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Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) KU Leuven

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Neoliberal Reforms,

Reparations, and Transitional

Justice Measures in Torn-Apart

Peru, 1980–2015

María Eugenia Ulfe, Departamento de Ciencias Sociales,

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú

CRPD Working Paper No. 41

2015


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Neoliberal Reforms, Reparations, and Transitional Justice Measures

in Torn-Apart Peru, 1980–2015

Abstract

Perceived as a ‘lost battle,’ the post-war period in Peru is characterized by the implementation

of neoliberal reforms that would create a hegemonic discourse on poverty and poverty policies.

Post-war nation building efforts in the country turned into neoliberalism. Thus, pacification

policies focused on development and infrastructure rebuilding rather than on the reconstruction

of democracy and state institutions. In that sense, when the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission (CVR 2001–2003) prepared its Final Report and Recommendations, it was

difficult to engage civil society and the state in understanding the domain of civic reparations

and the issue of human dignity, both important aspects considered in a Programme of

Reparations (economic compensations). Further, the promotion of reconciliation by CVR did

not generate a major social agreement in Peru. Also, recent years marked by economic growth

reactivate the issue that being a post-war country with some advancement in transitional

justice cases (i.e. the trial against ex-President Alberto Fujimori and Shining Path leader

Abimael Guzman, both in prison) is indeed something secondary. Thirty years after the

beginning of the political violence period in Peru, there are public discussions and debates

about violence as, for instance, the one on the creation of a Museum of Memory in Lima, but

these debates are overshadowed by economic prosperity (the war against crime and coca

production and the war against poverty). This is reflected on the fact that most perpetrators go

on trial and are later free of charges. And, in recent years economic prosperity discourse has

become the rug over current social conflicts in the country. Following a historical and

anthropological approach, this paper will address the issue of timing and sequencing in relation

to the process of reconstruction of state institutions in post-war Peru. We focus on the design

and implementation of the Programme of Reparations in Peru as part of transitional justice

measures for truth, memory, and reconciliation.

Author

María Eugenia Ulfe – Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Pontificia Universidad Católica del

Perú, Peru

[email: [email protected]]

The author would like to thank Sebastián Arguelles for his assistance on this paper.


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This working paper is a draft version of the chapter ‘Neoliberal Reforms, Reparations, and

Transitional Justice Measures in Torn-Apart Peru, 1980–2015’ in the book Building

Sustainable Peace: Timing and Sequencing of Post-Conflict Reconstruction and

Peacebuilding, edited by Arnim Langer and Graham K. Brown, Oxford University Press 2016.

The ‘Building Sustainable Peace’ project was made possible by a generous grant of Flanders

Department of Foreign Affairs.


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1. Introduction

‘We always have the past surrounding us . . . it doesn’t help us to progress. This is what

distinguishes us from those in extreme poverty.’ Rufina Rivera, discussant of ¿Hemos

avanzado? A diez años de las recomendaciones de la Comisión de la Verdad y

Reconciliación by Sofía Macher (Lima: IEP, 2014). September, 20141

This paper examines Peru’s post-war period and how the implementation of measures towards

democratization coincided with important neoliberal reforms. The main argument in this paper

is that the Peruvian government prioritized a political and economic model—the consolidation

of Neoliberal economic reforms—over peacebuilding measures. As Jarstad and Sisk (2008)

argue democratization is a complex process, and war-to-democracy transition does not always

go hand in hand with peace process. The Peruvian case examined here illustrates the

centrality of economic models to this complex relationship. Specifically, it will be argued that

the consolidation of a neoliberal economic model prior to the enactment of any post-war

reconstruction programmes effectively limited the scope of those programmes to narrowly

economic ‘compensation’ rather than the broader recognition and dignity that victims sought.

Even as the political narrative over the violence shifted in the post-Fujimori era, the

implementation of restitution policies remained rooted in a neoliberal approach that ultimately

did as much to stratify and ‘discipline’ victims as it did to compensate them.

In Peru, the first stages of the peace process, which took place during the Fujimori regime

(1990–2000) primarily took the form of infrastructure reconstruction and a new political

constitution (1993), both framed in clearly neoliberal terms. Subsequently, a Truth and

Reconciliation Commission (CVR, or Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación) was set up

under Fujimori’s successor, Alejandro Toledo, which was tasked with examining abuses that

took place both before and during Fujimori’s regime, and which recommended structural state

reforms towards democracy.

