(De)humanizing Narratives of Terrorism in Spain and Peru

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Melissa Doran, M.A.

Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese

The Ohio State University

2014

Dissertation Committee:

Ulises Juan Zevallos-Aguilar, Advisor

Ignacio Corona

Aurélie Vialette

Copyright by

Melissa Doran

2014

2

Abstract

Both Spain and Peru experienced protracted violent conflicts between insurgent groups and State forces during the second half of the twentieth century. In Spain, this involved Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a radical Basque nationalist organization which sought Basque autonomy via armed struggle in a conflict which lasted from 1959 until

2011. In Peru, the insurgent threat was represented by Sendero Luminoso, a Maoist guerrilla insurgency based in the Peruvian highlands that sought drastic sociopolitical change within Peru. Sendero Luminoso launched what they deemed a people’s war in

1980, and the bloody conflict that ensued continued until 1992. The damage caused by each of these conflicts was monumental, both in terms of the loss of human life and damage to infrastructure in both countries. In this dissertation I examine the depiction of these conflicts in a selection of Peruvian and Spanish novels and films. I argue that each work promotes a certain version of the conflict it describes, and that this can be revealed through an analysis of the humanizing and dehumanizing discourses at play in the representation of the actors in both of these conflicts. From Peru, I will examine Santiago

Roncagliolo’s novel Abril rojo (2006) and Fabrizio Aguilar’s film Paloma de papel

(2003). From Spain, I will analyze the novel Ojos que no ven (2010) by J.Á. González

Sainz and the film Yoyes (2000) by Helena Taberna.

ii In this work, I argue that these discourses of humanization and dehumanization affirm or deny, respectively, the humanity of subjects involved in these violent political conflicts. I assert that dehumanization is employed to legitimate systemic violence during a state of exception, while humanization serves to refute that legitimation by providing a more comprehensive image of the actors and their motivations. Furthermore, I signal the significance of the use of these discourses, as I consider these works to be part of a larger corpus from a number of disciplines that help to develop the collective memory surrounding these conflicts. In that way, I posit that the representations of the actors seen in these works, including the State, the insurgent organizations, and the general public, can contribute to the way in which audience members remember these conflicts and, therefore, highlight the potential implications of the representations presented in these novels and films.

iii

Dedication

To David and my parents

To the memory of my grandfathers

iv

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ulises Juan Zevallos-Aguilar, for his constant

support and guidance during my time at Ohio State. His comments on this dissertation

have been invaluable in both narrowing and strengthening the argument, and his patience

in correcting my drafts is much appreciated.

I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Ignacio Corona and Dr. Aurélie

Vialette, for the time that they have dedicated to guiding this project and for the insightful

feedback they have provided.

I am additionally thankful for the participation of Dr. Ileana Rodríguez on the committee

of both my M.A. and Ph.D. exams.

This dissertation would not have been possible without the unconditional and unwavering

support of my family. I am so grateful for them, especially David, my parents, my

grandparents, mi familia española, and my “Dayton parents,” whose support of this

process has taken a number of forms, all wonderful and so very much appreciated.

v

Vita

May 2004 ...... East Palestine High School

2008 ...... B.A., Spanish, Wright State University

2010 ...... M.A., Spanish, The Ohio State University

2008-2012 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State

University

2012 to present ...... Instructor of Spanish, Wright State

University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese

Primary Area: Contemporary Latin American Literatures and Cultures

Secondary area: Contemporary Peninsular Literatures and Cultures

Minor: History

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgements ...... v

Vita ...... vi

Introduction ...... 1

Part 1: Peru ...... 35

Political and Economic Context ...... 36

The Early Years of Sendero Luminoso ...... 41

The conflicto interno ...... 45

The Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación ...... 54

Lo criollo, centralismo, and Orientalism ...... 58

Representation of Terrorism in Peruvian Literature and Film ...... 66

Chapter 1: Dehumanization as Justification for Violence in Santiago

Roncagliolo’s Abril rojo (2006) ...... 75

Interpretation of the Conflict by the Armed Forces ...... 82

Glimpses of Insurgent Experiences ...... 92

Dehumanizing Representations of the campesino Population ...... 99

Conclusions ...... 106

vii Chapter 2: Humanizing Intentions in Fabrizio Aguilar’s Paloma de papel (2003) ...... 111

Representations of the Rural Population and Initial Stages

of the Conflict ...... 121

Representation of the Armed Forces ...... 125

Incomplete Humanization of Sendero Luminoso ...... 135

Conclusions ...... 150

Part 2: Spain ...... 154

Nineteenth-Century Historical Developments ...... 156

The Birth of Basque Nationalism ...... 160

Growing Pains and the Early Twentieth Century ...... 163

The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Years ...... 167

Formation of ETA and the Early Years ...... 171

ETA Under Franco ...... 174

ETA and the Transition to Democracy ...... 178

ETA in Spanish Literature and Film ...... 197

Chapter 3: Dehumanization of “The Terrorist”: J. Á. González Sainz’s

Ojos que no ven (2010) ...... 204

Family Metaphors ...... 209

Early Signals of ETA Participation ...... 211

Animalistic Dehumanization of Juanjo ...... 216

Dehumanizing Representations of the Mother ...... 224

Oedipal Resonances and Family Dynamics ...... 228

viii Exposure to etarras ...... 232

ETA and the Spanish State ...... 237

Conclusion ...... 241

Chapter 4: Feminization and Humanization in Helena Taberna’s

Yoyes (2000) ...... 243

Yoyes as a Female Terrorist ...... 249

ETA and the Spanish State, 1970s and 1980s ...... 263

Conclusion ...... 272

Conclusion ...... 274

Bibliography ...... 282

ix

Introduction

In Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, Raymond Williams includes an entry for “Violence” which highlights the complicated nature of its definition due to its connotation of “unauthorized” uses of force, such as in “the violence of a ‘terrorist’ but not, except by its opponents, of an army, where ‘force is preferred and most operations of war and preparation for war are described as ‘defence’” (329). This project examines the representation of armed struggle in a selection of Peruvian and Spanish novels and films.

Both countries have experienced devastating violence stemming from political conflicts between the State and insurgent groups—Sendero Sendero Luminoso in Peru (1980-

1992) and Euskadi Ta Askatuna (ETA) in Spain (1959-20111)2—and the works examined here depict in varying ways the actors of these conflicts. From Peru, I will examine

Santiago Roncagliolo’s novel Abril rojo (2006) and Fabrizio Aguilar’s film Paloma de papel (2003). From Spain, I will analyze the novel Ojos que no ven (2010) by J.Á.

1 ETA declared a permanent ceasefire and cessation of all armed activity in 2011. The organization still exists, but, as the conflict in Peru was considered to officially end with the capture of Sendero Luminoso’s leadership, I consider the active conflict between ETA and the Spanish government to have tentatively ended in 2011. At the time of writing this dissertation, the ceasefire was still in place, but I recognize that this could change in the future. 2 2 These are the official dates of the conflicts, although I do not wish to indicate that they have completely ended. I recognize not only the lingering tension in each country regarding these organizations, but also the continued presence of individuals who maintain their alliance to these oganizations and even continue to act on their behalf. 1 González Sainz and the film Yoyes (2000) by Helena Taberna. Although these works are artistic representations of political conflicts, I propose that an examination of the humanizing and dehumanizing discourses employed in these novels and films reveals a very specific ideology regarding the conflicts themselves and the actors that participated in them3. Furthermore, I also argue that, through the analysis of these humanizing and dehumanizing discourses, it becomes clear that most of these novels and films ultimately fall into the trap of portraying these conflicts via the traditional, simplistic dichotomy of good against evil. The significance of this sort of representation cannot be understated, as

I consider these works to be part of a larger corpus from a number of disciplines, including history, sociology, and political science, that help to develop the collective memory surrounding these conflicts.

While this project does not intend to compare the conflicts in Spain and Peru, there are a number of significant similarities between the two conflicts that I believe help to validate their examination here. Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh has signaled a number of these characteristics in his article, “From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational

Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminso.” First, both organizations were founded by university-educated individuals; Zirakzadeh notes that

ETA was first led by “middle-income Basque nationalist college students” and that

“Professors and students at a state university in the highland city of Ayacucho” initiated the Sendero Luminoso movement (72, 80). Furthermore, Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist

3 I do not mean to imply that the idea of literature as ideological is innovative. Paddy Maguire, in “Literature, Politics, and History,” describes the common nature of this notion, particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century, when he notes the “firm belief that writing, in whatever form or genre, [is] an essentially political activity” (96). Instead, I wish to unveil this ideology through an examination of humanizing and dehumanizing discourses. 2 writings inspired members of both organizations, and many of the founding ideas of both

Sendero Luminoso and ETA demonstrated a deep mistrust of capitalism and hope in the power of the proletariat (66). The university, then, not only provided an environment conducive to the study of these concepts, but also the social networks that led to the formation of the organizations themselves. The implementation of these ideas occurred in line with the demands set by the local political and economic realities, and therefore differed between Sendero Luminoso and ETA, though they reflected at their core the notions set forth in the aforementioned writings.

Interestingly enough, both of these organizations turned to armed conflict during authoritarian regimes in their respective countries, and intensified their violence during democratic governments. Zirakzadeh confirms that each organization “first grew amid an authoritarian government and increased its use of guns and bombs while democratic constitutional reform was taking place” (67). In response to the violence implemented by each organization, the governments of Spain and Peru each eventually responded harshly with measures that included the suspension of constitutional rights and extrajudicial violence against members of the organizations (and, on many occasions, against innocent bystanders), among others. The historical trajectory of both Sendero Luminoso and ETA, as well as the government response against them, is discussed in greater detail later in this project.

Although the works identified here form part of a larger fictional corpus that discusses the political conflict in each country, I have chosen these particular novels and films for a number of reasons. All of the works examined here were published within ten years of each other and were created either after the official end of the conflict that they

3 depict or during a period of peace. I believe that this allows each of these works an important degree of temporal distance that consequently permits the possibility for reflection on these events. Additionally, while all of the authors and directors examined here experienced these conflicts as citizens of their respective countries, none of them were protagonists in the conflict itself, either as a member of the subversive organization or the State forces. Obviously this does not preclude a presence of their personal ideology in these works, as I have argued above, but I do believe that this lends a degree of spatial distance to the works, much as the time periods described above provide a sort of temporal distance. I believe that this spatial distance is significant in that none of the creators here are working to defend their own personal actions during the conflicts, and it is a benchmark characteristic that I wanted to keep consistent in my selection of works.

It is also important to note that all of these works have received a great level of attention through reviews and literary or film awards. Abril rojo and Yoyes, in particular, have also been the subject of a number of scholarly articles that examine various aspects of each work. This is significant because it implies that these works are not only widely circulated among the population, but also accepted as versions of the conflict sanctioned by literary and film institutions. None of the four works that I will examine here, however, have received much scholarly attention to the specific topic of the depiction of the political conflict in the work, and it is this gap that I hope to cover through my analysis. Furthermore, all of the authors and producers featured in this dissertation have spoken directly about the political conflicts in their respective countries, and many have even given their opinion on the relationship between those conflicts and the artistic works they have created. This further justifies the need for the type of analysis I will complete

4 here, as it provides a base for dialogue between the works themselves and the authors’ intentions or motivations.

Both Sendero Luminoso and ETA have been designated terrorist organizations by a number of different sources, including by their own national governments, the United

States government, and a number of historians and researchers. Bruce Hoffman, in Inside

Terrorism, defines terrorism as “violence—or, equally as important, the threat of violence—used and directed in pursuit of, or in service of, a political aim” (3). The classification of terrorism represents a change in the lexicon historically used to describe the groups and their members, which frequently employed terms such as guerrillas, separatists, or even just communists. Additionally, the terms “terrorism” and “terrorist” have acquired a distinctly negative connotation in recent years, as Margaret Scanlan asserts in Plotting Terror: Novelists and Terrorists in Contemporary Fiction: “In practice, to call people terrorists is to condemn them; those of whom we approve are, of course, soldiers, liberators, partisans, freedom fighters, or revolutionaries; even guerrilla remains more neutral” (6). Hoffman notes that the negative connotation associated with the word today is the antithesis of its original meaning, which described positively the tactics used by the government during the aftermath of the French Revolution to restore order and foster democracy (4). He quotes Brian Jenkins, who confirms that the term today “Use of the term implies a moral judgment; and if one party can successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its moral viewpoint” (quoted in Hoffman 18). Inherent to this description is the very simplified concept of us vs. them, which often goes hand-in-hand with the idea of good vs. bad.

5 The ramifications of employing the term terrorist or terrorism in describing these or any other conflicts, then, cannot be ignored. Brendan O’Leary and John Tirman, two of the editors of Terror, Insurgency, and the State, also highlight the dangers of the term

“terrorism” and, while they agree that the groups described in their work (including the two groups discussed here) have employed the method of terrorism4 at some point throughout their campaign, they also caution that the terrorist label is a gross simplification of a situation which can serve to block “understanding and intelligent policy” (7). Furthermore, they highlight the fact that the insurgent groups are not the only perpetrators of violence and destruction, and recognize that “governments have been the greatest killers of our time” (7). I share the opinion that the terrorist label oversimplifies a very context situation and tends to divide conflicts into “good” and “bad” players. It is for this reason that I employ the word “terrorism” in the title of this project, even though I don’t aim to use it myself in my analysis. I wish to recognize here the complexity underlying narratives that would typically be described as depicting something so general as terrorism in order to problematize the term and call attention to its insufficiency in capturing the elements at play in each of these conflicts. I do this also with the purpose of separating the motivations of each organizations from the means that they have used to attempt to reach their goals. Though many of the works cited in this dissertation will employ both “terrorism” and “terrorist” to describe both the organizations and the actors

4 O’Leary and Tirman explain that “For us, terrorism is a method, namely, politically motivated violence that deliberately targets civilians, or to be more precise, noncombatants. The insurgents analyzed here have all targeted civilians, at least at certain junctures, and engaged in political violence in which ‘collateral damage’ and intentional damage to civilians have been so high as plainly to breach humanitarian law criteria of just conduct in war. As they have often violently attacked wholly innocent people, not part of the target regime’s coercive or policing agencies, and noncombatants, then, by our definition, they have engaged in terrorism. Intentionally striking fear among defenseless populations has been part of their repertoire of methods” (6). 6 themselves, I will instead use the terms insurgent, subversive, and guerrilla in my own personal analysis. I recognize that these terms are hardly neutral either, but I feel that they are not as embedded in the current frenzy that surrounds the term “terrorist” and that, particularly due to the recent history of the term as described above, they are at least a better alternative.

In discussing generally the conflicts in both Peru and Spain, I recognize that both

Sendero Luminoso and ETA formed as an attempt to rectify what they viewed to be unjust systems and that they have continued to fight over the years because the original issues were never resolved to their satisfaction. Additionally, I recognize the fact that those actors classified as “terrorists” are polarizing figures—heroes to their supporters and demons to their detractors. Regardless of their original motivations, I do not support the violence that they have employed in their attempt to achieve these changes. I do recognize, however, that these organizations were not alone in the commission of violence. Both sides of these conflicts, the subversive organizations as well as the State forces, have committed atrocities and abuses of power that have caused incalculable damage to the people and infrastructure of their countries.

The number of works published on the general subject of terrorism is truly astounding5. This apparent interest in terrorism is undeniably linked to the events of

September 11, 2001, as evidenced by the dramatic jump from around 8,000 works published on the topic in 2000 to over 34,000 published in 2001 and an average of around

30,000 works published each year since then (WorldCat). The link to September 11, 2001 is also evident in terms of subject matter; while a number of the titles included in the

5 A WorldCat (via the Ohio State University library) search for “terrorism” finds over 500,000 entries. (Searched 1 March 2014). All of the following statistics were found the same day. 7 search results are general studies on terrorism or readers which combine a number of topics or regions in one collection, a search for particular groups yields over 33,000 titles published on al Qaeda, versus less than 1,500 dealing with Sendero Luminoso and fewer than 500 on ETA (WorldCat). This geopolitical division appears to extend to the realm of fiction, as nearly 75% of the fictional titles under the “terrorism” heading are filed under

American literature or English literature. An examination of the types of works produced on the topic of terrorism also reveals a division among subject lines: while Language,

Linguistics & Literature is in the top 5 topic areas, less than half of the titles are non- fictional studies (WorldCat). When compared with the total number of titles in the top 5 topics areas—Sociology; Language, Linguistics & Literature; History & Auxiliary

Sciences; Government Documents; and Politics Sciences—non-fiction studies of literature which deals with terrorism only represents approximately 9% of the total body of works (WorldCat). A search for “terrorism and film” produces similar results; nearly

75% of the results are the films (fiction and non-fiction) themselves, and only around

25% are actual studies of those films (WorldCat). The sheer underrepresentation of studies regarding ETA and Sendero Luminoso, as well as their fictional counterparts, underscores the necessity of a project like the one I will undertake here.

