this year alone. "Every four days a homicide is committed against a social leader in Colombia and every two days, there is one threatened," said the report. "The vulnerability of leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia remains critical. The acts of violence against this population show high degrees of systematic behavior." The report states that the motivations for these actions are to limit the participation of social leaders in politics, impede processes of truth-building, land restitution and environmental protection, reported Caracol Radio. It highlights that since Colombia's government signed a historic peace deal with the Marxist-inspired FARC guerrillas last November, a total of 181 acts victimizing social leaders and human rights defenders have been recorded up to July 11, 2017.

Abstract, Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival
Renzo Aroni Sulca


On August 14, 1985, during the armed conflict between the Communist Party of Peru, known as Shining Path, and the Peruvian state, an army patrol entered the town of Accomarca, in the Andean region of Ayacucho, and assassinated 69 peasants, presumed sympathizers of the insurgents. The majority of the survivors were displaced to the city of Lima, where they created an organization of victims and joined the Asociación de Hijos del Distrito Accomarca. Since 2011, the survivors and relatives of the victims have been remembering the massacre and transmitting their memories to their children through a Carnival performance of music and dance. Carnival is a constructive space for the production of other forms of memory and for the pursuit of justice and reparations through participatory choreography and musical performance.

Abstract, Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Occupying and Reclaiming a National Historical Monument
Francisca Márquez and Valentina Rozas-Krause                                                                      


Conceptual and ethnographic examination of the ideology that has given form to one of Chile’s most representative national historical monuments, the Casa Central of the Universidad de Chile, indicates that monuments are a complex social construction of historically situated ideologies and practices and that, simply by being artifacts, they are always at risk of never achieving unanimity as to their truth. The controversial nature of the monument’s meaning presents us with a problem with regard to its verisimilitude and its incorporation into a shared history. It may be suggested that the historical meaning of a monument is manifested in its commemoration and in corporal uses and practices.

Abstract, Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival
Renzo Aroni Sulca


On August 14, 1985, during the armed conflict between the Communist Party of Peru, known as Shining Path, and the Peruvian state, an army patrol entered the town of Accomarca, in the Andean region of Ayacucho, and assassinated 69 peasants, presumed sympathizers of the insurgents. The majority of the survivors were displaced to the city of Lima, where they created an organization of victims and joined the Asociación de Hijos del Distrito Accomarca. Since 2011, the survivors and relatives of the victims have been remembering the massacre and transmitting their memories to their children through a Carnival performance of music and dance. Carnival is a constructive space for the production of other forms of memory and for the pursuit of justice and reparations through participatory choreography and musical performance.

Abstract, Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Choreography of a Massacre Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho Carnival
Renzo Aroni Sulca


On August 14, 1985, during the armed conflict between the Communist Party of Peru, known as Shining Path, and the Peruvian state, an army patrol entered the town of Accomarca, in the Andean region of Ayacucho, and assassinated 69 peasants, presumed sympathizers of the insurgents. The majority of the survivors were displaced to the city of Lima, where they created an organization of victims and joined the Asociación de Hijos del Distrito Accomarca. Since 2011, the survivors and relatives of the victims have been remembering the massacre and transmitting their memories to their children through a Carnival performance of music and dance. Carnival is a constructive space for the production of other forms of memory and for the pursuit of justice and reparations through participatory choreography and musical performance.

Political Report #1097, CIA Asked to Release Documents Related to Massacre in El Salvador By Carmen Rodriguez, Americas Program

Colonel Perez Ochoa and Col. Domingo Monterrosa. Monterrosa ordered the slaughter of El Mozote. Photo courtesy of Giovanni Palazzo, Italian photographer who covered the armed conflict in El Salvador. By Carmen Rodriguez, Americas Program

The wounds of war have still not healed in El Salvador. Twenty-three years after the peace treaty, victims of the armed conflict are still waiting for justice and looking for their missing loved ones.