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Root > Special Projects > Human Rights Monitoring Project > Peru > Peru Photo Gallery   Print View  
Peru Photo Gallery
These photos are from The Advocates for Human Rights' missions to Peru in November 2002 and August 2004. The team conducted most of the research in Lima and Ayacucho.


Image Gallery: The Advocates' work in Peru 2002
Gathering information from victims. Two team members with TRC commissioner, Dr. Beatriz Alva Hart, at a press conference in Lima, Peru. A team member with a staff person from the host organization, Paz y Esperanza, a Lima-based non-profit dedicated to bringing social justice mainly to poor people in Peru. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) conducted exhumations of burial sites in Chuschi, Totos and Lucanamarca (all in Ayacucho) as part of their investigations. The Advocates observes exhumations in Lucanamarca, Peru. Over 69,000 individuals were killed during the conflict. An employee of the TRC with two team members at one of the exhumation sites in Lucanamarca. One exhumation site in the Lucanamarca cemetery contained the remains of 20 persons buried in a common grave. See all 14 images.

Image Gallery: The conflict in Peru
As part of the work of the TRC, a Photographic Exhibition "Yuyanapaq. Para recordar" (Yuyanapaq. To Remember) was prepared. The next seven photos, from the exhibition in Lima in 2004 of more than 200 photos, depict the conflict in Peru from 1980-2000. ANFASEP: Mama Angelica and other founding members of ANFASEP in the early days. Desplazados, Lima, circa 2000. Photo by Esteban Felix. As many as 600,000 people were internally displaced during the two-decade-long conflict in Peru. Members of MRTA (the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) hold a rare press conference. Young Ashaninika people were trained by members of the Armed Forces to form self-defense committees. Cutivireni, Junin, 1991. Photo by Alejandro Balaguer. "Ronda campesinas" (peasant patrols or self defense committees) fought back against violence from Sendero Luminoso in their rural communities and were even recruited by the Peruvian government to help fight SL, but also participated in human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings. See all 12 images.

Image Gallery: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was created by presidential decree in 2001 to investigate, clarify and assign responsibility for human rights violations committed between 1980 and 2000. Here, the TRC learns from victims at a reparations conference in Ayacucho in 2002 what they would like in terms of reparations. With the help of civil society groups, the TRC collected nearly 17,000 testimonies from victims throughout the country. In order to develop a better background knowledge of the violence, the TRC also used the testimonies collected by regional offices along with additional interviews and research to develop detailed histories of the seven regions particularly affected by the violence. The TRC, the Public Ministry (Ministerio Público), the Ombudsman Office (Defensoría del Pueblo)and the National Coordinator on Human Rights (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos) created an expert forensic team made up of forensic anthropologists, archeologists, criminal experts and others to carry out exhumations of mass graves in Chuschi, Totos and Lucanamarca. Observers and family members met at a grave at the Lucanamarca exhumation site. In Lucanamarca, the perpetrators of the human rights abuses were members of Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, a Maoist group that began its insurrection in the rural Sierra region (in the Andean mountain range) of Ayacucho by burning ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi. Removing remains from a grave in Lucanamarca. Sendero Luminoso began working in the zone in the 1970s. Many organizers were professors who worked with young people in the area. Some sectors supported Sendero Luminoso at the beginning, but as Sendero's tactics became more violent it lost popular support. The Public Ministry gave permission to exhume a shallow grave located on the grounds of an old military base in Huancasancos. The most intense phase of the war in the province of Huancasancos lasted between the end of 1982 and 1984. See all 15 images.

Image Gallery: Life in Peru
Peruvian highlands outside of Ayacucho. Inka Kola is the national Peruvian soda. School kids lined up outside of the Congress building in Lima. A 10-year-old girl takes care of her 3-year-old brother and 1-year-old sister in the community of Pampamarca. Three boys working in Pampamarca, a small community outside of Ayacucho The schoolhouse in Cuchoquesera. The Advocates team members visited a classroom of fourth and fifth graders in the mountains in Ayacucho. See all 20 images.

Image Gallery: Civil Society
Francisco Soberon, Director of the Coordinadora nacional de los derechos humanos (The National Coordinator for Human Rights), the NGO that coordinates the work of Peruvian human rights NGOs. Civil society is very strong in Peru. Civil society was instrumental in the creation of the TRC and in carrying out its mandate. Ernesto Alayza, Executive Director of the Centro de Estudios y Acción para la Paz, also a member organization of the Coordinadora. Angelica Mendoza Ascarza (“Mama Angelica”) is the President of ANFASEP, an organization that began in 1983 to search for missing loved ones. Inside the Paz y Esperanza office in Ayacucho. Representatives from various youth organizations met with the The Advocates team at the Paz y Esperanza office in Ayacucho to discuss their work and viewpoint on what needed to be done for victims and their families. A new generation is taking up the fight for victims' rights. The ANFASEP office in Ayacucho. See all 8 images.

Image Gallery: The Advocates' work in Peru 2004
The Defensoria del Pueblo (Human Rights Ombudsman's Office) held a press conference to report on the measures that had been taken to implement the TRC's recommendations in the year following the publication of the TRC's final report. Two team members meet with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior. Through the national police, the Ministry of Interior works to maintain order within the country. The Advocates was also able to verify that police throughout the country were receiving training on human rights by observing a police training in Ayacucho. The Advocates met with a Technical Assistant as well as the Special Consultant on Criminal Law at the Supreme Court in Lima. Civilian courts are now retrying cases decided by military courts and the "faceless courts" of the Fujimori government. The five The Advocates team members were also invited to the Ministry of Defense, where they met with the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the Armed Forces. Jaime Urrutia, member of the Comisión Multisectorial de Alto Nivel, the Executive Branch body charged with implementing the TRC's recommendations. This High Level Multisectorial Commission, is composed of ten members, six from the government and 4 from civil society. Congressman Walter Alejos Calderon, member of the Congressional Subcommission on Displaced Persons, is originally from Ayacucho and lived there when much of the violence occurred. He is one of the handful of representatives who is pushing Congress to implement the recommendations for institutional reform that were made in the TRC's final report. See all 11 images.



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