Though the scholarship regarding the conflicts with ETA and Sendero Luminoso is not as well represented as other areas, there are still a number of works that deal with the topic. I argue that these works, fictional and non-fictional, contribute to the development of the collective memory that exists in each society regarding these political conflicts. By collective memory, I refer to the term first introduced by Maurice

Halbwachs which meant to describe a representation of past events shared by the

8 members of a certain social group, be it a nation, a religion, a region, etc. In “The

Semiotics of Collective Memories,” Briggitine French provides a very comprehensive interpretation of the term with the following definition: “Collective memory is a social construction constituted through a multiplicity of circulating sign forms, with interpretations shared by some social actors and institutions and contested by others in response to heterogeneous positions in a hierarchical social field in which representations of the past are mediated through concerns of the present” (340). Unpacking this explanation provides insight into the main tenants of this idea and helps to highlight their importance for this project.

First, French’s description of a social construction signals that collective memory does not deal with a concrete memory that is tested by accuracy. Instead, it is a representation of the past that receives input from a number of different people and media. Jeffrey K. Olick identifies both “mnemonic products” and mnemonic “practices” which influence the development of this collective memory, including products such as

“stories, rituals, books, statues, presentations, speeches, images, pictures, records, historical studies, surveys, etc.,” and practices such as “reminiscence, recall, representation, commemoration, celebration, regret, renunciation, disavowal, denial, rationalization, excuse, acknowledgement, and many others” (158). The novels and films examined in this project, then, line up with the objects in the category of mnemonic products listed by Olick, along with a multitude of other existing sources, such as historical studies, reports from Truth Commissions, government declarations, testimonials, etc. A number of these sources will be employed below, especially in describing the historical context of each conflict.

9 Olick’s notion of mnemonic practices links back to French’s assertion that the collective memory is shared by some members of the group and contested by others, which stresses not only the malleable nature of the representation itself, but also the role of power and personal memory. In developing a collective memory of a battle, for instance, the viewpoint of the victor will most likely differ greatly from that of the defeated side. Even within each side, however, individual members of each group will contribute their own personal memories and viewpoints regarding the way the battle should be remembered, from a crushing victory, or one that was significant but costly, or even one that was costly and unnecessary. These perspectives are then often memorialized through Olick’s category of mnemonic products: where one member of the group might give an impassioned speech celebrating the victory, another might write a book which provides a more tempered perspective, and a different person, perhaps suffering from a guilty conscience could publish photographs of the battle which attempt to reveal the most negative aspects of the battle. Obviously when one event is remembered by a large collectivity, such as a nation, the variety of these perspectives and products will be much greater than when the an event is remembered by the members of one small town, for example. In this sense, the particular works analyzed below can be considered to reflect a particular viewpoint of these political conflicts which contributes to the development of the overall collective memory.

Apart from establishing the novels and films examined here as contributions to the evolution of the collective memory surrounding the respective conflicts with ETA and

Sendero Luminoso, French’s description of the term also signals the role of the mediation of the present in its development. For French, the idea that these representations are

10 mediated according to the needs and perspectives of the present comes directly from

Halbwachs, who asserted that “The past is not preserved, but is reconstructed on the basis of the present…Collective frameworks are…precisely the instruments used by the collective memory to reconstruct an image of the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thoughts of the society” (qtd. in French 339). This is certainly the case with all of the works examined here, which were written or produced after the events that they depict. With this in mind, these works can be said to provide a version of the events themselves, but also insight into the way in which these events are viewed or interpreted today. This sort of interpretation could signal a shift in the way certain actors are perceived or, as in the case of most of the works studied here, a continuation of the pre-conceived notions and stereotypes which fomented the original societal and political rifts that would later give rise to these conflicts.

Astrid Erll, in “War, film and collective memory: Plurimedial constellations” examines the role of war films in the development of collective memory surrounding the events they depict. Her explanation is similar to Olick’s notion of mnemonic products, though she does not employ the same terminology, and she asserts that “All collective memory is mediated memory. Sharing memories between people requires that these memories are ‘externalized’ from individual minds, put into form and socially communicated via media—from oral speech, to writing, print, film, and the digital media” (231). For Erll, the media technology at hand has created “medial frameworks of memory,” a concept based on Halbwach’s initial idea of social frameworks of memory, which referred to the social networks with which we interact and which influence the development of our personal and collective memories. She contends that “Over the past

11 three decades or so, film seems to have become the leading medium of collective memory” (232). I would argue, however, that a number of the arguments she makes regarding the role of film in the development of collective memory can also be made for literature and therefore justifies the inclusion of both media in this project6.

Employing the context of World War II, Erll signals that one of the reasons that film is so inextricably linked to collective memory is its “key role in the narrativization and iconization of war experience” (232). I would argue that this same effect can be brought about by the novel, although the reader must create the images in their own mind instead of relying on the pre-selected images of the film. Both novels and movies have the capability to tie certain historical events to a personal story which is made accessible and intriguing for the reader. Furthermore, Erll argues, “To become a successful memory-making medium, a war film must be seen, discussed, commented on and remediated” (234). She explains that “Today, marketing campaigns, international awards, heated public discussions, politicians’ speeches, reviews of films in newspapers and journals, the ‘remediation’ of films in other films or in books or video games are some of the media and social practices surrounding war films” (234). Many of these same practices are applicable to the publication circuit of a novel, especially the marketing campaigns, awards, reviews, and ‘remediation’—as can be seen with any film adapted from an original novel. All of these practices serve to publicize the novel or film and, in

6 Erll does not intentionally exclude literature from her discussion of collective memory. Her focus is specifically on war film, but she does explicitly state that “collective memory is always not only mediated memory, but more precisely ‘pluri-mediated memory’; a specific form of cultural remembering is never created by just one single medium. It is usually the effect of many different media, their interplay and cross-references. I simply wish to indicate here that the many of the very same characteristics of film which make possible its contribution to collective memory also exist in literature and, therefore, that both media included in this project have been chosen for this possibility. 12 doing so, make these works viable options for those readers or viewers who wish to consume the work and therefore add it to the variety of viewpoints and perspective which help them to establish a collective memory. This is certainly the case with the works selected for this project, which have been recognized with a number of literary and film awards and been discussed by a variety of scholars in both newspapers and academic journals. Because of the attention they have received, I consider that these works hold the potential to be, in Erll’s terms, successful memory-making media.

Due to their potential role of these representations in shaping the way people view or remember these conflicts, it is necessary to analyze the way in which these conflicts are portrayed. I argue that the specific works analyzed in this project all put forth a very specific vision of each conflict through the use of specific discourses that serve to humanize or dehumanize the actors on both sides of the hostilities. Furthermore, I posit that these discourses are employed to achieve specific goals. I find that dehumanizing discourses are most often used to legitimate the violence committed by the State during a state of exception and to obscure the complex sociopolitical context which underlies the political conflict itself. I believe that the notion of dehumanization is especially significant in the cases of Spain and Peru because the conflicts featured here were not battles against external enemies, but protracted periods of hostility between members of the same nation-state. These discourses, then, help to remove the affective barriers of shared citizenship in order to delegitimize and criticize one side of the conflict or the other. Humanizing discourses, on the other hand, are employed to provide a more comprehensive image of the political actors and their motivations, and to highlight the very sociopolitical history that dehumanizing discourses aim to suppress. Particularly

13 when humanizing discourses are employed in the representation of subversive figures, I find that they help to complicate the notion of the “terrorist,” by showing those actors as people with the same contradictions of good and evil as everyone else. These discourses can take a number of forms, which will be explained below.

Before enumerating a list of dehumanizing discourses, it is necessary to define what exactly I mean by “dehumanization”. Nick Haslam, in “Dehumanization: An

Integrative Review,” defines it most generally as the “denial of full humanness to others, and the cruelty and suffering that accompany it” (252). Though he acknowledges that the characteristics that define “humanness” may vary slightly across cultures, he lists civility, refinement, moral sensibility, rationality, logic, and maturity as behavioral traits which are “typical of or central to humans” (256-257). Taking away these or other similar characteristics from a person, or conferring upon them the opposite form, leads to what

Haslam deems “animalistic dehumanization,” in that it makes the person seem less like a human being and more like an animal7. In this case, the person could be considered to suffer from a lack of culture, coarseness, amorality, lack of self-restraint, irrationality, or childlikeness (257). Dehumanization can certainly occur against a single person, but is very common among social groups, where one dominant group considers a different group to be representative of these characteristics (Haslam 255).

Haslam indicates that there are a number of motives behind the dehumanization of a person or a group during a conflict such as the ones in Peru and Spain. He links dehumanization directly to the potential for violence, either as “an important precondition or consequence,” and explains that “When people are divested of these agentic and

7 According to Haslam, “Stated boldly, if people are perceived as lacking what distinguishes humans from animals, they should be seen implicitly or explicitly as animal-like” (258). 14 communal aspects of humanness they are deindividuated, lose the capacity to evoke compassion and moral emotions, and may be treated as means toward vicious ends” (254-

255). Haslam cites H.C.Kelman’s explanation of this relationship, which posits that dehumanization creates subjects without the qualities that normally would prevent fellow humans from committing violence against them (254). Three possible uses cover situations seen in the works studied here, including “explaining the conflict, justifying the ingroup’s aggression, and providing it with a sense of superiority” (254). All of these uses, it should be noted, stem from a desire on the part of the aggressor to remove any moral complications that would hold the aggressor responsible for their actions or prevent the violence from occurring in the first place.

Discourses of dehumanization have become especially popular in the discussion of terrorism and counterterrorism policies, as noted by Joseba Zulaika and William A.

Douglass in Terror and Taboo: the follies, fables, and faces of terrorism. They conclude that, as a result of these discourses, “The terrorist becomes the paradigm of inhuman bestiality, the quintessential proscribed or tabooed figure of our times” (6). This is especially interesting, considering that terrorism is only one of a number of explanations for violence, including conventional warfare. Zulaika and Douglass note that, “despite its toll in millions of lives, the discourse concerning conventional warfare neither taboos the soldier nor defines and defiles war as an incomprehensible aberration” (6). According to the theory regarding the dehumanization of subversive figures, then, I would argue that their dehumanization also strips their political agency and obscures any motives which stand behind their commitment to violence through a singular focus on the animalistic qualities of the actors themselves. Consequently, the violent acts of a subversive actor are

15 seen as arbitrary and, therefore, even more reprehensible. Violence committed on behalf of a State in war, however, is legitimized through a discourse that includes, often times, the need to defeat individuals or groups labeled “terrorists.”

When States engage in violent conflicts with subversive organizations, it often occurs during a state of exception. Stephen Humphreys, in “Legalizing lawlessness: On

Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception” explains that the state of exception, as explained in international law, typically refers to the State’s suspension of the protection of basic rights in the face of a threat which is considered to jeopardize the safety or wellbeing of the nation in some way (678). It is really the consequences of this state of exception that are of interest to this project, however. Through the suspension of basic rights for the general population, the rights of the State increase exponentially and are justified as necessary in order to protect the nation from the original threat. Consequently, actions that would be prohibited under normal circumstances—such as arrest without proof of cause, the use of torture to obtain information or confessions, or even facilitating the death of those who are considered to be threatening in some way—are no longer prohibited, as long as they are ostensibly linked to the elimination of the threat.

Agamben’s words in his earlier work, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, become even clearer in light of the previous description: “The state of exception is thus not the chaos that precedes order, but rather the situation that results from its suspension”

(18). Although there is a perceived threat before the declaration of the state of exception, it is the violence and chaos during the time period designated as the state of exception that really defines it. As described above, then, dehumanizing discourses serve two significant purposes related to a state of exception: first, they justify the original need for

16 the state of exception, and they also help to legitimize the violence committed by the

State during the state of exception.

Referring back to my earlier comment regarding the necessity of dehumanizing discourses in order to justify violence committed against fellow members of a nation- state, the state of exception in cases of civil strife is also tied up in discussions of citizenship and the protection, or dissolution, of the rights of the members of that nation- state. In both Spain and Peru, the central governments were not battling external enemies, they were engaged in violent conflict with groups of their own citizens. It is in these cases that the State has to make a decision against whom they are truly fighting and how to respond. In each of these situations, the State responded with their own acts of violence and, consequently, facilitated the death of a number of insurgent actors. I would argue that the kinds of dehumanizing discourses seen in this project represent the same sorts of ideas held and propogated by these governments in order to justify stripping these violent political actors of their shared citizenship and, subsequently, the protections and rights that typically accompany it. In this way, it reflects the idea of bio/necropolitics as discussed by figures such as Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and the above mentioned

Giorgio Agamben, among others. At their most basic levels, the notions of biopolitics and necropolitics describe policies and actions by which sovereign actors (such as governments, in these cases) either let their populations live (biopolitics), through systems of healthcare and education, for example, or make them die, through actions like the ones taken by both the Spanish and Peruvian States during these conflicts. While the ideas of bio/necropolitics are not the focus of this project, they do provide a helpful

17 perspective on the issues of citizenship that are certainly tied up in each of the conflicts explored here8.

The works examined in this project all deal with a period of time during a state of exception and many of them highlight the types of dehumanizing discourses that were employed during the conflicts. In particular, I will discuss the presence of three specific discourses which I argue serve to dehumanize subjects involved in the conflicts: a focus on Slavoj Zizek’s notion of subjective violence, Edward Said’s concept of orientalism, and the representation of female combatants as acting outside of the behaviors traditionally associated with their gender. A general description of each of these discourses follows below.

I argue here that the specific works examined below often focus a great deal of their attention on the violent acts of terrorism as spectacles of violence. This sort of focus makes these violent acts seem to materialize from thin air and betrays their link to organizations which are organized around a set of common goals and which have a history that has influenced their development. Additionally, the targeted focus on the violent acts of subversive organizations often obscure the role of the State both in creating the social, economic, and political situations from which these organizations arise and their direct involvement in violent acts during these conflicts. Framed in terms of the discourse proposed by Slavoj Zizek in Violence, these works focus primarily on instances of subjective violence, while maintaining the invisibility of the objective State- level violence.

8 For further information regarding biopolitics, see Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (1978) or Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998). Achille Mbembe develops the notion of necropolitics in his article, “Necropolitics” (2003). 18 Zizek identifies the common preoccupation with acts of terrorism, stating, “At the forefront of our minds, the obvious signals of violence are acts of crime and terror, civil unrest, international conflict” (1). He is quick to point out, however, that the focus on these types of violence is only a surface-level examination of the violence really happening in these cases. Zizek asserts that “we should learn to step back, to disentangle ourselves from the fascinating lure of this directly visible ‘subjective’ violence, violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent” (1). He does not take responsibility away from those who commit these acts of violence, instead asserting that placing the focus, and many times the blame, only on those who are making headlines for acts of violence does not fully explain the situation and certainly will not help to solve it. Behind this subjective violence, Zizek identifies a “systemic” or “objective” violence, which describes the “often catastrophic consequences of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems” (2). This objective violence can take various forms, from the implementation of economic policies which benefit a few and hurt the majority, to cultural repression or the denial of political participation, among many others. To use the vocabulary of Raymond Williams, these processes are not typically considered to be a form of violence since they are performed by “authorized forces”, many times even in democratically-elected States, but the outcomes they facilitate are fundamentally no different than the easily identifiable acts of symbolic violence committed by the groups who suffer from the behind-the-scenes objective violence. In providing a historical context for the conflicts with Sendero Luminoso and with ETA, I hope to highlight this objective violence in order to signal its absence against the focus on systemic violence in each of the analyzed works.

19 In addition to examining the representation in these works of the political conflicts in general, I also will analyze the depiction of the individual actors themselves.

In particular, I will discuss the process of othering and the role of gender as they apply to the representation of characters considered to be insurgents. The concept of othering here is a reference to Edward Said’s concept of orientalism. This term described the process by which Europe (or the “West”) endowed the Orient (the “East”) with a number of characteristics based largely on stereotypes and romanticized notions of their reality, thereby constituting itself in contrast to Orient and confirming its own superiority. Said himself writes in Orientalism that “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (3). Furthermore, Said posits that, within Orientalism, one can see “the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures” (7). Although Said’s original conception of Orientalism referred to the French and British relationship to the non-European world, he himself recognizes that the same sort of process exists in a number of cultures and time periods9, and I argue that it can certainly be seen in both of the political conflicts examined here.

