Look at the kids of the photo. They are from the Ayacucho region in the central Andes mountains of Peru.Foto by Cadip.org
Kids like these were murdered secretly by Peruvian soldiers 24 years ago. They killed them along with their parents, and then buried them altogether in mass graves. The Peruvian state kept silent and did nothing all these years. Well, they were just cholos, who would care about them?
Why did the Peruvian military did such a horrible crime?
Because Peru is a country where racial and social division still remain as a result of the Hispanic invasion in the XVI century, and where economic injustice creates social unrest, especially in the Andean region. Ayacucho is indeed, one of the poorest regions in the country. And even five centuries after the first Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples in Peru are still seeing as inferior people without rights, therefore they are easy target for hate, violence and discrimination which sadly in the Putis case, comes from Indigenous and Afro descendant soldiers trained by mestizo and white officers in the big cities of Peru. This kind of violence also can be traces all the way to Atlanta, Georgia at the School of the Americas, where some Peruvian military are trained on how to torture and commit genocide. Even current President Alan Garcia has pending cases of genocide, as he ordered himself the illegal executions of innocent Peruvians during his first government (1985-1990.)
Putis, Peru
Over sixty (60) bodies of Indigenous men, women and children were unburied at a mass grave in Putis, in the Ayacucho department, in the central Andes of Peru. There is a total of 123 to 140 bodies in site, who were victims of the military dirty-war, murdered and buried in five graves by the Peruvian Army in December 1984 - during the second government of Fernando Belaunde.
This is the largest mass grave found in Peru, after the bloody war between the Maoist insurgents of the Shining Path (SL), the Marxist group MRTA and the Peruvian government, occurred in the 1980s and 1990s decades.
The executed people were blamed of collaborating with SL but they were innocent residents of the Cayramayo, Vizcatampata, Orccohuasi and Putis communities who had come to seek the installation of a military base in Putis, located at 3.500 meters (11.480 feet) of altitude.
In the past days, a friend shared with me some videos that I am posting here. Also an interesting article at the end of this post. Viewing discretion is advised as some of the images are really sad and touching.
VIDEO
RECOVERING THE DISAPPEARED IN PERU
In May 2008, In May 2008, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) exhumed almost 70 bodies from a mass grave at Putis, in the province of Ayacucho. Video produced by ADVProject.
VIDEO-JOURNAL
Videos by Ash Kosiewicz
Preparations
Ash Kosiewicz and members of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) prepare to travel to Putis, the site where the organization is working to exhume bodies from the largest found mass grave in Peru.
DAY 1 - Part I
After a long and harsh bus trip from Lima, the team arrived to Ayacucho, and then head towards Putis. An interesting conversation with EPAF Director Jose Baraybar, takes place.
DAY 1 - Part II
Once in Putis, the work starts at the grave site
with shifts that go from 7:30 am to 5:15 pm.
DAY 2
The EPAF team finds shell casings from rifles used by the Peruvian military around Putis. Families come to the site to pay their respects and give DNA samples. When the victims relatives arrived, some camera men disrespected them as they didn't keep a decent distance.
DAY 3
The EPAF team try to recreate what happened the day of the Putis massacre, as they finish exhumation of the largest mass grave found in Peruvian history. CNN and Reuters journalists show up. Touching photos are including at the end of this video.
.
Putis may help to get Peruvian military and civilians closer
Today, Servindi (Indigenous Information Service), shared an article from Defensa y Reforma Militar, an branch of the Instituto de Defensa Legal created in 2002 in Peru, which is "aimed at monitoring reforms of the executive branch in the defence sector, to be able to generate widespread awareness in the civil society and government officials, vowing to promote democratic values and the rule of law in Peru." I translated the article:
- The Case of Putis
The first evidence of skeletons of the victims of extrajudicial execution found during the exhumation of the first grave in Putis, district of Santillana, Ayacucho, have unveiled to the public, and confirmed several cases of minors executed within the first universe of victims found.
This is without doubt, a traumatic event in the memory of those who survived, and for those who are directly, immediately and politically responsible, is surely a fact they don't want to remember.
Twenty-four years after the events occurred, we stand at the beginning of the judiciary investigation. Meanwhile the Ministry of Defense and the General Command of the Peruvian Army are reluctant to provide information that would identify the military personnel who were involved.
How can we understand this? Although, unlike other Latin American countries, whose armed forces developed a purely repressive role, our military had experiences fighting with the insurgents, with a considerable number of casualties, with military personnel seriously wounded, and whose relatives lived in constant fear. This however, does not represent an excuse for not trying to settle cases like Putis and instead they are blocking preliminary investigations.
In our point of view, the way how is conceived -within our armed forces- the institutional spirit and the strong defense of the heroic memory of what has been done during the internal conflict, can help to understand their resistance to provide information. The consideration of all that, does not prevent non-compliance with requests for information requested by judicial authorities.
If those years of armed conflict exacerbated the cultural gap between civilians and military, let's see how to bring close that separation and to restore mutual confidence in a solid manner. The painful case of Putis may help us to do so.
I agree, and really hope so.
.
I would like to thank you for these videos. Without these kinds of videos those who suffered during this sad chapter in Latin American history would never truly be remembered or honored. The fact you visited a foreign country and gave your time and effort make it even more touching. Its hard not to feel anger when one sees the type of massacres that were sponsored by the governments of that era. Thank you for this.
ReplyDelete