1 “Siempre está rondando eso que nos ha pasado… no nos deja desarrollar. Eso es lo que nos

diferencia a los de extrema pobreza”. Rufina Rivera durante la presentación del libro ¿Hemos

avanzado? A diez años de las recomendaciones de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación de Sofía

Macher (Lima: IEP, 2014). Seminar “¿Hemos avanzado? Retos de la memoria para un país

democrático” took place at the Lugar de la Memoria between 3 and 5 de setiembre, 2014. The

information is available at: http://www.cultura24.tv/videoteca/seminario-hemos-avanzado-retos-de-la-

memoria-para-un-pais-democratico-presentacion-del-libro-hemos-avanzado-a-10-anos-de-las-

recomendaciones-de-la-cvr-sofia-macher.

http://www.cultura24.tv/videoteca/seminario-hemos-avanzado-retos-de-la-memoria-para-un-pais-democratico-presentacion-del-libro-hemos-avanzado-a-10-anos-de-las-recomendaciones-de-la-cvr-sofia-macher




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In this paper, I argue that academics may not always effectively predict ‘good timing’ for

reforms to be implemented in war-torn countries, but that it is important to understand the wider

political economy in which such reforms take place that limit their effectiveness and efficacy.

In the case of Peru, I will argue that the ‘economic boom’ rooted in the neoliberal reforms of

the early 1990s consolidated a hegemonic discourse on poverty, which required political

policies and social programs that were used for political purposes. At the same time, the

economic boom that resulted from the years of economic reforms, shadowed victims’ claims

for justice, memory, and truth. Hence, when the Programa Integral de Reparaciones (Integral

Programme of Reparations or Compensations or PIR) was created as part of the reforms that

were required to dignify the victim of violence, it was transformed into yet another social

programme in the fight against poverty. In this paper I argue that neoliberal reforms were

prioritized over structural political and social reforms that were important in order to rebuild

democracy and reconstitute relationships between the state and society. The goals of

neoliberalism differ from those rooted in transitional justice processes. At least, in Peru claims

for citizenship, rights, dignity and recognition, justice, and memory are not part of the dominant

discourse on nation building, entrepreneurism, and economic progress (Cánepa 2013).

The quote from Rufina Rivera with which this paper opened is a good example of this. Rufina

sees herself differently from other poor people. Her life was torn to pieces in the years of the

internal armed conflict. She was displaced and came to Lima under very difficult conditions.

Now she is one of the representatives of an organization that looks after the displaced

population. She criticizes the way PIR works: how it selects the person in terms of the crime

that was committed against him or her and in terms of the year of the event. Since the creation

of the programme in 2004, 72,000 people have received economic compensations with a total

value of $88 million (RPP 2014). While this is a sizeable sum, however, victims of violence in

Peru often criticize the way the programme of compensations works as yet another social

programme. Rufina, like many others, is a different kind of poor. She is one that carries a

‘burden on her back’ that makes her present life hard.

After drawing a historical context to describe how Peru turned into a neoliberal State favoured

by the 1993 Constitution and stressing how poverty has become a dominant discourse, I will

turn to the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And, finally I

will pay close attention to PIR. An important point in my argument is the 1993 Constitution,

which does not promote a culture of peace nor the reconstruction of solid and democratic

institutions.


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2. A Post-War and Neoliberal State

The final two decades of the twentieth century in Peru were characterized by violence,

economic crisis, and state repression. In May 1980 the Maoist-inspired Shining Path declared

war against the Peruvian State. It initiated one of the most devastating periods in Peru’s recent

history as more than 60,000 people were killed, tortured, disappeared, or suffered from

violence. As of 2015, the consequences of this conflict are still felt in the country, and the

recommendations given by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have not been fully

realized, especially those that called for structural reforms in the state and state institutions.

This section focuses on the immediate post-war years, a critical moment in which important

reforms were not undertaken.

The post-war period, which officially began when the leader of the Shining Path, Abimael

Guzmán, was captured in September 1992, is characterized by the implementation of

privatization and structural reforms along a clearly neoliberal model. This turn to neoliberalism

was a regional trend. Chile’s post-dictatorial period is an example of the advancement of

neoliberalism in the region. As a consequence of civil wars, dictatorial regimes, and economic

crises, Latin American countries accumulated enormous economic debts. In responding to

these economic crises, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

promoted a package of structural reforms in the region (Bury 2007: 4; Harvey 2007; Hartwich

2009). These reforms promoted fiscal discipline, prioritized public spending to productive

sectors, promoted fiscal reforms to reduce taxes, free financial markets, privatization of public

enterprises, secure property rights, liberation of trade, established standard policies and

competitive currency exchange, and finally, promoted foreign investments, while reducing

labour rights (Serrano 2005: 17; Harvey 2007). It has been argued that these structural reforms

not only affect economic and political views, but also ways of thinking, introducing what Jon

McKenzie (2001) has called a performative and cultural mandate for efficiency, efficacy, and

evidence and the need to become a public subject. In this sense it could be argued, following

Cánepa (2013) and McKenzie (2001) that neoliberalism is not only an ideological paradigm

but also a cultural mandate. In order to be heard, people would have to act. This is illustrated

by the associations of victims’ use of the public sphere for vigils, artistic interventions, memory

acts, that call for justice and truth.