Jayne Mooney and Jock Young, in “Imagining Terrorism: Terrorism and Anti-

Terrorism, Two Ways of Doing Evil,” describe how the binaries present in dehumanizing

9 Said writes that “The construction of identity—for identity, whether of Orient or Occident, France or Britain, while obviously a repository of distinct collective experiences, is finally a construction in my opinion—involves the construction of opposites and “others” whose actuality is always subject to continuous interpretation and re-interpretation of their differences from “us.” Each age and society re- creates its “Others” (332, emphasis added). 20 discourses fall in line with Said’s notion of Orientalism. They argue that “the conventional notion of terrorism carries with it a simple dualism of violence” and present a number of binaries as examples, including “The West/The Other, Rational/Irrational,

Justified/Hysterical, Focused/Wanton, Response/Provocation, Defensive/Offensive,

Generating Security/Inspiring Terror,” and “Modernity/Anti-Modernity” (113).

Additionally, they posit that these binaries easily lend themselves to the creation of

“denigrating stereotypes” and, in the case of Orientalism10, can lead to a dehumanizing vision in which “the East is the essence lacking in the human virtues of rationality, of controlling the impulse to violence, of orderly social behavior…” (119). Zulaika and

Douglass put forth a similar idea when they explain that “Terrorism news is framed according to a definite world view that opposes countries and cultures within a hierarchy of values in which ‘we’ are at the top and the practitioners of terrorism at the bottom”

(13). Here we see another example of the binary described by Mooney and Young, as the situation is described in terms of “us” and “them”. Zulaika and Douglass continue with this idea and note that “As a premise, terrorism tends to be about the Other; i.e., one’s country, one’s class, one’s creed, one’s president, oneself can hardly be a terrorist” (13).

While this is certainly not true in an objective explanation of political conflicts (i.e. one, in fact, can be a terrorist if one employs terrorist methods in order to achieve a goal, but one rarely wishes to be seen in that light), dehumanizing discourses allow for the

10 Mooney and Young also propose an interesting idea regarding Occidentalism, which they position as the opposite of Orientalism, and in which the West is imagined as “lacking in the most important of human virtues: honor, respect for tradition and community, sexual propriety, and family values” (119). I would argue that this perspective would be crucial to the study of counter-terrorism from the viewpoint of the subversive organizations themselves, but as none of the works here are told from the perspective of the insurgents, I have chosen not to explain this concept in depth. 21 projection of that term on to political adversaries, thereby excusing oneself from the negative associations that accompany it.

In the specific works analyzed here, Orientalism as a dehumanizing discourse will play a larger role in the study of those from Peru than of those from Spain. This is due, in large part, to the fact that Peru’s sociopolitical history is largely tied up with deeply rooted concepts of Orientalism, which will be discussed in further detail in the introduction to that chapter. In the case of the works from Spain, and particularly in the novel Ojos que no ven, Orientalism will take the form of the binaries described by

Mooney and Young and will have less of a racial component than in the works from

Peru11.

In a few of the works examined in this project, the notion of gender, and specifically the roles and behaviors traditionally associated with certain genders, is employed as a dehumanizing device. I will dialogue with this idea in my analysis of

Yoyes, and it is also useful for my discussion of Ojos que no ven and Paloma de papel.

In terms of gender, I will utilize Judith Butler’s notion of “subversion” to highlight the fact that the female insurgents presented in these works go against the qualities expected of them in two different ways: in their role as citizens of a nation-state and in their role as women. Any discussion of the role of gender in the representation of these characters necessarily requires a definition of the term “gender.” Judith Butler, in “Performative

Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” famously defined it as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (519,

11 In the specific context of Peru, the notion of “lo indio” is frequently employed to describe these same binaries and tensions. I will discuss this idea further in my discussion of the term criollo, but ultimately find that the discourse of Orientalism is employed both by scholars of terrorism in general and scholars of the conflict in Peru. 22 italics original). Furthermore, she asserted, “gender is instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self” (519). The abiding gendered self would be one who follows along with the culturally accepted ideas contained within the idea of a particular gender, be it feminine or masculine, even though these notions have little (if anything) to do with the actual biological differences between the male and female sexes12.

Pierre Bourdieu, in Masculine Domination13, attributes the division of gender characteristics to a “symbolic violence” that naturalizes and maintains the supposed differences in gender roles through “the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition” (2). Much in the way that Zizek’s notion of objective violence tends to occur under the guise of political or economic policy, Bourdieu asserts that the symbolic violence of gender is “a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims”

(1). This is because it is projected as part of the “established order” that, “with its relations of domination, its rights and perogatives, privileges and injustices, ultimately perpetuates itself so easily” (1). Through this process, Bourdieu notes, “the most intolerable conditions of existence can so often be perceived as acceptable and even natural” (1). Once naturalized, these norms are propagated and maintained by a number

12 Childbirth would be one of the fundamental biological differences between the two sexes, and the implication of women as mothers is one that will be examined in much more detail below. This traditional binary also says nothing of the biological or anatomical differences among those who are transgendered, for example. 13 Masculine domination has received heavy criticism since its publication, particularly for its inconsistent discussion of both the Kabyle society and Virginia Woolfe’s To The Lighthouse, as well as its treatment of already existing feminist discourse and its dismissal of important topics such as gender and power without properly examining them. Martin Wallace summarizes thoroughly these and other criticisms in “A Disconcerting Brevity: Pierre Bordieu’s Masculine Domination” (2003). Regardless of these criticisms, which would be more appropriately discussed elsewhere, I find that his notion of symbolic violence is useful in examining the role of gender in these works, particularly as it parallels Zizek’s objective violence. 23 of institutions, such as the traditional family unit, the State, and educational systems (vii).

Men, it must be noted, have traditionally controlled these institutions, and so they have been perfectly positioned to both establish and maintain these norms (2-3).

For Butler, a person “becomes” a certain gender by performing, repeatedly, the characteristics traditionally associated with it. This comes as a result of her dialogue with

Simone de Beauvoir’s meaning of the word “woman”, where states the following:

When Beauvoir claims that ‘woman’ is a historical idea and not a natural

fact, she clearly underscores the distinction between sex, as a biological

facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that

facticity. To be female is, according to that distinction, a facticity which

has no meaning, but to be a woman is to have become a woman, to compel

the body to conform to an historical idea of ‘woman,’ to induce the body

to become a cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to an

historically delimited possibility, and to do this as a sustained and repeated

corporeal project (522).

“Being” a woman, then, is a performance that is repeated daily and which entails certain culturally codified behaviors that one must learn and incorporate. These behaviors, it must also be repeated, have little to do with the biological sex of the person and are the result of a particular culture deciding over time the appropriate parameters of behavior for each of the two genders, divided along the lines of traditional biological sex.

Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, in Mothers, Monsters, Whores, examine the perception of politically violent women through this particular lens of their gender. They

24 argue, much in line with the above statements from Butler, that “women14” are expected to demonstrate a series of culturally approved behaviors and note the “inherited perceptions of women as maternal, emotional, and peace-loving” (1). Even some feminist ideas, they assert, can portray women as “capable and equal, but not prone to men’s mistakes, excess, or violence” (1). Women who choose to commit acts of political violence, then, are “incompatible with traditional explanations of all women as the

‘peaceful people’ whom ‘war protects’ and who ‘should be protected from war’” (3).

Dorit Naaman, in “Brides of Palestine/Angels of Death: Media, Gender, and Performance in the Case of Palestinian Female Suicide Bombers,” concurs with the common difficulty in representing these women and writes, “When women opt to fight alongside men, they challenge the dichotomy of woman as victim/man as defender. Women fighters are physically strong, are active (therefore agents), and, most important, are willing to kill

(hence, they are violent)” (935). This reality, which for Naaman challenges both the traditional patriarchal power structure and the traditional image of women as potential victim of war and not participant, often leads to a representation of women fighters “as deviant from prescribed forms of femininity, forms that emphasize a woman’s delicacy and fragility but also her generosity, caring nature, motherliness, and sensitivity to others’ needs” (935). As will be seen below, the disconnect between traditionally held ideas regarding women’s role in violent political conflicts and the reality of their active participation is often reconciled through the use of dehumanizing narratives which, instead of accepting that women can make these same violent choices as men, instead

14 I refer here to their gender and not a biological sex. 25 posit that there is something fundamentally wrong with them and that, therefore, their behavior is explainable.

The very fact that women who commit acts of political violence are noted as violent women and not violent persons is significant for Sjoberg and Gentry. They note that “women who commit acts of violence in defiance of national or international law are not seen as criminals, warriors or terrorists, but as women criminals, women warriors, or women terrorists” (9, italics original). Sjoberg and Gentry also point out that the identifying tag of “women” is not added to categories which fall in line with traditionally anticipated behaviors, such as mothers, ballerinas, or housekeepers (9). They conclude that, “Because women who commit these violences have acted outside of a prescribed gender role, they have to be separated from the main/malestream discourse of their particular behaviour” (9). Ironically, this sort of identification may motivate women to overcompensate by exhibiting even more “masculine” behavioral traits in an attempt to prove that female political actors are just as effective and dedicated as their male counterparts (Sjoberg and Gentry 10). This will have a particular impact on the discussion of the film Yoyes.

There is a double consequence for violent women, then, for they are criticized for the violent act itself and also for committing violence as a woman. Sjoberg and Gentry postulate that “In today’s world, once a person acts outside of the ideal-typical gender role assigned to them, that person is open to criticism not only for their behaviour but for the gender transgression involved in its perpetration” (7). Though she does not directly discuss the issue of women who commit violent acts, Butler also warns about the consequences of this subversion of gender roles and states, “gender is a performance with

26 clearly punitive consequences” (522). She additionally explains that “Discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture; indeed, those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished” (522). Sjoberg and Gentry note that, in order to account for the behavior outside of the traditional norms of femininity, steps are often taken to either reinforce the image of the female actor as a mother, or to attribute her behavior to a fundamental, biological issue which strips her of her status as a woman and even as a human (12-13). To this end, they propose three narrative structures which they feel encompass a large majority of the representations of women who commit political violence: the mother, the monster, and the whore15. I will dialogue with these narratives as they apply to characters in the various works, and will discuss them in more detail as they are applicable.

While the previous discourses serve the purpose of dehumanization, it is also imperative to analyze those discourses that have the opposite effect: humanizing actors in the political conflict even amidst acts of violence. For this to occur, these works need to enable the possibility of empathy between the viewer/reader and the character(s) in the work. Alison Landsberg, in “Memory, Empathy, and the Politics of Identification,” defines empathy as one’s ability to “imagine the other’s situation and what it might feel

15 Sjoberg and Gentry write the following: “Women engaged in proscribed violence are often portrayed either as ‘mothers’, women who are fulfilling their biological destinies; as ‘monsters’, women who are pathologically damaged and are therefore drawn to violence (Gentry 2006); or as ‘whores’, women whose violence is inspired by sexual dependence and depravity” (12). In further elaborating the characteristics of these narratives, they explain that “The mother narratives describe the women’s violence as a need to belong, a need to nurture, and a way of taking care of and being loyal to men; motherhood gone awry. The monster narratives eliminate rational behaviour, ideological motivation, and culpability from women engaged in political violence. Instead, they describe violent women as insane, in denial of their femininity, no longer women or human. The whore narratives blame women’s violence on the evils of female sexuality at its most intense or its most vulnerable. The whore narratives focused on women’s erotomania describe violent women’s sexuality as both extreme and brutal; while the whore narratives that focus on women’s erotic dysfunction emphasize either desperation wrought from the inability to please men or women as men’s sexual pawns and possessions” (13). 27 like, while simultaneously recognizing one’s difference from her” (223). She notes that this is different than sympathy, in which “one shares the feelings of another person. And most notably, when one sympathizes with another, one focuses on oneself, on how she would feel in the other’s situation” (222-223). This difference, which is sometimes overlooked as the words are used interchangeably, leads Landsberg to conclude that empathy is “the more complicated of the two” emotions because “With empathy there is a leap, a projection, from the empathizer to the object of contemplation, which implies that a distance exists between the two” (223). Furthermore, she writes, “The experience of empathy requires an act of imagination—one must leave oneself and attempt to imagine what it was like for that other person given what he or she went through” (223).

The emphasis that Landsberg places on the difference between the empathizer and the object of contemplation is particularly significant here, as the empathizer, in these works, is asked to recognize the feelings of an actor who is typically dehumanized for their political associations and actions: the insurgent.

Referring back to the qualities of humanness put forth by Haslam provides a general idea of the types of characteristics that these fictional figures should possess in order to stand a chance at facilitating empathy. I argue that there are a number of different elements present in the humanizing discourses seen here, including a contextualization of the violence within larger sociopolitical issues, the demonstration of emotion by the characters considered subversive, and the representation of female insurgents as mothers.

Interestingly enough, gender performance, which above was used to dehumanize those who step outside its normally delineated bounds, can also be used to humanize

28 those who perform within its culturally sanctioned guidelines. Butler highlights this possibility with her above statement that “Discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture” (522). In the works examined here, this appears to be especially true for female characters that exhibit maternal qualities. That is to say, women are humanized by their motherhood and therefore appear to be less threatening, which facilitates the feeling of empathy. For Ruth H. Bloch, this is a legacy of the

Victorian era, as “it was above all as mothers that women were attributed social influence as the chief transmitters of religious and moral values” (“American Feminine Ideals in

Transition” 100). Joyce Trebilcot, in the introduction to Mothering: Essays in Feminist

Theory, agrees with the central role of motherhood in the lives of many women and writes that “In many societies, women are under intense pressure to be mothers both in the sense of giving birth and in the sense of nurturing; women who do not have children are defined as defective, as women who are not nurturant to men” (1). I would argue that this falls in line with Butler’s argument regarding the “sedimentation of gender norms that produces the peculiar phenomenon of a natural sex, or a real woman, or any number of prevalent and compelling social fictions” (524). In this case, the characteristics of a

“real woman” include motherhood in some form and, consequently, by representing female characters in the role of motherhood, they are humanized because they are performing their gender “correctly.”

While maternal qualities can serve to humanize female characters in the works examined here, both male and female characters receive this same effect when they are depicted as portraying the characteristics of “humanness” described by Haslam. If certain traits, such as lack of culture, coarseness, amorality, lack of self-restraint, and others,

29 serve to dehumanize a character, it would stand that the opposite qualities would have the opposite effect. In this case, I posit that possessing qualities such as civility, moral sensibility, rationality, logic, maturity, and refinement, even in combination with some of the dehumanizing characteristics mentioned above, serve to humanize the individuals represented in these works. I believe that the presence of these humanizing characteristics—especially in a character who would traditionally be considered “bad,” such as an insurgent—helps to temper the negative emotions associated with that character. This, consequently, can permit a sense of empathy as outlined above by

Landsberg. Indeed, Haslam notes the importance of empathy in overcoming dehumanization, and Landsberg discusses the potential of both literature and film to enable it (Haslam 262, Landsberg 223). For Landsberg, these types of works hold a great potential because, through the portrayal of these characteristics, they represent a “non- essentialist form of identification with the other who is presented as someone with whom we have no common ground other than our shared humanity” (228). In her argument, then, these humanizing qualities can help an audience member to at least feel some sort of base connection with a character, even if it is only at the level of shared humanity. It does not mean that it always happens, of course, but even this recognition can help to create some sort of sense of empathy.

A third humanizing discourse is that which situates the political conflict at hand within a larger sociopolitical and historical context. While this discourse does not set out to justify the means employed by the groups discussed here, it does refute the notion that the violent acts committed by these organizations are spontaneous and unrelated to any larger issue. Nivedita Majumdar alludes to this very process in “Literary Engagements

30 with Terrorism: An Intervention,” where she explains that “The ideological attack on terrorism is driven by an attempt at disassociating terrorism from all political substance and, instead, entirely casting it in a moral light. In this narrative, counterterrorism becomes a fight between the civilized and those outside of it, between the forces of good against evil, between us and them” (111). This idea reproduces the qualities of the dehumanizing othering discourse described above and, in Majumdar’s following remarks, she recalls Zizek’s notion of subjective violence. She writes, “The violence in terrorism is sited in the foreground. It is, we are given to understand, a special kind of violence that sets the terrorist apart—rootless, disconnected, purposeless” (111). She continues to argue that literature—and, I would add, film—can serve to break this traditional view of terrorism by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the situations which lead to its development.

For Majumdar, “Outside literature, terrorism is often explained as a product of cultural difference or psychological aberration. In literature, however, regardless of whether terrorism is cast in a sympathetic light or unequivocally rejected, the phenomenon is often embedded within a context that is both historicized and humanized”

(112). This is due, in large part, to the ability of the literary work to construct a fuller history of the subversive actor, and she explains that “In literary texts, the social element is not merely a background condition for the emergence of the terrorist. Rather, the intimate portrayals of ordinary people help to show how the conditions of everyday life can fuel the politics of terror” (112). She also references the ability of these works to potentially create empathy by showing the humannesss of the insurgent and posits, “the innate human capacity for empathy reorganizes the lines that separate the soldier from the

31 civilian, the terrorist from the victim, the state from the militant” (112). I would argue that the reorganization to which she refers includes a blurring of these lines, or at least a softening of them, which ultimately permits audience members to consider the complexity of the character, instead of labeling them as simply a soldier or insurgent, for example.

