Koberkatentsi Archives

Armed conflict and terrorism 80 and 90s.

Peru is a beautiful country filled with diverse languages, food, culture, and many places to visit. It’s no wonder that it’s one of the top visited countries in South America. One of the seven wonders of the new world, Machu Picchu, is even located in it. But underneath all its beauty and glory lies a painful past that Peruvians mourn to this day. As you step into the LUM, which roughly translates into “Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion” in Spanish, you’ll see a path with messages in Quecha written on the floor. The one that stands out the most is Koberkatentsi. Time of fear. It represents a time of anguish, terror, and despair. The time that is being referenced is the internal conflict that took place from the 17th of May in 1980 to November 22nd, 2000 between the Peruvian government and the Maoist group that identifies as "Sendero Luminoso". Peru previously faced many presidential coups that resulted in a dictatorship. Due to the political instability, left leaning guerilla warfare groups grew in popularity. One of these groups was Sendero Luminoso which was founded and controlled by Abimael Guzmán. Guzmán was a self-identified communist philosophy professor who took advantage of the economic turmoil that Peru was experiencing. According to him, he got the idea to form this party when he was visiting China and witnessed the Chinese Revolution firsthand. As these political problems persisted, “El Niño” hit Peru hard. It caused droughts and floods that destroyed homes and wiped out many fish. With people in despair not knowing how to manage the economic, political and environmental issues at hand, the citizens of Peru voted Alberto Fujimori into power in 1990. As the economy grew with his presidency, so did claims of human rights violations. Because of this, Shining Path challenged Fujimori by increasing their guerilla attacks. Both sides continued the internal fighting, resulting in deaths and atrocities being committed by the two parties. Sendero Luminoso would cause blackouts in small towns and kidnap children to indoctrinate them. This group would also create “peasant patrols” known as “rondas” where they would create a scene by bombing buildings. Because, the group led by Abimael Guzman looked like civilians, Peruvian citizens were afraid of criticizing the party itself since they didn’t know who did or didn’t belong to the party. In the same way, Fujimori was also accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering people who opposed him or his government. There was word of forced sterilizations done to indigenous women by the Fujimori administration. This back and forth between the two sides continued until Guzmán was eventually captured in September of 1992. As a result, the decline of Sendero Luminoso began. Even with Sendero Luminoso out of the spotlight, dissatisfaction with Fujimori’s authoritarian government persisted. Satisfaction with Fujimori’s government continued to dwindle especially with his bribery scandal being brought to light. The economy that Fujimori once caused to flourish started decimating and the Peruvian people once again faced economic turbulence. With the threat of more and more human rights violations and corruption scandals being unearthed, Fujimori renounced his presidency and fled to Japan to evade prosecution for crimes against humanity. This civil war took approximately 70,000 lives resulting in it being the bloodiest and most deadly war in Peruvian history.

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