After what is known as the ‘self-coup d’état’ on 5 April 1992, former president Fujimori

promulgated severe (and anti-democratic) anti-terrorist laws to ensure control over the


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territory.2 These measures invisibilize transitional justice policies that came afterwards. Military

courts with masked judges (jueces sin rostro) were common procedures for justice, breaking

any order and respect for norms and human rights. Fujimori furthermore called for a new

constitution, which was approved in Congress in 1993—one of the points established was his

political re-election in 1995.

According to James Ferguson (2009: 172), neoliberal states must be understood in terms of a

political rationality of governments and their action plans that give shape to the use of

neoliberalism. In that sense, there are policies developed, laws implemented, and a technology

of power that is structured to give support to the system. In this case, it also involved Fujimori’s

neo-populist orientation—his political project to remain in power (Rousseau 2012). Fujimori’s

political project manifested a shift to authoritarianism that started when Fujimori closed the

Congress and took control of the judiciary system, establishing an emergency government that

called for a National Reconstruction (Murakami 2007). Most of the population supported the

coup d´état. Fujimori felt legitimized with this answer and took it as a response against the

traditional political class and population exhaustion at more than ten years of political violence.3

And, after the capture of Abimael Guzmán in September 1992 the authoritarian regime was

consolidated as it was perceived by public opinion as an important success for Fujimori and

the Armed Forces. Fujimori accumulated political power that turned him and the Armed Forces

into what Steve Stern (2002) has called a ‘glorious emblematic memory as saviours of the

nation.’ These events overshadowed different analysis that came primarily from the social

sciences. Among those was Degregori’s (2003) work that focused on the role undertaken by

local populations in rural areas against Shining Path, the role of civil patrols, and the role played

by women and indigenous leaders in defeating Shining Path in their regions. As we will see,

this narrative did emerge in the CVR final report but was overcast by the victorious discourse

of the Armed Forces.

This is the context of the new 1993 Constitution. Fujimori’s political project was characterized

by authoritarianism and a very conservative economic programme. The new Constitution

sealed neoliberalism as an ethical culture that was centred on individual rights and openness

to the global market (Poole 2012: 7). But this neoliberal ethical culture was developed in what

Mouffe (2011: 157) terms a ‘post-political’ scenario legitimizing a technical and economic

2 Decreto Ley 25475, Decreto Ley Nº 25499, Decreto de Ley Nº 25564, Decreto de Ley Nº 25659,

Decreto Ley N°25728.

3 This is also what Carlos Iván Degregori has called ‘antipolitics’. For him the 1990s is the decade of

antipolitics as anything close to politics could be banned and called ‘terrorist’ (Degregori 2011).


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discourse and straightening a political and ideological discourse that de-politicized and de-

historicized what happened in the previous years. Politics was impregnated by a discourse

against terror and terrorism, and anything antagonistic could be perceived as terrorist. Conflict,

antagonism, and power relationships were taken away from politics.

This was reflected in the political discourse on the conflict itself. Seldom did Fujimori speak

about the victims of the armed conflict themselves. Rather, the armed conflict was used to

speak of a common national enemy: Shining Path and other terrorist groups, mainly

Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA). This helped reinforce a dominant discourse

that glorified the role played by the Armed Forces, minimizing or ignoring their participation in

massive human rights violations.

It was within this discursive context that neoliberal economic reforms were implemented,

including a process of state privatization. The Peruvian state bureaucracy assumed the

functioning of a private entity. At the same time, the Fujimori regime developed a political

discourse that undermined the legitimacy of political parties and social organizations and

promoted a narrative that de-politicized politics and the political arena (Degregori 2011). This

‘antipolitical’ machinery used social media (prensa chicha) and the Servicio Nacional de

Inteligencia (SIN) to criticize and terrorize government critics (Fowks 2015).

The implementation of a structural adjustment package and neoliberal economic policies was

accompanied by specific social policies. Technocrats were appointed to elaborate a social

policy that aimed to impact in the population by encouraging clientelistic ties (Murakami 2007;

Burt 2011; Rousseau 2012). The social policy of the Fujimori administration was marked by

the promotion of multiple social programmes that aimed for the reduction of poverty. Within

the post-war context, the Social Emergency Programme (ESP) aimed to address the problems

of the more vulnerable groups after the structural adjustment, among them, the victims of

violence. The National Fund for Compensation and Social Development (FONCODES) that

aimed to reduce poverty was used to rebuild infrastructure in areas that were devastated by

violence. Critics suggest, however, that at the same time, it was used to promote Fujimori’s

political project (Lavigne 2013: 18). Similarly, the National Food Assistance Programme was

founded to provide food security for the poorest regions of Peru (Lavigne 2013: 22). Finally, it

is important to recall the Repopulation Support Programme (PAR), an initiative to encourage

return-migration in places where political violence had driven major population displacement.