This project is divided into two main sections, one on Peru and one on Spain.

Each section will begin with an overview of the historical context that preceded the formation of these organizations, as well as a general overview of the trajectory of each group. Especially in light of Majumdar’s comments, I feel that this information is necessary in order to understand the circumstances that ultimately drove the formation of both Sendero Luminoso and ETA. Additionally, it provides a synopsis of the actions of each organization and also highlights the participation of the State and their counter- terrorism strategies. I will then examine one novel and one film from each country. I have chosen to only discuss one work from each genre in order to be able to analyze each one in-depth, which I feel is necessary given the very little academic attention each work has received in this context.

Following the introduction regarding the recent history of Peru and the development of Sendero Luminoso, the first body chapter will examine Santiago

Roncagliolo’s novel Abril rojo. I posit that the representation of the campesino population in the novel suffers from a dehumanizing orientalist perspective that was employed by State forces to justify their persecution of the social group in counter- terrorism efforts. Although only one known member of Sendero Luminoso is depicted during the novel, I signal the humanization of that character through the presence of

32 characteristics that signal his “humanness,” and the contrast between his representation and that of many of the State forces in the novel. Ultimately, I conclude that the novel highlights excessive violence employed by the Peruvian State in their counter-terrorism efforts, and refutes the justifications offered by the State for these actions.

Chapter two analyzes Fabrizio Aguilar’s film Paloma de papel and the representation of the conflict within the film compared to the director’s explicitly expressed desire to humanize the members of Sendero Luminoso. While I do identify instances in the film that attempt to complete this goal, I argue that the film focuses heavily on the violence committed by Sendero Luminoso without fully contextualizing the motivations of the organization or the sociopolitical history that led to its formation.

This, combined with an almost complete absence of the State, consequently appears to classify Sendero Luminoso as the party solely responsible for the atrocities committed during the conflict, as well as the conflict itself. I assert that this is a gross oversimplification of a very complex historical situation that is not fully explained in the film. This can also be seen in the fact that the representation of the rural Peruvian town featured in the film does not accurately represent the social context during the conflict. I conclude that Aguilar falls short of his goal of presenting a humanized representation of

Sendero Luminoso.

The second part of this project focuses on Spain and the ongoing conflict with

ETA. Following the introduction regarding the recent history of Spain and the development of ETA, my third chapter will examine J. Á. González Sainz’s novel Ojos que no ven. Here, I argue that, via George Lakoff’s family-as-nation metaphor, the tensions within Felipe Díaz Carrión’s family represent the conflict present in the larger

33 Spanish nation in regards to the conflict with ETA. I examine the complete dehumanization of Felipe’s son, Juanjo, and his wife, Asun, during their participation in

ETA and posit that this dehumanization is necessary in order to break the affective, familial bonds that might otherwise prevent their criticism. Extrapolating this situation to the larger nation-state, I argue that a dehumanizing discourse serves to break the bonds of citizenship that would typically prevent the commission of violence against members of the same State. Additionally, I question the narrow focus on only two ETA members, as well as the representation of the Spanish State in the novel.

The final chapter analyzes Helena Taberna’s film, Yoyes. Taberna’s representation of this real-life historical figure is complex because, while she does not hide or apologize for Yoyes’s past participation in ETA, I posit that her focus on Yoyes’s life after ETA humanizes her through her roles as wife and mother. This stands in opposition to Ojos que no ven, during which the ETA member is completely dehumanized. Simultaneously, however, I argue that the film does not go far enough in demonstrating the motives behind the formation of ETA or their use of violence.

Ultimately, this focus on what Zizek deems subjective violence works as a dehumanizing discourse which obscures the original aim of the organization. Likewise, I contend that the film provides only a surface-level view of the role of the Spanish State during both

Yoyes’s time in ETA and during her post-ETA years. This does not accurately represent the role of the State in the brutal repression of ETA, and the Basque Country in general, particularly under Franco. In this way, the film avoids a strong criticism of the State and further highlights the violence committed by ETA.

34

Part 1: Peru

From 1980 until 2000, Peru found itself embroiled in a devastating internal armed conflict between Sendero Luminoso, a Maoist guerrilla insurgency, and the Peruvian

State. Since its conclusion, this conflict has served as inspiration for a number of literary and cinematic works from a variety of Peruvian authors and directors. This chapter will first examine the economic and political situation of the country in the years leading up to the conflict and the context within which Sendero Luminoso formed. I will then present a brief overview of the conflict itself and discuss the final report of the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission (CVR: La Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación) that was created to investigate it. Finally, I will describe in general the body of literature and film which has been created as a result of the conflict and analyze its representation in two specific works: Santiago Roncagliolo’s novel Abril rojo (2006) and Fabrizio Aguilar’s film Paloma de papel (2003).

35 Political and Economic Context

In order to understand the context within which the internal conflict irrupted, it is first necessary to understand the political and economic context of twentieth century

Peru. As Steve Stern explains in “Introduction to Part One” of Shining and Other Paths

(1998), the twentieth century in Peru opened with a sea of change that sought to unseat the traditional concentrations of power (14). Of this movement he notes: “In Peru, as in elsewhere in Latin America, a cycle of sharp political dissidence and mobilization defined the late 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s as a time of middle class and worker mobilization against politics as an aristocratic bastion. This was a period when new political parties and leaders emerged and sought to establish a more inclusionary political and social system” (13). Though attempts were made to break down the walls of the old regime, however, Stern cautions that these efforts were tempered by “periods of military rule and repression” and that, “Over time, in part, perhaps, as a survival strategy in a political system inclined toward repressive “interruptions,” political leaders and parties retreated from their earlier, more populist and “radical” stances (14). As a result, many of the most pressing isuses facing the nation, including the division of land and ethnic subordination, were left largely unchallenged and politicians instead focused their efforts on issues which were important to their electoral base, including the “needs of the urban groups, workers, and laborers of the coastal provinces” (14). Ultimately, these politicians who had set out to radically change the political world of Peru ended up resembling many of their predecessors and by the 1940s and 1950s, as Stern comments, “Their relative ineffectiveness and moderation,” along with their continued practice of an exclusionary

36 social order, “made them parts of a reconstructed Old Regime”—the very one they had set out to change (14).

By the 1960s, Peru was suffering from what Stern calls an “exhaustion of the reconstructed Old Regime” and a wave of unrest and instability was seeping into the political and economic spheres (15). Peter Klarén, in Peru: Society and Nationhood in the

Andes, describes the uneven economic progresss in the country at this time:

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Peru’s population had grown by 75

percent to 9.9 million, the gross national product (GNP) rose 180 percent,

exports had quadrupuled, and the national debt had increased by a factor

of ten. Nevertheless, despite a relatively stable government, a low but

accelerating rate of inflation, and a substantial inflow of foreign

investments (second only to Mexico in Latin America), the export boom

of the past two decades had reached its peak in 1962 and thereafter began

to wane. And although the manufacturing sector was showing signs of

picking up, a decade of stagnation, if not decline, in domestic agricultural

output was forcing the country to import millions of dollars annually in

foodstuffs, not to mention contributing to the torrent of out-migration from

the countryside to Lima and other cities (323).

Additionally, Klarén points out, “Sociopolitically, Peru, at the beginning of the 1960s, had arguably the worst concentration of wealth and income of any country in South

America,” where “the top 5 percent of the population received 48 percent of the national income,” and “19 percent of the national income went to only 1 percent of the population” (323). This income disparity was also reflected in the distribution of land

37 and, as Klarén reports, in 1961 “700 hacendados owned approximately one-third of the country’s productive land” and “About 40 percent of the population resided in communities that had less than one quarter of the country’s productive land” (324).

Klarén further explains the significance of this land distribution in Peru:

The man-land ratio in Peru in 1960 was about .21 hectares of land or

pasture per peasant, half as low as that of neighboring Bolivia, Chile, and

Ecuador and one of the lowest in the world. Since agriculture accounted

for 23 percent of the country’s GNP and employed 58 percent of its

economically active population, it stands to reason that the lion’s share of

income went to the 700 or so major hacendados. Many of these

hacendados earned 100 times the incomes of their employees (324).

These gaps in land ownership and income were also reflective of geographical differences in Peru. Klarén notes that, in 1961, the average percapita income in Lima was

$870 compared to the “poorest quartile in the sierra, mostly small subsistence farmers,” which “earned between $40 to $120 per year” (323). Klarén further defines this group as

“mostly Quechua - or Aymara-speaking Indian peasants who were 70 percent illiterate and who, on average, earned their main livelihood from 0.9 hectares, three head of cattle, and a few other livestock, supplemented by seasonal labor” (323). This disparity is especially significant because it is this second group which would be so terribly victimized in the following decades during the guerra interna.

It was to this sociopolitical situation that Fernando Belaúnde Terry was elected president in 1963, after a campaign that appeared to stand in stark contrast to those before him. As Stern explains, Belaúnde Terry’s campaign “included rallies and appeals in the

38 southern Andean highlands,” in the overwhelmingly indigenous regions which were experiencing peasant mobilizations around the issue of land ownership (15). This type of campaign was particularly unique in that, for the first time, it “rendered uncertain the implicit pact by which the coastal political system would leave unchallenged the social order of the rural highlands” (Stern 15). In the central and southern highlands, a number of communities witnessed peasant mobilizations with the purpose of taking back land from hacienda owners and, Stern asserts, “The land invasions contributed to a sense that land reform and the break-up of servile rural relations in the highlands were issues that could no longer be sidelined or postponed in national politics” (15). Though Belaúnde

Terry attempted to push through a land reform bill, he met with stiff opposition in

Congress and, in the end, the effects of the weakened bill only reached “3 percent of the expropriable land and a few thousand families in a peasant population of at least 1 million” (Klarén 328).

The unrest was not contained to the countryside, either; Stern notes that back in the capital city of Lima “the reconstructed Old Regime delivered neither steady economic growth that might satisfy the interest group needs of an expanding middle-sector and urban poor population, nor a political system that effectively incorporated dissident parties and intelligentsias” (15). The unrest in the countryside and the lack of economic progress in the capital were only exacerbated by the success of the Cuban Revolution, which seriously challenged the notion that change was best brought about slowly and through social, economic, or political reform (Stern 15). Though Belaúnde Terry made important strides in funding education during his tenure, his presidency was largely marked by a lack of cooperation with Congress which ultimately tied his hands when it

39 came to implementing any major reforms (Klarén 334). Klarén describes Belaúnde Terry as having relied on a “carrot-and-stick governing policy that relied on some selective, if mild, repression while liberally increasing social spending,” but explains that this spending ultimately required a massive increase in Peru’s external debt from “$235 million in 1963 (8 percent of the GNP) to $680 million by 1968 (18 percent of the GNP)”

(334). This led to an increase in inflation and an eventual devaluation of the sol; coupled with a growing sense of general discontent and a scandal involving a dispute with the

International Petroleum Company, Belaúnde Terry lost the presidency in a military coup on October 3, 1968 (Klarén 334-36).

The coup of 1968 installed General Juan Velasco’s as leader of Peru and his leadership came with a number of promises. As Stern explains, he “launched a

‘revolution’ that included anti-imperialist expropriations, agrarian reform programs in the sierra and coastal provinces, and worker cooperatives in capitalized enterprises” (15).

Many of the programs and policies that Velasco dreamed up, however, were either only partially implemented or not implemented at all. Stern describes a number of these ventures as “often haphazard and bumbling interpretations of proclaimed programs and ideals or disempowering practices that seemed to ‘betray’ general policies and proclamations” which only served to further fuel the already existing “radical disillusion” in the country (16). Klarén offers more detail in analyzing the legacy of the Velasco period: in terms of redistribution of wealth, he states that “the historic gap between the traditional and modern sectors—the coast and the sierra--…was not closed in any apreciable manner” and that the agrarian reform measures “benefited a quarter to a third of the rural labor force, but excluded the remainder” and did not help to inject any new

40 resources into that sector. Furthermore, the government failed to “lessen dependence and generate industrial growth”, instead increasing its involvement to the point that it became the “principal investor,” accounting for “more than half the total investments in the economy” (Klarén 357). Though a small portion of the country was better off at the end of his term than at the beginning, the nation was deep in debt and had entered an economic crisis by the time Velasco was ousted in 1975 (358).

The Early Years of Sendero Luminoso

During the political and economic upheaval of this time period in Peru, the effects were certainly felt in the highlands region that would eventually see the formation of

Sendero Luminoso and the worst violence of the resulting conflict between Sendero and the Peruvian State. As Carlos Degregori explains in “The Maturation of a Cosmocrat and the Building of a Discourse Community: The Case of the Shining Path”, Ayacucho, the region to be hardest hit during the conflict and within whose borders Sendero formed, was for a long time one of the most important regions of the country (40). Degregori notes that “Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, it was the seat of the first Andean empire, the Wari” and that, under the Incan empire, “one of the Inca state’s few urban- bureaucratic centres was located there and given control over a vast region” (40).

Ayacucho experienced its golden age in part thanks to the mines at Potosí and, in 1667 in

Huamanga, the viceroyalty opened its second university (40). Even with the decline of the mines, a strong agricultural and manufacturing focus helped Ayacucho to “maintain its territorial articulations and its relevance” (41). This golden age entered a rapid decline during the implementation of capitalism in the late nineteenth century, however, as

41 “Ayacucho possessed no resources of interest for foreign or domestic capital” and had not developed an economy strong enough to be incorporated into the new national economy16 (41). By the turn of the twentieth century, the university in Huamanga had closed and, as Degregori asserts, “By the 1930s, the region was in absolute decline” (41).

The economic issues that had begun to plague Ayacucho only increased after the conclusion of the Second World War because the economic plans implemented in the country “tended to favour urban actors over rural ones, industrialization over agriculture”

(Degregori 39). With the new economy based mainly in Lima, people (especially younger generations) left the region in droves during a “massive migration of the most dynamic rural sectors to the cities,” taking away a large portion of what would have been the most effective and potentially most innovative work force (Degregori 39). Unrest over land ownership also flared up in the region, which saw “massive peasant land seizures between 1958 and 1964” (Degregori 39). William A. Hazleton and Sandra Woy-

Hazleton, in “Sendero Luminoso: A Communist Party Crosses a River of Blood”, note that, in light of the national attempts at reform in the areas of education, transportation, and communication, “the region began to see its social and economic problems in a national context and to realize the central government’s lack of concern” (66). As a result of the culmination of all of these issues, Degregori concludes that, “During the 1970s, the region covered by the old colony of Ayacucho, today divided into three departments…was the poorest in the country” (41).

16 Peter Flindell Klarén discusses the economics of Peru during the mid nineteenth century, which became largely based on the exportation of guano until the depletion of this resource in the early 1870s. By the end of the nineteenth century Peru as a nation had entered a steep economic decline due to the worldwide economic downturn and the War of the Pacific with Chile. For more information, see Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes (2000). 42 It was in this impoverished region of Ayacucho that Abimael Guzmán would form Sendero Luminoso and that the internal conflict against the Peruvian State would erupt. Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton describe Sendero Luminoso as a “Marxist-Leninist-

Maoist party committed to revolutionary violence, which in the 1980s proceeded to become a war machine” (63). They trace the origins of Sendero Luminoso back to the development of the political left in Peru in the early twentieth century and assert that José

Carlos Mariátegui’s writings and foundation of the Peruvian Socialist Party (PSP) in

1928 serve as a common origin for many of today’s leftist political parties in the nation

(64). After Mariátegui’s death in 1930, Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton note, the Peruvian

Communist Party (PCP) was created by members of the PSP and in 1964, Sendero

Luminoso emerged during a “Sino-Soviet split” of the party, when the pro-Chinese faction of the party gained control and expelled the pro-Moscow members (65). This led to two individual parties, the PCP-Bandera Roja of the pro-Chinese group and the PCP-

Unidad of the pro-Moscow line and, as Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton explain, the most significant difference between the two parties can be seen in their plans to gain political power: “The pro-Moscow party (PCP-Unidad) advocated peaceful means for attaining power, while Bandera Roja endorsed armed struggle” (66). The PCP-Bandera Roja suffered from its own issues of instability, though, and after Guzmán was eventually expelled from this splinter party, he worked on converting his clandestine Facción Roja into what would later officially become Sendero Luminoso (Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton

66).

