Peru’s Truth Commission and the Churches Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J.

n August 2003 Peru’s Commission of Truth and Reconcili- versity volunteers, who helped to carry out the nearly 17,000 Iation presented to the country its nine-volume report on interviews of victims and relatives of victims of the violence. The the violence and human rights violations that occurred between report concludes that the Shining Path was responsible for 1980 and 2000. The report estimated that 69,280 Peruvians lost around 53 percent of the deaths and “disappearances.” The their lives as a result of that violence—a number far greater than military, paramilitary, and local committees of self-defense were the original figure of 25,000 that most people had presumed to responsible for around 37 percent of the deaths and disappear- have been the death toll. The churches, both Catholic and Protes- ances. This second conclusion was the most shocking: official tant, received considerable praise in the report for their defense government forces, along with unofficial paramilitary groups of human rights and for the pastoral care that they extended to supported by the government, had killed thousands of their own the victims of the violence. Peruvian people—men, women, and children—in their blind But not all church people were happy with the report. In the attempt to wipe out the terrorists, who probably numbered only report the Opus Dei archbishop of Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, is around 2,700 at the height of their rampage. The report points to singled out for not defending human rights and for not fulfilling 122 massacres carried out by government forces, and 4,423 his pastoral mission while he was auxiliary bishop and later arbitrary executions. archbishop (1990–99) of Ayacucho, the home of the Shining Path The commission wanted to emphasize that Peru’s recent in the central Andes. In angry retorts the archbishop rejected the “dirty war” (a phrase usually reserved for Argentina) revealed findings of the report, as did an Opus Dei congressman and the existence of two Perus: a Lima-centered country that largely several members of the military. But most of the rest of the neglected, and even looked down on, the Andean dwellers, who country received the report as a truthful account of what hap- made up the majority of the victims. It is as if one part of Peru had pened. Since August, briefer versions have been published and invaded the other part of the country, which it considered foreign are currently the topic of discussions in schools, universities, and territory. But there was no civil war in Peru: the vast majority of churches. Andean dwellers wanted no part of the Shining Path, which also mercilessly attacked and terrorized dozens of small, unprotected The Work of the Commission communities in the highlands. But in many cases, the military, instead of trying to seek the cooperation of the villagers, treated The Commission of Truth and Reconciliation was founded in them with hostility. These Quechua-speaking peasants were July 2001 by President Valentín Paniagua, the interim president perceived as potential enemies by coastal Peruvians. When after the debacle of the Fujimori government in 2000. The government forces finally sought the cooperation of the people, commission’s original mandate was to investigate all serious they got it: in the form of committees of self-defense, supported human rights violations from the moment the Shining Path took by the military. When the Shining Path began concentrating its up arms in 1980 up through the Fujimori regime, which collapsed energies on Lima, between 1989 and 1992, it had already lost the in 2000. Originally conceived as a truth commission, it soon war in the countryside, thanks to the new strategy of seeking the added the word “reconciliation.” The head of the commission, cooperation of the people. Dr. Salomon Lerner, the president of the Catholic University of Peru, and the other eleven commissioners believed that their The Protestant Churches mission was to reconcile, that is, heal wounds, and not just collect facts. All the churches were caught in the middle of this bloody cross Besides Lerner, the commission was made up of leading fire, and they also played a key role in defeating the terrorism. human rights activists, a priest, a Catholic bishop, and a Protes- The first victims were evangélicos, members of small Protestant tant pastor. The priest, Gastón Garatea, a Peruvian belonging to churches in the rural areas around the city of Ayacucho. (In Peru, the Sacred Heart Fathers, had long been known for his support as in the rest of Latin America, Protestants are generically called of human rights and for his campaign against poverty. Also, his evangélicos.) Early on, the Shining Path threatened and finally, in congregation ministers to a large area in the southern Andean 1984, killed several members of a Pentecostal church. The reason: region that was hit especially hard by terrorism. The bishop, José they resisted orders and continued to practice their faith. The Antúnez de Mayolo, a Salesian, was Cipriani’s successor in Shining Path was not a typical Latin American guerrilla organi- Ayacucho. The pastor, Humberto Lay, a representative of the zation; rather, it was a dogmatic sect in the style of Maoism Pentecostal churches, was selected in part because many Pente- during the Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot in Cambodia. It de- costals were victims of the Shining Path. Although he was not a manded total control of the minds of the people and did not member of the original twelve, Bishop Luis Bambarén of Chimbote tolerate any resistance, religious or political. was chosen as an observer largely because he had come to This story, sad in itself, was made worse when Peruvian symbolize concern for human rights in Peru. Also, three priests marines entered the area. Without so much as asking who was were killed by the Shining Path in his diocese. who, and blinded by deep prejudice and ignorance, the marines The commission attracted the idealism of many young uni- attacked a Presbyterian church in a small town and killed six young men who were attending a church service. For some Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J., Professor of History at the Pontifical Catholic University, reason, the marines confused Protestants with terrorists. Lima, Peru, has lived and worked in Peru since 1976. His previous books include As violence in the area grew, many Protestants fled to the studies of religion and politics in Peru and Latin America. Currently he is coast. In response, the National Evangelical (i.e., Protestant) working on a history of the Jesuits in Latin America. Council of Peru (CONEP) founded the Commission of Peace and