The return-migration of entire populations to their original villages was celebrated like a

patronal festival and it was transmitted in National TV. Chuschi, the place where the Shining

Path committed its first attack, was symbolically the first population to return, with buses and


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presents given out by the Ministry of the Presidency. Besides these programmes that helped

Fujimori’s populism, there were other controversial social programmes like the sterilization

programme that ran nationwide between 1996 and 1998 and which resulted in more than

200,000 women sterilized.

These social programmes became an important aspect in the Fujimori regime as these were

key elements in the reproduction and articulation of the neoliberal discourse and practice in

government vis à vis the establishment of a new and hegemonic discourse on poverty. These

policies certainly did not ignore the consequences of violence but, in line with the hegemonic

discourse, they understood this to be a primarily—if not exclusively—economic problem that

could be corrected with largely technocratic injections.

In their implementation, these social programmes were driven by processes to delimit the

spectrum of beneficiaries, enabling them to be used in different ways for political purposes

(Tanaka and Trivelli 2002; Murakami 2007; Burt 2011; Rousseau 2012: 32–33). As an

example, FONCODES used poverty maps for a double purpose: to establish and delimit poor

areas, while at the same time, those maps reorganized the population geopolitically. As I have

mentioned elsewhere, the victim of the armed conflict is usually poor, non-Spanish speaker,

and indigenous (Ulfe and Málaga 2015). S/he is the petitioner of the state pleas.

In conclusion, Peru’s immediate post-war period was a ‘lost battle’ (batalla fallida) in

Degregori’s (2015) terms. The coincidence of the end of the conflict with Fujimori’s

authoritarian and neoliberal turn reduced post-war policies to narrow economic agendas that

served to reinforce and legitimize the Fujimori regime rather than to address the genuine

economic, political, and social needs of the victims and the wider population. Never did the

country recognize that there was a large number of victims that needed psychological

assistance; never did it address people’s claims for justice, truth, and memory; and never did

it examine the significant claims of widespread human rights violations.

Moreover, authors like Tanaka and Trivelli (2002) have argued that there was a dysfunctional

orientation in the way social policies worked under the Fujimori administration at the technical

and political level. Power was centred in a newly founded institution, the Ministry of the

Presidency4, which aimed to address the needs of the population by boosting infrastructure

4 The Ministry of the Presidency was created in 1985 under Alan García’s administration, and it was

closed in 2002 by president Alejandro Toledo—its closure was perceived as a good sign for the return

to democracy.


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and social programmes (Parodi 2000: 357). The Ministry of the Presidency was organized into

three deputy ministries: the Deputy Ministry of Social Development, which was responsible for

implementing food security programmes; the Deputy Ministry of Infrastructure, in charge of the

Institute for Educational Infrastructure (INFES) and the National Housing Fund (FONAVI); and

the Department of Regional Development. In addition to these offices there was also the Inter-

Ministerial Committee on Social Affairs (CIAS), responsible for coordinating the various social

policies in government (Parodi 2000: 357).

Under the Fujimori regime, social programmes were based on ‘focalization,’ seeking to

increase efficiency in social spending (Verdera 1996: 7; Parodi 2000: 358; Rousseau 2012).

The Fujimori administration elaborated the National Strategy of Poverty 1993–1995. Efficiency

of social spending resulted in the development of two action plans: Programme Targeting

Basic Social Spending (1994) and Programme for Improvement in Basic Social Expenditure

(1994) (Parodi 2000: 369). Thus, a bureaucracy of poverty was built around the state and the

population was organized under new terms such as ‘population,’ and ‘bolsones’ (bags) of

poverty. People were organized into new categories such as those in extreme poverty, really

poor, less poor; measurement was made in terms of access to basic services. As Gupta (2013)

points out, this focalization was a means of organizing and disciplining the population; it is not

that these policies do not work; it is that they only work for a few people as they target and

organize people in terms of certain criteria, like gender, age, place of origin, etc. These criteria

will be used in PIR, but before discussing it, it is necessary to contextualize the CVR.

3. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru

In late 2000 after a fraudulent third term electoral process, Alberto Fujimori resigned as the

president of Peru. The president of the Congress assumed the Presidency and called for

elections in the following year. It was a critical political moment in Peru as it implied once again

a return to a democratic system after a period of state repression and violence. This transition

to democracy represented a key moment in human rights and transitional justice politics. It

was during this period that Congress and the president of the transition, Valentin Paniagua,

approved the creation of a Truth Commission in Peru in order to investigate the years of

violence and authoritarianism (1980–2000). The mandate is described by Degregori (2015:

57–58) as embodying a tension to understand what happened between 1980 and 2000 on the

one hand, and why it happened on the other hand. In 2001, Alejandro Toledo was elected

president. One of his first decisions was to include ‘reconciliation’ in the mandate of the Truth

Commission. Research would focus mainly on the ‘historical truth’ and not on the ‘juridical

truth’ (Degregori 2015: 58). Moreover, research itself would become an important aspect in


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the process of reconciliation and reparation (Degregori 2015: 59) and centrality would be given

to the victims of violence.

The CVR began its work in 2001. Twelve commissioners were named, ten men and two

women, mostly representatives of the middle class, mainly Spanish speakers even though, as

we will see, most of the victims speak an indigenous language. Understanding and interpreting

the causes of violence became important issues in order not to repeat the same history. The

Argentinian ‘Never again’ was taken as a slogan for understanding the past as a milestone in

the future and implying the need to learn from it in order to prevent human rights violations and

other violent acts.

Peru’s CVR was created through explicit consideration of the experiences of previous Truth

Commissions in other countries. From the South African Truth Commission, it took the idea of

organizing public hearings in order to make visible who the victims were and what happened

to them. From the Guatemalan experience, it took a special consideration for the ethnic

component, how to address and include the indigenous population. Methodologically, the

report took testimony as a way to narrate truth that was corroborated by interviews and in-

depth case studies. While the intentions here were clearly exemplary, Carlos Aguirre (2009)

notes that the reality was that this involved the collection and analysis of testimony of a largely

rural, poor, and often non-Spanish speaking population by an urban, professional, Spanish-

speaking team. More broadly, the use of testimony meant a challenge for Peruvian historians,

who were used to working with archives and documents from a far past, mainly colonial. For

them it meant a methodological and theoretical challenge as it necessitated working with

recent history and to consider testimony as a given fact (Ragas 2013). But the testimony was

used not only to collect data but also as a symbolic form of reparation. In that sense, public

hearings took place thematically and regionally and were broadcast nationwide, though not

with the expected impact in audience.5 Testimony-givers felt responsible for representing

through their cases, other cases of violence, and for representing their villages. But, in stark

contrast to the neoliberal reparations agenda implemented under Fujimori, these testimonies

stood out as mechanisms for dignifying the victim of violence, for given voice to those whose

stories were not heard before (Ulfe 2006).

The CVR was constituted by more than seventeen thousand testimonies, twelve in-depth case

studies, and nine public hearings.

5 See: http://cverdad.org.pe/apublicas/audiencias/index.php.

http://cverdad.org.pe/apublicas/audiencias/index.php


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On the back of this process, the CVR final report explicated a clear narrative of the violence in

its historical and social context. In the next section, we will see how this, along with the

preceding neoliberal hegemonic discourse, fed problematically into the PIR programme.

Degregori (2015: 60-66) summarizes the main conclusions of the CVR final report thus:

1) The armed conflict was part of larger historical processes. Even though research was

centred between the years 1980 and 2000, there was a need to go back in history to

understand the structural causes of violence.

2) War developed in rural areas and in peripheral areas in capital cities and it affected

individuals, as well as entire families, communities, districts, and indigenous populations (like

the Ashaninka case). The ethnic component was important as racism and discrimination were

common aspects besides the use of violence against certain groups of people.

3) The main actor was Shining Path as they were the ones who declared ‘a long-term popular

war’ against the state (Degregori 2015: 61), although there were other armed groups like the

Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, and paramilitary groups like Comando Rodrigo

Franco, Grupo Colina.

4) The state and the Armed Forces responded with violence and it took a long time for the

Armed Forces to develop anti-terrorists strategies. This is particularly important in the

transitional period, as most of the human rights perpetrators were Armed Forces officials, many

of whom were tried but then freed of all charges.

In the understanding of the CVR, then, this major political crisis did not appear out of nowhere;

it has deep roots in Peru’s history. Moreover, violence did not occur the same way in all the

regions that were affected and in the same manner. There were historical peaks (for instance

the entrance of the Armed Forces in 1982 in Ayacucho), and some regions were more affected

than others (Ayacucho, Apurímac, Huánuco, Huancavelica, San Martin, Junin). The final report

also draws a profile of the victims: mainly men, between the ages of sixteen and forty-nine

(thus, mainly young), who speak a different language than Spanish. The victim of violence was

described as poor, indigenous, mainly from the rural areas, and gendered. This profile is later

used in the definition of the Registro Único de Víctimas that will be the basis for PIR.

The final report put forward recommendations and important conclusions for the

institutionalization and democratization of the state. Reconciliation was the word added to the

Truth Commission describing a mandate to re-state social relations torn apart by violence. One

of the main consequences of war was the deteriorated relationships built between state and

society. A new social pact was required to reinforce weak relationships between a highly

centralized state and its provinces. Reconciliation was perceived in terms of this social pact.