The upheavals of the PCP during the early 1960s coincided with the reopening of the National University of San Cristobal de Huamanga. Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton

43 explain that the university was reopened “in an attempt to bring progress to this backward and poverty-stricken region through profesional training programs” and that Guzmán was hired as a professor of philosophy in the education department, which is where he focused on building support for his political platform (65, 67). His work with the peasants of the region only solidified his belief in Maoism and “the impoverished backgrounds of most students” and faith in education as a way to “break the cycle of poverty, exploitation, and repression” made them very receptive to Guzmán’s Maoist instruction

(Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton 67). Maoism, for Guzmán, provided “universal principles for analyzing class conflict and a political program with a complete military theory for a protracted guerrilla war” and Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton further contend that Sendero

Luminoso used “China at the height of the Cultural Revolution” as their primary model

(68). Guzmán applied these Maoist ideas to a context which he considered similar to that described in Mariátegui’s fundamental Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana, but Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton caution that “Sendero essentially ignores the indigenous ethnic and culture elements in Mariátegui’s work, but accepts his 60-year-old analysis of a semifeudal, semicolonial society under a Fascist regime as applicable to understanding Peru’s present condition” (68). The mixture of influences seen in

Guzmán’s platform are described by Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton as “‘Gonzalo17 thought’, the application of Marxism-Lenin-Maoism to Peru’s ‘concrete reality’ in the form of universal and specific principles” (69). Ultimately, they contend, the goal for

Sendero Luminoso was “the establishment of a New Democratic Republic, a joint dictatorship of the proletariat, peasantry, and petit bourgeoisie which will carry out the

17 Gonzalo is his comrade name 44 transformation of Peruvian society from semifeudal bureaucratic capitalism to communism”, though the details of how this system would function are unknown (69).

The conflicto interno

After over a decade of strategizing and proselytizing, Sendero Luminoso officially launched their people’s war on the eve of national elections which would restore democracy in Peru after a decade of military rule. Carlos Iván Degregori, in How

Difficult it is to be God: Shining Path’s Politics of War in Peru, 1980-1999, describes the event of that evening: “The night of 17 May 1980, in the small village of Chuschi in

Ayacucho, a group of young people burst into the place where ballot boxes and voting lists were being stored for the national elections taking place the following day, and burned them in the public square” (21). This one event, which hardly created a blip on the radar of events given the historic circumstances surrounding the time period, would unleash a civil war which eventually cleaimed nearly 70,000 lives and left few parts of the country untouched (Informe final Anexo 1, 13)

Sendero Luminoso operated relatively unchallenged at the beginning of its people’s war. In the months following the burning of the electoral ballots, as Degregori reports, “isolated petards started to explode in unlikely places: the tomb of General

Velasco in Lima; a school parade in Ayacucho; a peasant assembly in the same city”

(How Difficult it is to be God 21). This incidents took a more gruesome turn and, “toward the end of the year, early rising limeños…found dogs hanging from traffic lights with a

45 sign around their neck that read: ‘Deng Xiaoping18 son of a bitch” (21). Hazleton and

Woy-Hazleton report, however, that little was done in spite of these actions:

Given the little that was known about Sendero in the early 1980s, and that

much of its activity was centred in the economically depressed Andean

highlands, remote from Lima, the initial tendency of the Belaúnde Terry

government…was to ignore and then discount what it saw as a fringe

movement of bizarre terrorists or criminals connected to the drug trade

(62).

Sendero Luminoso was able to spread throughout the Ayacucho region for the first few years of the conflict, but Belaúnde Terry’s eventual response was brutal. As Degregori describes, Belaúnde Terry tasked the armed forces with the battle against Sendero

Luminoso and, “In 1983-84, the military unleashed a brutal counteroffensive that resulted in about one-third of the victims killed in the entire conflict, most of them civilian” (How

Difficult it is to be God 22). Klarén explains that the Sínchis, the term by which the

Guardia Civil was known, “had no concept of the necessity of winning over the hearts and minds of the civilian population” and that they “indiscriminately seized, tortured, and killed anyone who was suspected of being a Senderista or sympathizer” (381). These civilians suffered immensely at the hands of both sides of the conflict, and Degregori states that “during this time period, the two adversaries treated the civilian population with equal brutality, especially the indigenous peasantry” (How Difficult it is to be God

18 Deng Xiaoping was an influential Chinese politician who is credited with having a hand in many of the most important economic reforms that followed Mao Zedong’s death. He was considered a traitor by Sendero Luminoso because of his alteration of many of Mao’s ideas. For more information about Deng Xiaoping, see Ezra F. Vogel’s Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China (2011). 46 22). The ramifications of this violence against the indigenous population will be discussed statistically below.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Sendero Luminoso continued its activities and spread to other areas of the country. The initial support that they had drummed up in the countryside, however, was difficult to maintain and their relationship with the peasants they were supposedly representing became quite complicated. As Hazleton and Woy-

Hazleton remark, “In these remote regions, where Sendero was first accepted as a new patrón—strong, inflexible, but fair and able to dispense ‘people’s’ justice, most peasants could not be won over when its ideology, objectives, and methods went against ‘Andean rationality’ and threatened the survival of their community” (75). Furthermore, when the

State counteroffensive attacks began, “the Ayacuchan peasantry painfully discovered that their guerrilla defenders afforded them little protection in the face of government repression” (How Difficult it is to be God 75). By 1985, when Alan García assumed the presidency, Sendero Luminoso had made its presence fully known in Lima19. Though

García attempted at first to “stress the developmental and human rights side of the counterinsurgency strategy of the armed forces,” he was unsuccesful in stopping widespread human rights violations by the military, as evidenced by the massacre of 250 encarcelated Senderistas in 1986 (Klarén 390). Degregori reports that, by the end of the decade, “Peru ranked first in the world among the countries that reported detainees/disappeared” (How Difficult it is to be God 25).

The effects of the conflict were only further exacerbated by the continued economic devastation in the country; by 1990, Degregori notes, “Hyperinflation bordered

19 Their presence added to the already-existing issues in Peru, as the economy was in a tailspin, with hyperinflation and shortage of basic foodstuffs (Klarén 394-95). 47 on 60 percent monthly” and “the economic crisis brought havoc to the population and was destroying the state and the social fabric with as much or more efficiency than the insurgency itself” (How Difficult it is to be God 24). Things would get even worse before they would begin to improve, too; when Alberto Fujimori was elected president in 1990 he implemented a “hard-hitting neoliberal adjustment” which, according to Degregori,

“threw a significant part of the population into extreme poverty” (How Difficult it is to be

God 25). This economic plan, Klarén comments, began with a first wave that “slashed price subsidies and social spending and raised interest rates and taxes”, followed by a second wave of reforms which “included the start of state privatization, the deregulation of financial and labor markets, tax and tariff reform, investment incentives, and the decentralization of some social services” (407). Those already impoverished in Peru felt most sharply the effects of these changes and “Although Fujimori promised to cushion the poorest segments of the population from the effects of his shock therapy with a $400 million social emergency program, only $90 million was actually spent,” which didn’t make a dent in alleviating the situation (Klarén 410).

Fujimori’s policies regarding the conflict with Sendero Luminoso were also contradictory. Though he established civil defense patrols to counter Sendero Luminoso, even arming many of them with weapons, and improved relations between the military and the inhabitants of the countryside through social programs and a more restrained policy towards the killing of suspected Senderistas, he also created special military courts for trials of suspected Senderistas and granted immunity to members of the military by declaring them ineligible for human rights trials in civil courts (Klarén 410-13). Sendero, for its part, had made its presence in Lima undeniable through the use of car bombs and

48 political assassinations, among other strategies, and “Lima was increasingly gripped by a pervasive climate of fear and dispair over the growing levels of violence and economic chaos” (Klarén 413). Seeing the havoc in Lima and elsewhere in the country emboldened

Sendero, who ramped up their campaign of violence all across the country.

According to Degregori, “The year 1992 was possibly the worst year in Peruvian contemporary history” (How Difficult it is to be God 25). He paints a vivid portrait of the chaos that enveloped the country during that year:

Along with the economic crisis, the Shining Path violence increased

exponentially. Scores of peasants organized in CADs [Self-Defense

Committees] were massacred in Ayacucho and other Andean provinces. In

the cities, the murders of community leaders and local authorities choked

and paralyzed social organizations, already weakened by the crisis. The

explosions of powerful car bombs, in middle- and upper-class

neighborhoods as well as in poorer areas, “Beirutized” the capital and

facilitated the success of the so-called armed strikes, during which Shining

Path used panic to immobilize Lima, a chaotic metropolis of some 7

million inhabitants in whose poorest neighborhoods there were more than

100,000 people displaced by the conflict (How Difficult it is to be God

25).

The chaos in Peru was not only caused by Sendero Luminoso; on April 5, 1992, Fujimori

“disolved Congress with the support of the armed forces, and took over the judicial branch and regional governments, consolidating power” (Degregori, How Difficult it is to be God 26). And then, just as it seemed that Peruvian society was on the brink of a

49 complete collapse, Guzmán was captured in Lima on September 12. By the end of 1992,

Degregori notes, “nineteen of a total of twenty-two members of Shining Path’s Central

Committee” had been arrested and jailed (How Difficult it is to be God 27). Sendero’s complete defeat seemed imminent.

As the political situation in Peru stabilized with the downfall of Sendero

Luminoso, the economy slowly began to pick back up. Klarén summarizes the economic changes with the following description:

Fujimori opened the country’s closed, protected, and highly regulated

economy to the free market and international trade and investment. Tariffs

were reduced from 66 percent to 15.7 percent; 173 out of 183 state

companies were privatized; and the number of public employees was cut

in half, from 470,000 to 210,000. Economic liberalization and reform,

together with the halt in inflation, defeat of terrorism, and renewed

payments on the foreign debt, set the stage for the country’s reentrance

into the international economy, and, by 1993, a resumption in economic

growth (424).

This economic progress came at a steep price, however; Fujimori “ruled by decree, subordinated the Congress to his authority, and increased the powers of the armed forces and the intelligence service” (Klarén 424). Furthermore, he “purged the courts; ignored official corruption; attacked the country’s democratic institutions, including the political parties; and consistently overlooked human rights violations by the armed forces” (424).

In Klarén’s assessment, during Fujimori’s first term from 1990-1995, he accomplished a

50 number of things, but did so “at the expense of undermining the country’s representative institutions and marginalizing the civil society” (424).

Though Guzmán and many other Senderistas had been arrested, the battle over the memory of the conflict with Sendero Luminoso was just beginning during the early period of Fujimori’s second presidential term. Degregori explains that “By mid-decade, forgetting appeared to have been imposed. The 1995 Amnesty Law seemed like its consecration” (174). This law, which provided amnesty only to State-backed actors accused of atrocities during the conflict, was opposed by nearly 85% of those polled, even though it came just a few weeks after Fujimori’s overwhelming popularity allowed him to easily win his second presidential term (Degregori 174). This law, Number 26479, grants

amnistía general al personal Militar, Policial o Civil, qualquiera que fuere

su situación Militar o Policial o Funcional correspondiente, que se

encuentre denunciado, investigado, encausado, procesado o condenado por

delitos comunes y militares en los Fueros Común o Privativo Militar,

respectivamente, por todos los hechos derivados u originados con ocasión

o como consecuencia de la lucha contra el terrorismo y que pudieran haber

sido cometidos en forma individual o en grupo desde Mayo de 1980 hasta

la fecha de la promulgación de la presente Ley” (“Conceden amnistía

general…”).

In granting amnesty to all State-backed actors, Fujimori essentially blocked the investigation into any and all human rights abuses committed from 1980-1995 and attempted to move on from the conflict by essentially forgetting it had ever happened.

51 Degregori finds a particularly significant meaning in this amnesty law: “human rights violations committed by state agents during the conflict had been the necessary cost that the country had to pay for ending the subversive violence unleashed by Shining

Path in 1980 and by MRTA20 four years later” (How Difficult it is to be God 174). The message delivered by politicians during this time was that “It was better to turn the page, look to the future, not to open the wounds caused by the conflict” (174). This would imply that the Fujimori era was one of forgetting, of leaving the memory of the conflict and its staggering consequences in the past. If one did want to remember the conflict, there was a carefully structure narrative which was sold to the public; Degregori explains that

There was a ‘memory of salvation’ (Stern 1998) in which the central

protagonists of the pacifying gesture were Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro

Montesinos21. The military and police appeared as suporting actors and

civilian institutions and citizens occupied the footlights like mere passive

spectators of this black-and-white drama in which the incarnation of evil

was not only Sendero and MRTA but everyone who differed with the

official version of what happened in those years (174).

20 MRTA is the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, an insurgent group which formed, according to Hatun Willakuy, “con la intención de convertirse en una suerte de ‘brazo armado’ de las organizaciones populares” (33). While they were active during the conflicto interno, the CVR found that they were only responsible for 1.5% of the reported deaths and disappearances. I have chosen to focus on Sendero Luminoso, as they were the prime party responsible for many of the deaths and disappearances during the conflict. For more information about MRTA, see Suzie Baer’s Peru’s MRTA: Tupac Amarú Revolutionary Movement (2003) or MRTA’s own MRTA: history, politics, and communiques, March, 1997 (1997). 21 Vladimiro Montesinos was the head of Peru’s Intelligence Services. His involvement in a bribary scandal contributed to the downfall of Fujimori’s presidency and, in the years after Fujimori’s government, he has been convicted of a number of additional crimes. Carlos Iván Degregori has written about Fujimori and Montesinos in La década de la antipolítica: auge y huida de Alberto Fujimori y Vladimiro Montesinos (2001). Additionally, the relationship between Montesinos and the United States is explored in The United States and Peru: cooperation at a cost (2003) by Cynthia McClintock and Fabián Vallas. 52 Fujimori’s attempt to drown out alternative narratives, however, was never completely successful. As Degregori notes: “narratives that questioned the official story always existed. The most visible ones were those that emerged from human rights organizations or the opposition press. But there were also silenced memories held close within communities or families out of fear or lack of outlets for expression in the public sphere”

(174). Some of these memories made their way into the novels and films that will be briefly discussed below, and others are still being uncovered today.

Although Fujimori came into his second term relatively uncontested, his popularity began to wane a few years later. Lewis Taylor, in “From Fujimori to Toledo—

The 2001 Elections and the Vicissitudes of Democratic Government in Peru” explains the combination of factors that led to the public’s disenchantment: “The Asian crisis tipped the economy into recession, impacting negatively on employment and living standards.

Privatization income also diminished, reducing the amount of state funds available to bolster Fujimori’s personal standing via Ministry of the Presidency development projects” (571). Ostensibly, Fujimori’s strategy to counteract his lagging popularity was to rig the 2000 election through electoral fraud in order to secure a third term for himself.

This arrangement backfired and “undermined the government’s legitimacy, producing a surge in opposition in 2000 that spelt the end of the regime” (Taylor 571). Though he was proclaimed the “winner” of the election, he only lasted a few months in his third term. As

Taylor explains, “Barely four months after his controversial inauguration in July 2000,

Fujimori had been driven from office following a sucession of bizarre events appropriate to a John le Carré thriller,” including arms and bribery scandals involving the head of the

Armed Forces and Fujimori’s loss of executive control over Congress (565). Fujimori’s

53 presidency officially came to an end as he faxed his resignation from Japan on November

19, 2000 (Taylor 565).

After Fujimori’s resignation, Valentín Paniagua was nominated as interim president and served until full democratic elections were held in 2001. Taylor provides a positive review of Paniagua’s transitional government, stating that it “proved capable of restoring stability to the political institution and faith in some institutions” through the dismissal of corrupt judges and the dismantling of the National Intelligence Service and jailing of some of its most prominent members (572). Alejandro Toledo was then elected president in the 2001 elections, “voicing a commitment to raise living standards and rebuild Peru’s weakened institutions” (Taylor 566). It would be these two leaders who would begin to change the official narrative surrounding the conflict with Sendero

Luminoso with the establishment of the Peruvian Truth Commission.

The Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación

In July of 2001, the investigation into the events and damages of the previous twenty years was officially launched by Valentín Paniagua’s interim government. In “At the Edge of the Peruvian Truth Commission: Alternative Paths to Recounting the Past” ,

Cynthia Milton writes that Paniagua, pulling from various human rights organizations and the processes of other countries who had already adopted or completed a similar process, initiated the Comisión de Verdad, “a formal inquiry into the preceding twenty years” (Milton 6). Though the work had already begun under Paniagua, Toledo continued and expanded the process; he “kept the truth commission, but added the term reconciliation to the commission’s title—and implicitly to its objectives—and changed

54 the composition from seven to twelve commissioners and one observer” (Milton 6, emphasis original). Milton recounts that the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación

(CVR) “had a staff of over eight hundred people who collected testimonies in Peru’s twenty-four departments, with a focus on the areas most affected by the violence” (6). In comparison to other Truth Commissions, the Peruvian CVR had a much broader set of instructions; instead of only investigating deaths and disappearances (as was the case in

Chile, for example), the Peruvian CVR “investigated kidnappings, disappearances, torture, and other serious wounds, violations of collective rights of Andean native communities, as well as other grave violations against people’s rights” (Milton 7).

