Exhibit re: Peruvian massacres to open at Yale University October

[Judi Lynn]

‘Yuyanapaq: Para Recordar’ Photo Exhibit Hosted by Yale Documents Political Violence in Peru
Published: October 6, 2008

New Haven, Conn. — The Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies at Yale University will host a photo exhibit titled “Yuyanapaq: Para Recordar” (“To Remember,” in Quechua and Spanish, respectively) from October 15 to November 16 at the John Slade Ely House, 51 Trumbull Street.

Exploring political violence in Peru between 1980 and 2000, this exhibit features 40 photographs culled from the exhibition organized by the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2003. An estimated 70,000 people were killed or disappeared during the two decades of turmoil, and many more were raped, injured, or forced to abandon their homes.

The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, the John Slade Ely House, the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights, and the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence.

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6102&s=t





From an older link:

Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Yuyanapaq. Para recordar 1980-2000

have just returned from a very powerful photographic exhibition at the Museo de la Nacion, San Borja, Lima. It covered 20 years of the political violence.

President Alan Garcia has just announced the new government will help defend hundreds of military officials accused of human rights abuses dating back to the two decades of conflict between government and guerrilla forces in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the conflict, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Top officials, including former President Fujimori and current President Garcia were accused of grave abuses by the Commission, such as ordering massacres.

http://louperu.blogspot.com/2006/11/yuyanapaq-para-recordar-1980-2000.html

[struggle4progress]

1. That looks like a pretty tame exhibition. Highlands Peru in the mid-1980s could be brutal

and some of the available photographic record is stomach-churning. On the other hand, maybe it's better not to show too much of the grisly stuff, since it might sometimes excite nothing more than a morbid or almost pornographic interest -- anyway, the survivors are the only ones who mortals can help

The Peruvian history shows yet again the great importance of careful and accurate analysis of the political situation. As an allegedly "revolutionary" movement, Sendero failed miserably, choosing as targets anyone who did not support them and providing authorities with an excuse for vicious repression of the indigenous population. Peasants thus had only unpleasant and meaningless choices: side with the Senderistas, in which case the state apparatus was likely to massacre elements of the community; side with the state, in which case the Senderista apparatus was likely to massacre elements of the community; try to pretend to be Senderistas (when Senderistas were about) and anti-Senderistas (when state agents were about), in which case both the Senderistas and the state apparatus were likely to massacre elements of the community; or try to take no stand at all, in which case both the Senderistas and the state apparatus were still likely to massacre elements of the community

I can't recall whether the state's body count exceeded that of the Senderistas -- in any case, the difference was not overwhelming, and even a few Senderista attacks could be used politically to "justify" further murders by the state as necessary "pacification." Geopolitical ideology led the Reaganites to support the state repression, though none of the then-existing communist states actually had any interest in supporting the Senderistas, who lacked any coherent analysis and were essentially Pol-Potists. Perhaps the real effect of the US support for the state apparatus was to inflame and polarize the situation, thus aiding Senderista recruitment when the Senderistas were still a small and isolated group. Simply put, the whole period is tragic