Abstract, Narratives about Political Violence and Reconciliation in Peru

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Narratives about Political Violence and Reconciliation in Peru

by Jerónimo Ríos

The narratives of members of the armed forces, former members of the Shining Path, and victims of Peru’s armed conflict between 1980 and 2000 include very different views of the responsibility for the violence, the notion of terrorism, the concepts of truth, justice, reparation, and nonrepetition, and the meaning of reconciliation itself. Analysis of in-depth interviews reveals a society that, decades after the violence, in 2018, the Year of National Dialogue and Reconciliation, is still fractured and far from any type of recovery of its social fabric and symbolic resolution of its internal armed conflict.

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

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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

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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

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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 # 1052 US: Peru's Shining Path members are narcotics traffickers by W. Alejandro Sanchez

VRAEM, a region heavy with terrorism and poverty                          (Photo: Andina/Cortesía) By W. Alejandro Sanchez

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has labeled the Peruvian insurgent movement as a "drug trafficking organization." This decision will come as little surprise to the Peruvian government, security forces, or the Andean nation's population in general, as Shining Path is widely known to have morphed into a narco-terrorist organization that profits from drug trafficking, specifically cocaine, in the Peruvian highlands. Hence, while the U.S. government's decision is self-explanatory and any person can rationally ask what took Washington so long to decide this. Nevertheless, it is important, as it will further limit Shining Path's options by curtailing its U.S.-based assets. Moreover, this could open a new era of Washington-Lima security cooperation, which the Ollanta Humala government would probably welcome. While discussing the history of Shining Path is beyond the scope of this commentary (a more in-depth look is taken here), a brief assessment is necessary. Nowadays, the organization is a shadow of what it was at the height of its power in the late 1980s. It currently has a few hundred fighters, many of whom are child soldiers. Moreover, Shining Path's area of operations is limited to two major regions in the Peruvian highlands, the Huallaga Valley and the Valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM). But while the movement may not pose a threat to Lima in the sense that it is not capable of violently overthrowing the government, it remains a national security threat.