178 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 28, No. 4 Hope to help organize the different Protestant churches to face detained by the police or military. Although very poor, the the growing violence. The commission worked closely with its Quechua-speaking and Aymara-speaking peasants of southern Catholic counterpart, the Bishops’ Commission on Social Action. Peru rejected the appeals of the terrorists out of hand. But the horror had only begun. In February 1989 the Shining Path The weak link was Ayacucho itself. A sleepy colonial city, it killed 25 members of an Assembly of God community near was bypassed by modern times and by Vatican II. With its thirty- Huanta, a city near Ayacucho, and in February 1990 it struck three colonial churches, the city was a quaint attraction for again, killing 31 members of another Pentecostal church while tourists, if they even knew that it existed. The Catholic Church they attended a service. In Lima in 1991, two representatives of World Vision were shot to death. By 1992 CONEP estimated that 529 pastors and church members had been murdered by the The Shining Path murdered Shining Path and government forces. Many Protestants were arrested and detained simply because they fit the profile of a priests, nuns, and catechists terrorist: dark-complexioned and lower class. and destroyed educational When the government finally opted for cooperation and sponsored the self-defense committees, many of the leaders of facilities for the peasants. the committees in Ayacucho were evangélicos. The decision to take up arms to defend their communities deeply divided the Christian communities. Many Pentecostal leaders felt that continued to be a model of colonial times, with few changes. But violent means should be left to the military. But many church the new state university, founded in 1959, promised to usher in members, following their conscience, joined the active modernity. Unfortunately, it was also the base of the Shining resistance. Path, whose founder, Abimael Guzmán, taught philosophy in the Faculty for Education. Many of his students, rural teachers, The Catholic Church became his followers. When the Shining Path went public, it did not initially attack the Catholic Church. The reason was twofold: In many ways the Catholic Church was better prepared for the it did not want unnecessarily to alienate the people for whom violence, as a result of the changes that came with Vatican II, a religion was important, and it saw no need to attack a church that new pastoral sensitivity, and liberation theology. In Cajamarca held such little attraction for the young. But the Shining Path in northern Peru, for example, the Shining Path made no head- could attack Protestants in the outlying districts without draw- way because the peasants were already well organized before the ing too much attention to itself. terrorists arrived. In 1962 Bishop José Dammert began placing As the Shining Path moved outside of Ayacucho, however, great emphasis on community organization. That year he founded it finally encountered the modern, post–Vatican II church—in the Institute of Rural Education to teach the peasants better Cajamarca and Puno, in the jungle, and in Lima. And now the techniques of agriculture. But the institute also emphasized Catholic Church, too, fell victim to terrorism. In its bloody community solidarity. The peasants themselves banded together march, the Shining Path murdered priests, nuns, and catechists to form rondas (from the Spanish verb “to make the rounds”) to and destroyed educational facilities for the peasants. Among its protect their herds from bandits. Unlike vigilante squads in victims were two Polish Franciscans, an Italian missionary, an American history, however, the Peruvian version turned wrong- Australian religious woman, and a seventy-year-old Good Shep- doers over to the police, who, in truth, were not happy with these herd nun. In Lima one of the most visible opponents was María extralegal bands. But because the police were unable to protect Elena Moyano, a catechist in her youth and later the leader of the the peasants, they tolerated the rondas. But there was a Christian women’s movement in Villa El Salvador, one of the huge component to these rondas. Many of the ronderos were catechists shantytowns near Lima. She defiantly called the people to come who had been trained in the institute founded by Bishop Dammert. out to protest the violence. When she was murdered by the For them, going out at night to protect their herds was perceived Shining Path in 1991, a Peruvian journalist compared her to as a civic duty inspired by biblical solidarity. This part of north- Judith of the Old Testament. ern Peru, under the control of God-fearing and armed peasants, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recognized the was a closed wall to the Shining Path. important role that the churches played in offering consolation to In Puno to the south this story repeated itself. Since the 1960s, the people and in helping them to defend their rights. Also, the Maryknoll missionaries and Sacred Heart priests had organized churches offered material aid to the many refugees fleeing from a network of adult catechists who were the natural leaders in the violence. Although the commission ceased to exist when it their villages. Also, the church in that area supported the peas- handed over its report, the members of the panel have encour- ants in their demands for land. When columns of the Shining aged civic groups, especially the churches, to continue their work Path entered Puno, the churches founded vicariates of solidarity of making the truth known and, even more difficult, of helping in each diocese. The vicariates gave courses on human rights, self-centered, white Peruvians to discover and to respect Andean organized peace marches, and offered legal assistance to anyone Peruvians.

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