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However, as Ilizarbe (2013) notes, reconciliation hence became interpreted as a generic term

rather than as a political programme for the CVR. In part, this was a consequence of the

tensions between ‘memory’ and ‘reconciliation’. Given that the CVR methodology was focused

on using memory to establish ‘what really happened,’ there was a tense relationship between

this and demands of reconciliation, which may be seen to require selective ‘forgetting’.

Articles 170 and 171 of the CVR conclusions focused on the recommendations for a

reconciliation process (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación 2003). It is described as a

large horizon and the restitution of citizenship for all Peruvians. Reconciliation is also described

as a complex process with many different levels of action: family ties, interpersonal

relationships, intra-village processes, and at the macro level it implied the restitution of rights

for all Peruvians. The overriding goal is expressed as the re-consolidation of the state on a

multi-ethnic, pluricultural, and multilingual basis.

The CRV recommended a dramatic restructuring of the judiciary and the entire legislative

system. There have been advancements in terms of judiciary cases as those of Abimael

Guzmán in 2006 and Alberto Fujimori in 2010. However, as Jo-Marie Burt (2014) notices, there

is no correlation between the number of cases and the number of those who are convicted, as

the majority of the accused are later free of charges. Besides, trials take longer than regular

judiciary processes, they do not attract media attention, and in the judicial process victims and

aggressors have to sit in the same room.

In this section, then, we have seen that the CVR represented a radical shift from the neoliberal

discourse on post-war reconstruction pursued under Fujimori. The Fujimori regime interpreted

post-war reconstruction as a primarily economic, technocratic exercise and had implemented

projects that had served as much to categorize and ‘discipline’ the population as to alleviate

the consequences of the conflict. In contrast, the CVR understood the conflict as a deep

historical event and prioritized the political and social reconfiguration of Peru in ways that

recognized its diversity while giving voice and dignity to the victims of violence. However, the

CVR did not ignore the economic consequences of conflict. Among the recommendations left

by the CVR was the Programme of Reparations. Perceived initially as the ‘new social pact,’

PIR was supposed to dignify the victim of violence symbolically as well as economically,

socially, and politically. In the following section, we will examine how the PIR evolved in

relationship to these diametrically opposed narratives of the conflict.

4. Repairing Whom? Or, Repairing What?


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In the decade following the promulgation of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission, only a small number of its recommendations were implemented to any extent.

One of the measures that has received attention is PIR. Reparation policies in Peru go back

to the period of the transitional democratic government of Valentin Paniagua (2000–2001).

There are two antecedents to the programme. The first was the Comprehensive Non-

Economic Reparation Programme (Programa Integral de Reparaciones no Dinerarias), which

reviews the 159 cases that were prosecuted in the International Human Rights Court (Guillerot

and Magarrell 2006: 22). The second one was the Support for Resettlement Programme

(Programa de Apoyo al Repoblamiento), which included a set of policies that benefited mainly

mayors and local authorities, for example the case of Lucanamarca.

The case for having a PIR took shape during the period of the CVR, as part of the measures

that it recommended in order to repair social bonds and economically compensate victims of

violence in the post-conflict period. These two dimensions are carefully examined by García

Godos (2008) in her discussion of reparations and compensation plans as part of transitional

justice policies in conflict-affected countries. It is commonly accepted that reparation policies

are required in order to recognize the dignity of victims of violence as well as to enable them

to recover their damaged ties to society as citizens (García Godos 2008). Dignity and

citizenship are complex issues in a country like Peru with a problematic colonial heritage, as

not all of its inhabitants are considered citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. There is

no political correlation between what is written in the final report recommendations plan for

reparations—which included a section on the symbolical restitution of citizenship—and what

later became the PIR, with its two state offices, Comisión Multisectorial de Alto Nivel (CMAN)

and Consejo de Reparaciones (CR).

The CVR final report conclusions were devastating. Even though it recognizes the Partido

Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL) as the main instigator of the conflict, the

Armed Forces and the other armed groups, civil patrols, and paramilitary groups were also

identified as main actors and perpetrators. The report estimated that there were 69,280 victims.

In that scenario, one year after the publication of the CVR final report, in 2004, the Toledo

administration promulgated a Presidential Decree creating the PIR.

Drawing on anthropological and historical perspectives, this section examines the

development of the PIR. First, attention is paid to the historical development of CMAN and the

Council for Reparation (Consejo de Reparaciones or CR). These two new states offices have

played a major role in the implementation of PIR. Secondly, there is a need to explain the

Register of Victims (Registro Único de Víctimas or RUV). Based on the victim profile designed


15

in the final report, RUV outlines and defines the condition of who the victims of violence are

based upon their characteristics. Finally, we will return to the performance of victimhood in the

public sphere framed in a neoliberal context.