Furthermore, “in addition to determining the responsibility for abuses and violations, identifying and reporting on the experiences of victims, and developing proposals for reparations and reforms, the CVR’s mandate also analyzed the political, social, cultural, and historical context that contributed to the violence” (7). This wide range of responsibilities and tasks set up what promised to a fascinating, but arduous, project.

The CVR certainly was not without its troubles. First, the commission was given only eighteen months, with the possibility of five extra months, to investigate over twenty years of complex Peruvian history (Milton 7). Moreover, they were given limited resources with which to work, including a very limited number of workers who were able to understand and translate from Quechua and other indigenous languages into Spanish

(Milton 7). In spite of these and other constraints, though, the CVR submitted their final report, a multi-volume work based on investigation and nearly seventeen thousand testimonies, to President Toledo on August 28, 2003 (Milton 6).

55 In Hatun Willakuy: Versión abreviada del Informe Final de la Comisión de la

Verdad y Reconciliación, the CVR presents a condensed version of their multi-volume work22, summarizing their findings and explaining the social and political contexts which led to the conflict, in addition to making a series of recommendations for the future. Their findings are summarized generally in the very first sentences of the preface:

La historia del Perú registra más de un trance difícil, penoso, de auténtica

postración nacional. Pero, con seguridad, ninguno de ellos merece estar

marcado tan rotundamente con el selo de la vergüenza y el deshonor como

el fragmento de historia que estamos obligados a contar en estas páginas.

Las dos décadas finales del siglo XX son—es forzoso decirlo sin rodeos—

una marca de horror y de deshonra para el Estado y la sociedad peruanos

(Hatun Willakuy 9).

In addition to estimating nearly 70,000 deaths and disappearances during the conflict, the report precises that “De cada cuatro víctimas, tres fueron campesinos o campesinas cuya lengua materna era el quechua” and attributes those deaths and disappearances both to the subversive groups in Peru (Sendero Luminoso and MRTA) and to State-backed forces

(Hatun Willakuy 9-10). To illustrate the immense impact of this conflict, they report that

“El número de muertes que ocasionó este enfrentamiento supera ampliamente las cifras de pérdidas humanas sufridas en la guerra por la independencia y la guerra con Chile— los mayores conflictos en los que se ha visto involucrado en nuestro país” (Hatun

Willakuy 18). The toll on human life was shocking, as concrete numbers painted the first picture of the extent of the damage.

22 I will draw from both Hatun Willakuy and the multi-volume Informe final in this Project. 56 Apart from providing a summary of the general effect on the population, the CVR report also assigns blame for the deaths and disappearences during the conflict.

According to their findings, Sendero Luminoso, the principal instigator of the conflict, was responsible for 54% of fatalities through “el uso sistemático y masivo de métodos de extrema violencia y terror” and the fact that the group “desconoció deliberadamente las normas básicas de la guerra y los principios de los derechos humanos” (Hatun Willakuy

18). On the other hand, the CVR finds that “Los agentes del Estado—Fuerzas Armadas y

Policía—, los comités de autodefensa y los grupos paramilitares son responsables del

37% de los muertos y desparecidos” and that the armed forces alone were responsible for almost 75% of those deaths alone (Hatun Willakuy 19). Hatun Willakuy notes the irony of the State’s participation in the conflict and finds that, “paradójicamente, las etapas más intensas del conflicto, en las cuales murieron la mayoría de las victimas y en las que los agentes del Estado cometieron la mayor cantidad de violaciones de los derechos humanos, corresponden a períodos en los que el país estaba gobernado por regímenes civiles electos democráticamente23” (Hatun Willakuy 18). The measures supported by these presidents led to a kind of violence which completely contradicted the protections normally expected from a democracy, including the basic right to life.

The CVR was further tasked with helping to explain the context from which the conflict emerged and the sociopolitical causes which led to its eruption. In discussing the cultural divide in Peru between the indigenous populations and the non-indigenous sociopolitical hegemony, the CVR felt confident in asserting that “estas dos décadas de

23 Here they are referring to the presidencies of Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1980-1985), Alan García Pérez (1985-1990), and the first part of Alberto Fujimori’s democratically elected first term as president (1990- 1992). 57 destrucción y muerte no habrían sido posibles sin el profundo desprecio a la población más desposeída del país…ese desprecio que se encuentra entretejido en cada momento de la vida cotidiana de los peruanos” (Hatun Willakuy 10). The report continues to emphasize that, although “Mucho se ha escrito sobre la discriminación cultural, social y económica persistentes en la sociedad peruana…Poco han hecho las autoridades del

Estado o los ciudadanos corrientes para combatir ese estigma de nuestra comunidad”

(Hatun Willakuy 10). This conflict, according to the CVR, shows what can happen when this type of extreme discrimination is allowed to continue basically unchecked during a long period of time in a society. It is this section that describes the sociopolitical causes of the conflict which proves insightful for the literary and film analysis below, as it helps to introduce three important concepts essential to the viewpoints below: lo criollo, centralismo, and orientalism.

Lo criollo, centralismo, and orientalism

The term criollo has a number of definitions and takes on a strong meaning in

Peru due to the historical trajectory of its use. According to the dictionary of the Real

Academia Española, it has seven definitions, though the first definition is linked to the most common usage of the term: “Dicho de un hijo y, en general, de un descendiente de padres europeos: Nacido en los antiguos territorios españoles de América y en algunas colonias europeas de dicho continente” (“Criollo: Diccionario de la lengua española”).

Luis Gómez Acuña details the many changes that the term has undergone since its original use during the colonial period in Latin America in his article, “Lo criollo en el

Perú republicano: breve aproximación a un término elusivo,” and states that the term was

58 first employed to describe “los descendientes de africanos nacidos en las Américas” and then any black person born outside of Africa (119). Nearly a century later, the term came to describe the children born in the Americas of European parents, though this became unsettling when the term acquired a derogatory notion and was used by the original peninsularists, now a minority in a rapidly growing territory filled with American-born offspring, to “insistir en la supuesta posición política y socialmente subordinada que debía tener en la sociedad colonial peruana” (Gómez Acuña 122). These members, unhappy with the connotations associated with the term, set out to change the way in which it was viewed.

According to Gómez Acuña, the term criollo was appropriated in the 17th century by the sector of society that it then represented, and it became a source of pride for the

Spanish-American world that had been created in Lima, the capital of the Viceroyalty of

Peru (123-24). From here, Gómez Acuña notes, “el término comenzó a ser usado por una parte de la intelectualidad limeña…como sinónimo de lo peruano,” and it was employed by this societal group “para reafirmar su posición de grupo frente a lo que percibían como una injerencia de los extranjeros en los asuntos locales” (125). This reaction against

European meddling in American affairs would of course be one of the catalysts for the

Wars of Independence throughout Latin America and in the second half of the nineteenth century, after Peru had become an independent nation state, Gómez Acuña asserts that the term criollo was adapted once more to contrast cultural practices from Lima against anything from foreign countries and cultures (129).

Though lo limeño was meant to serve as a representation of national culture, this demarcation became even sharper during the early 20th century when Peru found itself in

59 the midst of an indigenista movement which sought to promote the indigenous, Andean cultures as the truest expression of Peruvian culture (Gómez Acuña 148). Gómez Acuña discusses the ideas of José Carlos Mariátegui, arguably the most famous indigenista, in this area: Mariátegui “insistió en que el Perú estaba dividido entre un sector llamado criollo, costeño, y un sector indígena, y que en el futuro la veta cultural de este último (su colectivismo) debía quedar asimilada en una modernidad socialista” (146). Though it is not the goal of this study to examine in depth the indigenista movement, this time period is crucial to the development of the term criollo because during this social and cultural discussion, Gómez Acuña writes, criollo came to be defined “por oposición, como sinónimo de tradición costeña, ya no solo frente a lo inglés, lo francés o lo norteamericano, sino como algo totalmente separado de lo indígena” (146-47).

Furthermore, as the term criollo expanded to represent not only the European heritage of the residents of Lima but also the mestizo heritage, or that of someone who has both

European and indigenous heritage, it came to stand for “un sincretismo o síntesis positiva,” or the improvement of the race as it moved closer to the European part of its heritage and further away from the indigenous (Gómez Acuña 153). Inherent to this idea, then, is the spurning of indigenous culture and traditions in favor of those found in the limeñan culture. The expression has been criticized as being representative of an idea of

Peru that only exists to the limeñan elite (Gómez Acuña 161-162). Though it doesn’t necessarily always carry the pejorative connotation described above, it is still used today by a large number of scholars to refer to the culture and residents of the coast of Peru and, particularly, the city of Lima24.

24 Many of the scholars who will be cited in this work refer to many writers and literary groups as criollo 60 The very idea behind the term criollo indicates another issue which has played out in Peruvian politics and culture: the concept of centralism. Carlos Contreras, in El centralismo peruano en su perspectiva histórica defines the expression and also discusses its implications:

Consideraremos el centralismo como un régimen político y económico en

el cual se produce una jerarquización del territorio y de sus autoridades, y

donde es dicha jerarquización la que da forma y articula al país. En estos

países hay entonces un lugar ‘central’, a partir del cual se irradia la nación

(o al menos se lo considera): la cultura y los valores que la encarnan,

incluyendo el idioma y la religión, y espacios ‘periféricos’, más bien

pasivos, donde si bien exista una cultura propia y eventualmente distinta a

la irradiada desde el lugar central, ella se ve subordinada a esta última, ya

sea por decisión propia o impuesta. Normalmente, el espacio central está

más densamente poblado y/o goza de ventajas comparativas para

relacionarse con el resto del mundo o con otros centros, de los que puede

obtener recursos económicos o políticos que refuerzan su liderazgo (6,

emphasis original).

This quote, though lengthy, demonstrates not only the characteristics of this concept but also the real-world effects it can have, especially the subordination of individual cultures and the lack of economic development and political representation. These effects are only magnified in a country as diverse as Peru, too; when the central culture-making space is based largely on an imported culture and system of doing things (in this case, from

Spain), it doesn’t come close to representing the reality of a large swath of the population

61 which differs from it in the ways listed above (i.e., language and religion), but also in systems of political and social organization in general. Not only does the peripheral culture become subordinated to the central one, but the center is able to make important connections with outside spaces, including centers of other countries, which serve to further reinforce its political and cultural dominance over the non-central groups.

Due to the centralized power in this setup, decisions are also made from the center space which affect the entire nation, even if they are not appropriate for localized realities. Contreras details the consolidation of power along the coast in Peru throughout the twentieth century and locates its origins in the electoral reform of 1896 (22). He explains that this reform created an electoral office which was tasked with preparing the population to vote and that it restricted the vote to literate men who were at least 21 years of age. As a result, “en adelante la elección del Presidente y los congresistas quedaba en manos básicamente de la población de la costa y de los habitantes de las ciudades, que eran donde se concentraban los hombres alfabetos” (22). This centralization only strengthened as Peru, and the rest of the world, struggled to pull themselves from the economic crisis of 1929, and Contreras asserts that, with the creation of a number of State offices, such as the Banco Central de Reserva and Ministries of Education, Health, and

Agriculture, among others, “la política económica alcanzó un grado de centralismo no conocido en el pasado” (26). As a result, the divisions between Lima and the rest of the countries deepened even more.

By the time Sendero Luminoso would launch its People’s War in 1980 efforts were underway to reverse this political centralization through the creation of regional governments and land reforms, but this process was full of conflict. Contreras writes that

62 “El proceso de fusión no fue siempre bien recibido por la población, desatándose conflictos en torno a cuál debía ser la capital regional y por el hecho de que nadie quería fusionarse con los departamentos más pobres” (28). Additionally, the policies which attempted to facilitate this process were implemented spottily at best, as described above during the Velasco era. These decentralization efforts would all be completely halted and reversed during the Fujimori government, however, as his coup in 1992 suspended all regional autonomy and re-centralized all government powers in Lima (Contreras 28). The ramifications that centralized decision making would have on the guerra interna will be discussed below as they appear in Paloma de papel and, in particular, in Abril rojo.

Returning briefly to the centralization of culture-making power and also to the idea of the criollo as an idea which is based on the opposition between lo limeño and lo andino and whereby indigenous Andean cultures are considered inferior gives rise to another important consideration: the concept of orientalism. Though the concept has already been discussed generally in the introduction to this project, Steve Stern, in

“Beyond Orientalism in Twentieth-Century Peru: Carlos Iván Degregori and the Shining

Path War,” adapts this term to describe how it can be seen specifically in the context of

Peru during this time period. Stern finds the roots of Latin American orientalism in the

“Spanish conquest of indigenous American empires and their peoples” and explains that

“The colonizing sensibility defines the exotic and may even romanticize some aspects, but it also creates self-affirming contrasts of humanity that legitimate power and aggression” (6). By contrasting their own culture against that of the Other in a way that ascribes the negative counterpart of characteristics to the Other, then, the dominant culture is able to legitimate and maintain their dominance.

63 In the case of Peru, the effects of centralism and even of the criollo notion have enabled this version of orientalism. As Stern notes, “Whether despised or romanticized, the Andean Indian was Peru’s historical and mythological Other, in contrast to the world of power, wealth, knowledge, and modernity concentrated in Lima” (“Beyond

Orientalism” 6). The two possible reactions that Stern describes here are significant, because neither despising nor romanticizing necessarily provides an acurate description of that culture, and they certainly do not permit the acceptance of an Other culture just the way it is, and as a group which is equal to the dominant group. Adapting Jane

Schneider and Barbara Weinstein’s observations on Italy and Brazil, Stern agrees that this kind of orientalism “may arise in societies whose national histories produce extreme regional contrasts” and, with those contrasts, extreme differences in levels of power and development (6). He continues to posit that this contrast “is also cultural, and yields a traffic in ideas, images, and symbols that naturalizes the inferiority of a region and its people, without precluding fantasies of desire, authenticity, or revindication that may cut the other way” (6). All of the cultural items created regarding the Other are designed from the perspective of the dominant culture, as the Other is not able to participate in creating its own image.

This concept had very real implications during the guerra interna in Peru. In this case, “in a society where historical dynamism radiated from whites and mestizos on the coast and in select highland cities and valleys, indigenous peasant communities of

Ayacucho and other center-south and southern sierra regions constituted the last bastion of lo andino” (Stern 7). These regions would see the most devastation during the war and, though not all of the reactions contained this orientalist perspective, Stern details one

64 particularly orientalist reaction to the conflict which can also be seen below in the study of Abril rojo. According to Stern, one explanation of the violence occurring in the highlands “associated Sendero and its peculiarities with indigenous peoples and their cultural values” in that these explanations of the conflict “reduced Shining Path— whether its millenarian or messianic values, or its violent anger—to expressions of native

Andean culture and resentment” (7). Stern posits that another orientalist approach to explaining the conflict entailed considering that “The marginality and ignorance of

Indians was not only the essential tragedy of Peruvian life and history but also the key to understanding their role as victims and perpetrators of violence” (8). In this case, Stern employs the example of investigations “which invoked a familiar dichotomy—the modern Westernized and well-informed society of the coast versus the parochial ancient culture preserved in the high Andes—” to explain indigenous participation in the violence. This perspective will also be seen below in the study of Abril rojo. In short, both of these relate the violence of Sendero Luminoso with the supposedly backwards nature of the residents of the countryside and also tend to lump together the indigenous campesinos with the Senderistas, even though not all campesinos were members or even supporters of Sendero. These types of explanations not only help to rationalize what was eventually a very scary situation for the nation but, as we will see below, help to justify the brutal and overzealous response of the State-backed forces in these regions.

65 Representation of Terrorism in Peruvian Literature and Film

LITERATURE:

There is no doubt that the devastation of the conflicto interno has left a lasting impact on the lives and minds of the people of Peru. From almost immediately after the violence began to the present day, the conflict has featured prominently in a large corpus of literary works from a variety of different authors25. In the introduction to Contra el sueño de los justos: la literature peruana ante la violencia política, Juan Carlos Ubilluz,

Alexandra Hibbettt, and Víctor Vich acknowledge the pivotal role of literature in the dialogue surrounding the events of the conflict26 and note that “Más allá de representar lo sucedido, ella ha permitido la aparición de significados negados por el discurso oficial, así como de miradas importantes que son sustanciales para desestabilizar ciertos patrones de pensamiento estéril” (9). Lucero de Vivanco, in “Postapocalipsis en los Andes” echoes this pattern as she discusses the prominence of this topic in the past few decades of

Peruvian literature: “Repitiendo el gesto frecuente de vincularse con la realidad de la que nace, la literatura del Perú en las últimas tres décadas ha estado elaborando este periodo de la historia, haciéndose cargo de los discursos levantados al respecto y entrando con ello a los debates políticos e ideológicos surgidos tanto dentro del campo literario como de las ciencias sociales” (136). Considering the previous discussion regarding centralism

25 For a very detailed, annotated bibliography of the literatura dealing with the guerra interna, see Mark Cox’s “Bibliografía anotada de la ficción narrativa peruana sobre la guerra interna de los años ochenta y noventa (con un estudio previo)” (2008). 26 The opening line of the introduction reads as follows: “La literatura peruana ha sido un lugar central para la discusión sobre el conflicto armado y la violencia política” (9). 66 in Peru, it is important to note that these works have come both from authors who would be considered criollos and those from the countryside, though, as will be seen below, the most recent (and most abundant) group of works largely comes from the criollo authors who are unfamiliar with the areas which saw the most violence during the conflicto interno itself.