As already mentioned, the PIR was established in 2004 by the Toledo administration.6 For this

purpose, the first act was the creation of the Comisión Multisectorial de Alto Nivel (or CMAN),

which was in charge of the coordination between and negotiating with the different state

ministries and offices for the implementation of PIR. The second body to be created was the

Council for Reparation (Consejo de Reparaciones or CR).

CMAN aimed to formulate a broad political agenda for reparations, and for that purpose, the

Toledo administration assigned CMAN to the Prime Minister Office in order to facilitate access,

service, and dialogue with other state institutions, including the Ministry of Economics and the

Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Defense. This strategy was

designed to bring legitimacy to CMAN by enabling it to coordinate directly with local and

regional governments to establish a comprehensive National Reparations Programme and a

strategy to register victims of violence for the CR. In 2011, however, without explanation, the

CMAN was reassigned to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. This move restricted the

coordinating power of the CMAN and its multiple sector approach.

CMAN was created for delivering reparations. It was in charge of developing different

reparation programmes: Restitution Citizens’ Rights Programme, Reparation in Education,

Health Reparation Programme, Symbolic Reparations, Promotion and Facilitation Access to

Housing Programme, Economic Reparation. These reparation programmes worked on two

levels: the individual and the collective. There was also a collective programme of reparation

for communities, associations, and organizations to implement basic development projects.

For CMAN to work effectively, however, it was necessary to provide a definition of who the

victims of violence were and what conditions would be considered. The Council for

Reparations (Consejo de Reparaciones or CR) was created for this purpose. The CR is

responsible for the Registro Único de Víctimas (also known as RUV). The purpose of RUV

was to identify the victims of violence and to ensure that no members of the armed groups

6 Decreto Supremo N° 062-2004-PCM (Marco programático de acción del Estado en materia de paz,

reparación y reconciliación nacional). Decreto Supremo N° 011-2004-PCM (Comisión Multisectorial de

Alto Nivel encargada de las acciones y políticas del Estado en los ámbitos de la paz, la reparación

colectiva y la reconciliación nacional).


16

could qualify as victims (Ulfe and Chávez 2012: 4).7 As we will see, the condition of victimhood

was denied to people involved in the armed groups.

The RUV was based on ten records that already existed: the census of the CVR; the census

of displaced population; allegations of enforced disappearance; the census of victims of

Huancavelica; the lists of pardons by the Ombudsman Office; claims that were filed against

the Peruvian State at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; the census of victims of the

Armed Forces, National Police, Civil Defense Patrols; and, the National Census Qualifying

Victims of Terrorism. In addition to these records, the CR also conducted the arduous task of

registering individual and collective victims. With the help of regional offices, little budget, and

aided by church institutions, human rights NGOs, and local governments, the CR began a

national campaign to register victims of violence (Ulfe and Chávez 2012: 4).

The category of ‘victim,’ however, is not clear cut and is, rather, a social category that is

disputed, appropriated, and used by different groups of people (Ulfe and Málaga 2015). Hence,

in an extension of the profile of victim defined by the CVR, the RUV outlined its own victim

profile. The CVR final report recognized as victims all the 69,280 causalities, whether they

were members of the Armed Forces, Police, members of armed groups, or the general

population. In contrast, the RUV did not consider members of armed groups as victims. This

difference was a major concession made by human right movements in order to carry out the

PIR. The RUV hence takes as axiomatic that there is a dichotomy between victim and

perpetrator. The RUV identified fifteen types of involvement in the conflict that are grouped into

eight categories: death, missing, displaced, tortured, restriction of personal freedom that

encompasses arbitrary detention, kidnapping, innocent in prison, rape and sexual violence and

injuries and disabilities and the case of undocumented people (people who do not have

personal identification numbers).

To be registered in RUV, the person had to prove that an action of violence was perpetrated

against him or her because of the armed conflict, that is between the years 1980 and 2000,

and under specific circumstances. The RUV established a victim typology based on the action

perpetrated. The categories are as followed: dead people, missing persons, members of the

7 In that vein, the APRA premier Jorge Del Castillo proposed the following names for the conformation

of the CR: for president Sofia Macher (human right leader, executive secretary of the National

Coordinator for Human Rights); as members the following persons: Pilar Coll (human right leader),

Ramón Barúa (businessman), Luzmila Chiricente (Ashaninka leader), Fernand Dávila (ex-military chief),

José Luis Noriega (Vice Admiral of the Marine Force), and Danilo Guevara (General of the Police Force).