Mark R. Cox, in “Bibliografía anotada de la ficción narrativa peruana sobre la guerra interna de los años ochenta y noventa (con un estudio previo)” has compiled a thorough, annotated bibliography of the literary works that discuss the Sendero Luminoso conflict. Prior to the bibliography, he includes a general overview of the makeup of this literature. Cox identifies three periods for this literature: the first from 1980 until Abimael

Guzmán’s capture in 1992, the second from 1993 until 1999, and the third from the year

2000 until the publication of the bibliography in 2008. In addition to outlining these three periods, Cox suggests that each period is defined in part by the types of authors who contribute to it. In the first period, “aparecen alrededor del 26.5% de todos los cuentos publicados y casi el 18% de las novelas, y muchas de las obras son de escritores andinos”

(228). The second period includes contributions from many more criollo authors, such as

Mario Vargas Llosa’s Lituma en los Andes, and Cox calculates that 22% of the stories and 38% of the novels published on this topic come from this period. Since the beginning of the third period, however, 51% of the stories and 44% of the novels which discuss this topic have been published27. The novel chosen for examination in this project, Abril rojo, comes from this third period.

27 Cox’s article was published in 2008, and there have clearly been a number of works published since that date, so this percentage is subject to change, though it is still representative of the fact that the third period accounts for nearly half of all publications concerning the conflict. 67 The period which is most relevant for this project, that beginning in the year 2000, is important for a number of reasons. In addition to being the period of time which accounts for nearly half of all literary publications regarding this topic, this time period began in the year which is generally considered to be the “official” end of the conflict.

This official end date is also nearly a decade after the last periods of very heavy violence, which more or less ended with Abimael Guzmán’s capture in 1992. Having nearly a decade after the heaviest periods of violence has allowed time to separate from the conflict, and has provided a small window for reflection and even for criticism of the events that occurred during the conflict. Additionally, the years since the end of the conflict have been dedicated in large part to moving on, both economically and socially.

This has included the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, (La Comisión de la verdad y Reconciliación – CVR), who published their final report in 2003, the continuation of neoliberal economic policies28, and, as seen above, a large number of literary and other works which discuss the conflict. Given the volume of literary works published regarding this topic after its end, it would appear that this process of moving on is inescapably linked to an examination and reconciliation of Peru’s dark past.

From this third period, I have chosen to examine Santiago Roncagliolo’s novel,

Abril rojo. My initial interest in the work stemmed from its having won the prestigious

Alfaguara literary prize in 2006 and its popularity after that moment, as I considered it necessary to analyze further a work receiving such international attention. Upon further investigation, however, I discovered a number of comments made by Roncagliolo in

28 Neoliberal policy is a hotly contested topic in Peru, especially as it continues to battle against a very high poverty rate which certainly has not improved through these reforms. Ruth Madueño Paulett summarizes succinctly some of the most important issues in Peru during the 2000-2006 time period in “Movimientos regionales y procesos políticos en Peru, 2001-2006” (2007). 68 interviews that also supported its examination here. Roncagliolo, a criollo writer29, has made comments in interviews that attempt to distinguish himself from other authors that have also dealt with the conflicto interno in their writing. He finds a particularly significant generational difference between himself and other authors such as Mario

Vargas Llosa and Óscar Colchado, and explains that their works30 “son de otra década, cuando en la sociedad peruana todavía existía la idea de que alguno de los dos bandos tenía razón” (“Entre las ventas”). He continues to posit that works from his later generation, “son de la década posterior, cuando se empezaba a sospechar que ninguno de los dos bandos estaba exento de culpa y todos nos preguntábamos cómo era posible que hubieran muerto setenta mil peruanos¨ (“Entre las ventas”). He also works to differentiate his works from others within his own generation, though, and refers specifically to

Alonso Cueto’s novel La hora azul (2005) which, for reasons including the close time of publication of both his and Cueto’s novels and their shared theme of the conflicto interno, tends to be grouped with or compared to Abril rojo. One of the distinguishing factors of

Roncagliolo’s work has to do, in his opinion, with the age difference between Cueto and himself: “Cueto tiene cincuenta y tantos años, es de la capital, es blanco y clasemediero.

La clase media urbana que vivió la guerra es muy conservadora. Se sentían amenazados por el lado izquierdo. Yo también soy blanco, capitalino y clasemediero, pero de una generación que ya no puede ser sospechosa: éramos niños en la época de la guerra”

(“Entre las ventas”). Roncagliolo, then, appears to believe that his young age during the

29 Roncagliolo was born in Arequipa, Peru, but also spent time in Mexico when his father was exiled from the country. Upon his family’s return to Peru he also spent time in Lima, but moved to Barcelona in 2000 at the age of twenty-five and has lived there ever since. 30 Roncagliolo refers specifically here to Vargas Llosa’s novel “Lituma en los Andes” (1993) and Colchado’s novel Rosa Cuchillo (1997), both of which would belong to Cox’s second period of works on the conflicto interno. 69 conflicto interno allows him to better interpret the events of that time period because he watched the conflict unfold with the innocence of a child instead of incorporating personal political beliefs into his interpretation at the time.

In addition to these comments put forth by Roncagliolo, which I believe make him a fascinating figure to examine here in terms of his representation of the conflict, his personal experience during the final years of the time period examined here also lend a unique perspective to his work and to my analysis of it. Before moving to Barcelona,

Roncagliolo spent over two years in the countryside in and around Ayacucho, the setting of Abril rojo, conducting interviews with both State forces and members of Sendero

Luminoso. This experience, for him, was particularly significant in distinguishing his novel from others dealing with the same topic. I agree that it lends an intriguing aspect to the work itself and have chosen to study the work for this particular characteristic, as well as the ones listed above.

FILM:

Although literature having to do with the conflicto interno has been examined by a number of scholars, including Carlos Iván Degregori, Víctor Vich, and Juan Carlos

Ubilluz, the films produced on this same subject have received much less scholarly attention31. This does not mean that they are not seen as a valuable tool in the

31 The lack of scholarly attention towards Peruvian film can be attributed, in part, to the historical underdevelopment of the medium within Peru. This was due to a combination of factors, including an inconsistent distribution of funds to support film, or the complete lack thereof, and an inability to keep up with the changing technologies of the medium. Ricardo Bedoya is one of the most well-known Peruvian film historians and his works, including 100 años de cine en el Perú: una historia crítica (1995) provide an 70 reconstruction of the past. Much to the contrary, Jorge Luis Valdez Morgan writes that, in film: “La riqueza de lo audiovisual permite, asimismo, en poco segundos transmitir una cantidad asombrosa de información—siendo ésta una de las características más mencionadas por los historiadores—que si lo trasladamos a texto ocuparía numerosas páginas de un libro” (116). In addition to the sheer amount of detail that can be contained in one scene of a film, Valdez Morgan notes that “Un filme contiene una gran variedad de ideas destinadas a un public, se le transmite a través de la pantalla mediante representaciones que forman parte de un imaginario común” (116). Here, he notes an important function to which I allude in the introduction to this project: the contribution made to the development of a collective memory surrounding the event shown on the screen. Keith John Richards, in the introduction to Themes in Latin American Cinema: A

Critical Survey, also points to the power of film in shaping the way an audience views an event when he writes that “Film addresses our most prominent senses simultaneously, and does so moreover with narration, creating an illusory reality that, if abused, can distort and misrepresent” (4). It is because of this capability that I wish to examine the types of discourses presented in Paloma de papel in order to highlight the ways in which these specific devices may affect the image that viewers take away of the parties involved in the conflicto interno.

In terms of films that specifically discuss the conflicto interno, Valdez Morgan identifies three general time periods which line up quite closely to the literary time

excellent history of the development of film in the country. More recently, Sarah Barrow has published a number of studies on the evolution of Peruvian film, including her dissertation entitled Peruvian cinema, national identity and political violence 1988-2004 (2007). Jorge Luis Valdez Morgan’s dissertation, Imaginarios y mentalidades del conflicto armado interno en el Perú 1980-2000. Una aproximación historiográfica al cine peruano sobre violencia política (2005) also provides information regarding Peruvian film in general, and film dealing with the conflicto interno. 71 periods outlined by Mark Cox. For Valdez Morgan, these films can be distributed among those which were produced during the most intense periods of the conflict, between

198832 and 1993, those which premiered between 1994 and 1999, “entre el fin formal del conflicto y el fin del gobierno de Fujimori,” and those films which have been released since the year 2000, “desde la instauración de un gobierno democrático de transición y el retorno a la libertad de expresión irrestricta” (141). It is important to note that the reception of these films was very different during all three time periods. While the few movies from the first time period33 were generally accepted due to the ongoing impact of the war, those released between 1994 and 199934 were generally unpopular with viewers and faced efforts to censure their content under Fujimori (Valdez Morgan 141). The economic crisis in Peru throughout the 1990s only added to the challenges faced by filmmakers, and very few Peruvian works were even completed during this time period.

Considering the films that were produced, though, Valdez Morgan identifies a number of reasons for which they were disregarded by viewers, including the fact that many films of the era were censured to the point of turning into little more than propaganda, and the fact that viewers apparently did not want to see films dealing with a brutal conflict that only recently had come to an official end (140-141). Since the year 2000, however, he claims that “el interés por el conflicto armado parece haber recobrado vigencia35,” partly due to

32 Valdez Morgan begins this first time period in 1988 because it was the year which saw the premiere of the first film dealing with the conflicto interno, Francisco Lombardi’s La boca del lobo. Though the war had begun long before 1988, there were no films produced during the early years of the conflict that directly addressed it. 33 Valdez Morgan examines Francisco J. Lombardi’s La boca del lobo (1988), Alberto Durant’s Alias La Gringa (1991), and Marianne Eyde’s La vida es una sola (1993) from this time period. 34 The only film from this time period that Valdez Morgan studies is Alberto Durant’s Coraje (1998). 35 From this time period, Valdez Morgan analyzes Palito Ortega Maute’s Sangre Inocente (2000) and Fabrizio Aguilar’s Paloma de papel (2003). Additional films have been released since the publication of 72 the distance from the conflict established through the passage of time, and also due to the activities of the CVR, which once again stoked debates about the events of the war (141).

Paloma de papel, the film examined here, forms part of this third group.

Regardless of the time period during which they were produced, Valdez Morgan points to a common theme among the films which discuss the conflicto interno in some way: a general condemnation of the violence committed during the war (118). This ties in with the slogan of the CVR website, which posts the phrase “Un país que olvida su historia está condenado a repetirla” on various pages of the site (cverdad.org.pe). The devastation and destruction of the conflicto interno cannot be denied and, although different films take unique approaches to dealing with the subject, they all stand in agreement that it cannot happen again.

Interestingly enough, Fabrizio Aguilar’s motivations for creating Paloma de papel, the movie I examine from Peru, echo to a great extent those of Roncagliolo. Like

Roncagliolo, Aguilar experienced much of the conflicto interno as a child growing up far from the areas of heaviest violence in the countryside. In an interview with Nadia

Morillo Cano, of Butaca sanmarquina, Aguilar himself discusses this source of inspiration for the script, which was in fact based on his own experience of the war:

Cuando tenía 10 años veía televisión y de repente había un apagón, luego

usaba las velas para hacer la tarea. Esos eran mis recuerdos, de lo más

banales. Años después, veo en los diarios que un niño había muerto en una

torre de alta tensión poniendo una bomba, un niño que debía estar

Valdez Morgan’s dissertation, including Claudia Llosa’s La teta asustada (2009) and Nilo Pereyra’s Illary (2010), among others. 73 estudiando o jugando. Esa contradicción me generó también una necesidad

de contar (19).

In addition to his own personal memories, Aguilar also explains that he spent a few years researching information about Sendero Luminoso and the participation of children in the organization, but that he wrote the script in three months (19-20). While he did not have the same sort of hands-on experience as Roncagliolo during his investigation and doesn’t indicate that he ever actually spent time in the countryside, it appears that he puts forth this information as a way of justifying the representation found in his film as true to the historical context of the conflict. Below, I discuss further his personal relationship to the project, but, as in the case of Roncagliolo, I feel that these remarks make the analysis of the end product that much more intriguing.

74

Chapter 1: Dehumanization as Justification for Violence in Santiago Roncagliolo’s Abril

rojo (2006)

Santiago Roncagliolo’s novel, Abril rojo (2006), employs the premise of a murder investigation during the last years of the Fujimori regime in order to uncover information regarding the experience of the conflict between the Peruvian State and Sendero

Luminoso in the region of Ayacucho, Peru. The novel denounces the violence committed during the war and exposes the excesses of violence commited by State forces during the conflict. Furthermore, it signals and refutes the types of justifications offered by the State to account for their actions. Sendero Luminoso, on the other hand, is not discussed in much detail but is humanized through the horrific memories of one of the senderistas and a problematization of the term “terrorist”. However, I argue that the novel dehumanizes the general campesino population by way of an orientalist discourse and that this depiction is not true to their reality. I recognize instead that this discourse was utilized during the conflicto interno in order to justify their suspected association with terrorism and the violence committed against them.

Abril rojo narrates Félix Chacaltana’s investigation of a series of gruesome murders in the town of Ayacucho, Peru. The book covers the time period from March 9

75 to May 3, 2000, and is told by an omniscient narrator in a series of chapters that are labeled by the date on which they are told. The vast majority of the novel occurs in

Ayacucho, with a brief excursion to Yawarmayo, a town a few hours north. Chacaltana, a by-the-book assistant district attorney who has recently returned to his hometown after spending most of his life in the capital city of Lima, is put in charge of investigating the murders, though it is not clear from whom the assignment comes. During the course of his investigation, Chacaltana’s eyes are opened to both the horrific reality of the experience of the conflicto interno in Ayacucho and also the rampant corruption that plagues the government. The five victims during the novel – Alfredo Cáceres Salazar, a former lieutenant of the Peruvian Army; Justino Mayta Carazo, a campesino from

Ayacucho; Father Quiroz, a priest from one of the thirty-three churches in town; Hernán

Durango, a member of Sendero Luminoso imprisoned outside of the city; and Edith

Ayala, a waitress in Ayacucho and Chacaltana’s girlfriend who has family ties to Sendero

Luminoso – are all killed in horrific ways and are all lacking one body part when they are found. While this immediately raises Chacaltana’s suspicion of the involvement of

Sendero Luminoso due to the violent nature of their deaths, it also is related throughout the novel to the myth of the Inkarri, an Incan legend36. The association of the case with the myth of the Inkarri serves a double purpose: it provides a motive for the murders which throws Chacaltana off of the true trail, but it is also used to reinforce a certain

36 El Padre Quiroz, one of the priests in Ayacucho, retells the myth of the Inkarri and explains that “En los Andes existe el mito del Inkarii, el Inca Rey. Parece haber surgido durante la colonia, después de la rebelión indígena de Tupac Amaru. Tras sofocar la rebelión, el ejército torturó a Tupac Amaru, lo golpearon hasta dejarlo casi muerto…Luego tiraron de sus extremidades con caballos hasta despedazarlo…Los campesinos andinos creen que las partes de Tupac Amaru fueron enterradas en distintos puntos del imperio, para que su cuerpo nunca volviese a unir. Según ellos, estas partes están creciendo hasta unirse. Y cuando encuentren la cabeza, el inca volverá a levantarse y se cerrará un ciclo. El imperio resurgirá y aplastará a los que lo desgangraron. La tierra y el sol se tragarán al Dios que los españoles trajeron de fuera” (Roncagliolo 238-239). 76 image of the campesino as backwards, violent, and superstitious. The implications of this depiction will be discussed further below.

Chacaltana’s suspicion of the involvement of Sendero Luminoso meets with swift and strong resistance from the military and government officials of Ayacucho, who maintain that Sendero Luminoso was rotundly defeated and no longer exists. These officials do all they can to frustrate Chacaltana’s investigation and even coerce him to edit the way in which he writes up his reports of the murders so that there is no mention of any suspicion of Sendero involvement. He particularly runs up against military commander Carrión, who runs all affairs in and around Ayacucho and who controls all aspects of the investigation. His conversations with a number of characters during the novel also reveal horrific details of what it was like to live in Ayacucho and the surrounding areas during the most violent periods of the conflicto interno, which leads

Chacaltana to realize that the violence he experienced in Lima was nothing compared to the reality experienced in this part of the country. The investigation appears to overwhelm Chacaltana; in addition to his mounting frustration with the corruption he faces from his superiors, he is plagued by a series of terrifying nightmares and is even incited to violence himself when he is faced with the prospect of losing Edith, his girlfriend, and rapes her. Chacaltana ultimately discovers that Carrión, a military official with whom he had worked throughout the entire novel, was behind all of the murders and confronts him. During the confrontation, though, Carrión brings up a series of personal memories that are overhwelmingly painful for Chacaltana and Chacaltana kills him, even though it turns out Carrión was unarmed.