17

police, members of the civil patrols, civil authorities that were tortured, seriously injured, or

suffered sexual abuses, and last but not least, the relatives of the dead and disappeared

between 1980 and 2000. In that sense, the boundaries between being or not being a victim

are permeable (Ulfe and Chávez 2012: 6). And, the problem is that as the state cannot

compensate all the victims registered in RUV at the same time, the list of reparations selects

people from this particular universe. Moreover, the processes of selection are problematic as

tragedy turns into a statistic and a correlation of gender, age, tragic events. In other words,

while the definition of ‘victim’ under the RUV was admirably broad (although excluding

members of armed groups), the process of administering reparation established a de facto

hierarchy and differentiation of ‘victimhood’ between different groups within this category.

Once the registration process is over, the person receives a certificate from the CR. This is a

document that recognizes the person as victim of the period of violence; the official

‘accreditation’ of victim status. It some respects, it acts like the official Identification Document,

recognizing the holder as a potential beneficiary of the Programme of Reparation (Ulfe and

Chávez 2012: 4). Beyond this bureaucratic purpose, however, certification acts as a kind of

symbolic reparation in itself.

The type of documentation and evidence to register as a victim varied from case to case. A

significant number of cases are ‘observed,’ meaning that either their information provided is

not complete, or that their names appear in any of the previous censuses registered, or that

someone had denounced the person to be a sympathizer, collaborator, or member of an armed

group.

In some cases, more information was requested. Usually people would be asked to include an

oral testimony from a witness to confirm their victimhood. This was in many cases the mayor

or the president of the village or community. If possible, cases were accompanied with news

clippings or visual materials (photographs or videos). In that sense, for each individual

condition there are different requirements and processes. However, although the cases are

individual there is a collective recognition of the condition of victimhood. However, one the

problems encountered in fieldwork in Ayacucho is that testimonies gathered by CVR and

testimonies given by the same people years after do not often coincide. This is often the case

of people whose sympathy was leaning towards an armed group, and have had to ‘clean’ their

testimonies to adjust it to the norms imposed by RUV.

This process of demonstrating and registering victimhood fed into new ways to conceive and

‘perform’ the status of Peruvian citizens. In these performances, the victims formed a new


18

sense of affiliation that it is often characterized as an association for the demands for justice,

truth, and memory. To pursue these demands, victims became members of victims’

associations and support groups. Rufina is just one case. She belongs to the Asociación

Nacional de Desplazados (National Association for the Displaced), which seeks to allow the

voices of the displaced to be heard and included in PIR. In a country that stratifies its citizens,

associations and organizations help victims to get their causes heard.

The real world consequences of this process of registration can be illustrated by an

ethnographic vignette. I was conducting field research in Lucanamarca (Huancasancos,

Ayacucho) when the first list of reparations came out in July 2011. The selection process

deemed widows and widowers aged eighty years or older as the first priority to receive

reparations. In Lucanamarca, there were seven people listed among those. One, however,

had died the month before and his daughters could not claim the compensation money

because the rules did not specify what would happened in cases of deceased beneficiaries.

Another could not go to the capital city to claim the money as she was too old to leave the

village. A third did not want to claim the money, as she perceived 10,000 Nuevos Soles

(approximately US$ 3000) as not compensating for her missing husband and the fact that her

children could not attend school. Moreover, there was this strange feeling that by drawing a

typology of victims based on the condition inflicted on the person, the list and its prioritization

had created a hierarchy and stratification of who is more victim.

5. Conclusions

This paper has examined the post-conflict transition in Peru in three distinct phases: the

immediate aftermath of the war under Fujimori, the Truth and Reconciliation period under his

successors, and the subsequent implementation of the CVR through the PIR programme. We

have seen that under Fujimori, post-war reconstruction was narrowly interpreted as a poverty

reduction imperative within the context of a broader neoliberal agenda. The CVR radically

shifted the narrative of the conflict to one that emphasized the social and historical context and

consequences of the violence, and recognized victims and their testimony as more than just

economic agents, but as individuals and groups seeking truth, justice, and reconciliation.

The implementation of the CVR through the PIR programme, however, struggled to overcome

the neoliberal hegemony in the state bureaucracy. Relying on a neoliberal narrative that was

guided by a statistical approach towards poverty reduction, the Peruvian state imposed that

same approach on the PIR. Selection and prioritization created hierarchies of deservingness,

and these primarily reflect the individual characteristics of the victim rather than the nature of


19

the violence they experienced. In 2015, after fifteen rounds of reparations, victims of torture

had still not been included. After widows and widowers came the cases of the deceased, then

the cases of the relatives of the deceased and some cases of sexual violence, and so on.

While being based in two completely different political narratives, then, both the PIR and the

previous programmes that targeted poverty reduction as a reconstruction policy had the

consequence of perpetuating the invisibility of the subject as victim of the armed conflict.


20

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