77 Even though readers learn that Carrión committed the heinous crimes during the novel, he had structured the murders in a way that was designed to implicate Chacaltana.

Chacaltana notices well into the investigation that all of the deaths seemed to be related to him in some way because the victims are all people with whom he had conversed shortly before their death. He even “confesses” to Padre Quiroz, one of the priests in town, explaining that he feels directly responsible for their deaths and says that “Todas las personas con que hablo mueren, padre. Tengo miedo. Es…es como si estuviera firmando sus sentencias al separarme de ellas” (Roncagliolo 237). Far from providing answers regarding the killer, though, this revelation only instills a sense of fear in

Chacaltana and makes him believe that he could be the next victim. His fear, in turn, drives him to erratic behavior which only makes him appear more suspicious, including the rape of his girlfriend and his appearance at one of the murder scenes during its commission. By the time that Carrión is killed at the end of the novel, the case has been built against Chacaltana and Carlos Martín Eléspuru, an agent with the National

Intelligence Service, ends the novel with a report which officially accuses Chacaltana of all of the crimes committed during the work:

Los casquillos de bala encontrados en el cuerpo del comandante Carrión

pertenecían a la misma arma que había disparado en la casa parroquial.

Basados en esta evidencia y en los testimonies que atribuyen al fiscal

Chacaltana actitudes de violencia temeraria, así como la existencia de

motivo y oportunidad para los crímenes, la Cuarta Sala Penal del Poder

Judicial ha aperturado proceso en su contra por asesinato multiple con

agravantes” (Roncagliolo 323).

78 This same report also states, however, that Chacaltana cannot be found and that all of the documents related to the case have been sent to the National Intelligence Service in order to keep the cases quiet and not reveal them to the public. The policy of covering up unsavory developments in the name of not inciting public panic which Chacaltana first encountered at the beginning of the novel is the same tactic used to cover up the true identity of the mastermind behind the entire series of crimes, and it appears that, by the end of the work, little has changed in terms of government corruption.

The vast majority of the action in Abril rojo occurs in the town of Ayacucho,

Peru37. There are thirty-one churches and, according to Father Quiroz, one of the priests in town, “Ayacucho es una de las ciudades más devotas del país” (Roncagliolo 53). The novel is set during the period of time between Carnaval and Easter, which is the high season for tourism as people come from all over to enjoy the processions and other religious events, and Ayacucho tends to be described either as an overwhelming mass of people during the festivities or a desolate town when the revelers have done enough celebrating for the day.

Víctor Vich, in “La novela de la violencia ante las demandas del mercado: la transmutación religiosa de lo político en Abril rojo,” criticizes the selection of such an overtly religious time period for the novel due to the relationship it appears to create between the violence of Sendero Luminoso and a cuasi-religious motivation: “Abril rojo deja de historizar el problema de la violencia política y ello la conduce a un problema de

37 The Ayacucho region in Peru was the hardest-hit by the violence of the conflicto interno. The Informe final reports that “La región Sur-Central, compuesta por el departamento de Ayacucho, las provincias de Acobamba y Angaraes del departamento de Huancavelica y las provincias de Andahuaylas y Chincheros del departamento de Apurímac; ésta es la región donde se inició con una violencia hasta enconces desconocida el conflicto armado y donde cobró la mayor cantidad de víctimas” (Tomo I, 80). 79 mayor envergadura. Me refiero a la asociación entre la violencia senderista y un supuesto milenarismo andino que la novela parecería promover” (254). The holy time period in

Ayacucho does tie in with the fact that the city actually is famous, in part, for having over thirty Catholic churches, and also provides a pre-established period of time for all of the story’s events to occur. Vich signals the counterpoint to this selection, though, in that it implies that the conflicto interno was somehow related to a religious fanaticism and reduces a very complex political situation down to a nonsensical religious zeal38.

In an ironic contrast to the apparent religiosity of the town, Ayacucho is also described as a version of hell from the very beginning of the novel. Vich says about the novel:

Ambientada en el año 2000, Abril rojo tiene como uno de sus mayores

aciertos representar un escenario cultural donde la violencia aún no ha

terminado. Lejos de situarnos en un periodo de paz y victoria política, la

sociedad peruana sigue siendo representada como un lugar infernal donde

la degradación de las instituciones nacionales es todavía una constante y

muchos de los fragmentos de la guerra han comenzado a retornar (“La

novela de la violencia” 247).

Vich employs the metaphor of hell to demonstrate the degradation of political and social institutions in Ayacucho and the nightmarish return of violence in the region. When

Chacaltana reveals to the coroner that he had just returned to Ayacucho from Lima the year before, the coroner assumes that he must have done something terrible because no one, under normal circumstances, would volunteer to go to Ayacucho. This contradiction

38 Sendero Luminoso was actually based on a mix of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. For more information regarding the origins of the group, see the introduction to this section. 80 between heaven and hell is made even more literal when readers discover that there is a crematory oven in the basement of Father Quiroz’s parish house which was installed during the war to dispose of the large numbers of victims—a revelation which also shines light on the complicit relationship between the military and the religious authorities during the conflicto interno39. As the death toll mounts and Chacaltana becomes more and more confused and frightened by the investigation, this vision of Ayacucho as a type of hell becomes even more fitting.

Abril rojo is considered a detective novel and, while the investigation ostensibly focuses on a group of murder victims found in an around Ayacucho, Vich proposes that the selection of the detective genre also stands as an allegory for a different sort of investigation that happens throughout the work. In “Violencia, culpa y repetición: La hora azul de Alonso Cueto,” Vich comments on the structure of a different novel from the same time period40 which has the same relationship to this genre: “el formato básico es el policial y este se presenta como el marco ideal para todo el proyecto narrativo: la novela es, en efecto, una alegoría destinada a nombrar la necesidad que tiene el país de conocer una verdad oculta” (235). It is through the performance of the murder investigation that Chacaltana discovers a number of things about the victims and their cases, but also about his own country and its recent history. Elsewhere, Vich also notes that “Abril rojo narra cómo el fiscal Chacaltana sigue los pasos del asesino, sin embargo, su verdadero objetivo radica en mostrar cómo el personaje se confronta con los límites de

39 The Informe final asserts that, while the majority of those associated with the Catholic Church worked to denounce the violence occurring during the conflicto interno, “se han constatado que en ciertos lugares algunas autoridades eclesiásticas mantuvieron un deplorable silencio sobre las violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas por las fuerzas del orden” (Tomo III, 385) 40 Vich refers here to La hora azul (2005) by Alonso Cueto, which also discusses the after-effects of the conflicto interno. 81 su propio acercamiento al país” (“La novela de la violencia” 250). Perhaps even more importantly, then, the investigation illuminates for Chacaltana the limited knowledge that he possessed of the conflict and his unfamiliarity with the social and political realities of the Peru located outside of Lima. As he gets deeper into the investigation, he realizes that the ideas he previously held about the events of the conflicto interno, gleaned from media reports and events in Lima, did not come close to expressing the horrific reality of the war in the rest of the country.

Interpretation of the Conflict by the Armed Forces

In Abril rojo, the official government statement is that the conflicto interno has ended and that terrorism has been rotundly defeated41. This does seem to be the case in

Ayacucho, which is free from guerrilla violence, but Chacaltana catches a glimpse of what the conflict was really like during his trip to Yawarmayo, where the violence is still ongoing. The disturbances described in Yawarmayo are the only real instances of active violence during the novel, though, and most of the conflicto interno is described mostly through a series of memories or flashbacks. Throughout the work there are a few main perspectives on the conflict described in varying levels of detail: that of the military and government officials, the senderista perspective, and Chacaltana’s memories of being in

Lima during the conflict.

Most of the information describing the conflicto interno comes from the memories and experiences of the military and government officials. Even within this

41 During the first part of the novel, Carrión explains very clearly to Chacaltana that “en este país no hay terrorismo, por orden superior” (45). 82 group, however, there is a disconnect between the official declaration that the terrifying war is over and the reality experienced by a number of officials, including Carrión himself, in Yawarmayo, where it becomes obvious that it is not completely subdued in all parts of the country.

Carrión’s repeated claims of the defeat of Sendero Luminoso are seriously challenged when Chacaltana arrives in Yawarmayo to assist with the presidential elections. Vich suggests that Yawarmayo is depicted as being “un lugar situado al margen de la ciudadanía, una especie de ‘tierra de nadie’ donde el personaje entra en contacto con algo que excede al discurso escrito sobre la realidad” (“La novela de la violencia” 257).

There are two elements of Vich’s quote to unpack here: the reality of Yawarmayo is drastically different from the official line that terrorism has been defeated, and is also unprotected by the State. The evidence of the continued presence of Sendero Luminoso is presented as soon as Chacaltana arrives. As Chacaltana approaches town, he realizes that what he thought from a distance were people are actually dead dogs hanging from the light posts with signs hanging from their necks featuring classic Sendero slogans, like

“Así mueren los traidores” and “Muerte a los vendepatrias”42 (Roncagliolo 96). Then, during his first night in Yawarmayo, there is a violent disturbance in town and a hillside is set ablaze with the emblem of the group. Even when Chacaltana confronts Carrión about the presence of terrorism in the area, against the wishes of the town officials who wish to keep the situation quiet, Carrión shows no alarm and simply explains that “Puede quedar por ahí algún subversivo, pero en lo esencial, hemos acabado con ellos” (113).

42 This was a tactic employed by Sendero Luminoso from the earliest days of their acts of violence. The Informe final reports that as early as 1980 dogs were found hanging from lampposts in Lima. Slogans such as the ones described in this scene were also common. For more information regarding these tactics, see Tomo IV of the Informe final. 83 Chacaltana’s further pressing of the issue only raises the ire of Carrión and other town officials, who are well aware of the problem but unable to do anything about it.

As Chacaltana learns more about the situation in Yawarmayo, it becomes obvious that many of the problems are due to Lima’s disinterest in solving them. While

Chacaltana awaits Carrión’s arrival in Yawarmayo to inform him of the ongoing guerrilla activity, the police chief explains that “El comando no nos ve, señor Chacaltana. Somos invisibles. Además, el comando no comanda. Aquí manda Lima. Y los de Lima no se van a enterar de que hay una guerra hasta que les metan una bala por el culo” (Roncagliolo

108). He continues to explain that nothing will change until Lima realizes the gravity of the situation and says that, when that happens, “vendrán, claro que vendrán. Enviarán comisiones, congresistas, periodistas, militares, levantarán un monumento a la paz…El

único problema es que, para que eso pase, nosotros tendremos que estar muertos” (108).

Carrión later echoes the statement of the police chief and explains simply that the military has not done anything about the continued presence of insurgents in Yawarmayo because it has strict orders to not intervene. According to Carrión, “Lima lo sabe, señor fiscal.

Ellos lo saben todo y están en todas partes. Si por alguna razón lo necesitan, entrarán a

Yawarmayo y los masacrarán. El operativo saldrá en televisión. Vendrá la prensa” (179).

Carrión’s answers show that Yawarmayo is off the radar of Lima and, therefore, outside the zone of protection that it could offer.

Yawarmayo’s violent, yet ignored reality reflects Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton’s comment43 regarding the initial hesitation of Belaúnde Terry to get involved with

Sendero Luminoso as it appeared to be an isolated issue in a region far from Lima (62).

43 The full text of their original comment, and an accompanying contextualization of this time period, can be found in the introduction to this section. 84 The same seems to hold true even after the official end of the conflict: as long as the violence is isolated and does not approach Lima, the State will pretend not to see it. This situation also makes sense in light of the earlier discussion regarding Contreras’s description of centralismo. If the situation in Lima and the other larger cities of Peru were under control, the central government would have little incentive to dedicate many resources to pacify all remaining cells in such remote, and perhaps politically insignificant, locations. Carrión also recognizes that if Lima did decide to get involved in

Yawarmayo, they would come in with the full force of the military and massacre the population—removing the actual Sendero threat and everyone else, too—before taking full credit in the press as heroes who had saved the region from terrorism.

Between Chacaltana’s investigative reports and Carrión’s memories, readers are provided with a number of stories about the counterterrorism operations during the conflict, many of which involved torture or other excesses of violence. Although these vignettes are ostensibly meant to serve as justification for the excesses committed during the war, their horrific nature only highlights the indiscriminate violence perpetrated by the State during the conflicto interno. Furthermore, while Chacaltana begins the novel with full faith in the democratic establishment of the Peruvian government44 and armed forces, these revelations slowly lead him to begin to doubt the integrity of the State and of those associated with it.

44 Chacaltana defends the integrity of the Peruvian government from the very beginning of the novel. Within the first few pages, he reads a newspaper headline that announces that the Government intends to fix the upcoming elections and thinks that “esas sospechas se debían denunciar al Ministerio Público para su pertninente aclaración antes de publicarse en la prensa causando lamentables malentendidos” (20). The irony here, of course, is that the elections to which the novel refers are those surrounding Fujimori’s potential third presidential term, which actually were fraudulent. See the introduction to this section for more information regarding these elections. 85 The first real description of torture at the hands of the State comes in Chacaltana’s report describing the disappearance of Edwin Mayta Carazo, the brother of Justino. Both brothers had been arrested on March 8, 1990, after an attack by Sendero Luminoso that had interrupted the electrical service of the region. The entire report is full of instances of an excess of power, but it is at all times justified as necessary. From the moment the military forces enter the Mayta Carazo home, their brutality is evident: “Tras su ingreso al lugar, los dos varones Mayta, que no presentaron resistencia, fueron reducidos con las culatas de las armas para mayor seguridad” (Roncagliolo 131). Even after clearly declaring that the brothers did not resist, it was still considered a necessary security measure to beat them to the ground with the butt of the soldiers’ weapons. Furthermore, after both brothers denied their affiliation with Sendero Luminoso, Lieutenant Cáceres claimed that “los terroristas que no parecen terroristas son los que revisten mayor peligrosidad para la seguridad nacional” and decided to confiscate the goods of the household and arrest Edwin (Roncagliolo 132). Justino was not arrested because “durante el interrogatorio se le había quebrado el fémur de la pierna izquierda,” and though no mention is made of how this happened or who was responsible, the very structure of the sentence indicates a very conscious attempt to not incriminate the military troops

(Roncagliolo 132). He was not the only person injured during this experience, either; his mother, Nélida, upon trying to enter back into the house where her sons were being interrogated, was restrained by troops in order to not “entorpecer la labor de las autoridades” and, “Subsecuentemente…sufrió rotura de mandíbula con complicaciones en la estructura ósea parietal” (Roncagliolo 132). As in the injury of Justino, no specific

86 mention is made of the cause of her injury, though it is obvious that it stemmed from the restraint of the troops.

After Edwin is arrested and removed from the house, the brutality continues and even escalates at the hands of Lieutenant Cáceres. Edwin’s repeated denial of his involvement in Sendero Luminoso “convenció más aún al teniente Cáceres Salazar de su implicación en los respectivos atentados…porque los terroristas se caracterizan por negar siempre su participación en los hechos” (Roncagliolo 133). Even further convinced of

Edwin’s guilt, Cáceres decided to implement “una técnica de investigación” which included tying Edwin’s hands to his back and leaving him hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, “hasta que el dolor le permita proceder a confesar sus actos delictivos”

(Roncagliolo 133). This technique still did not bring about a confession, however, and so

Cáceres decided to change to a method which was named “submarino” (waterboarding) and during which the interrogator “submerge la cabeza del sospechoso en una batea de agua varias veces hasta aproximarlo a la asfixia, de modo que su receptividad a las preguntas de las autoridades aumenta significativamente” (Roncagliolo 133). When this second technique still did not produce the desired effect, Cáceres decided to free him the following day. Edwin was never seen again which, according to Chacaltana’s report,

“refuerza la tesis de que ha pasado a la clandestinidad como miembro de algún grupo terrorista, probablemente Sendero Luminoso, aun después del fin del terrorismo”

(Roncagliolo 134). There is no mention even made of the possibility of his death at the hands of Cáceres or as a result of the methods of torture sustained during the interrogation and, just as justification was provided for the use of violence at the

87 beginning of the scene, it is again provided to explain the mysterious disappearance of a prisoner.

In addition to defending Caceres’s methods in the report itself, Chacaltana later reflects upon the report concerning Edwin’s arrest and interrogation and states that he understands Cáceres’s rationale and method of investigation, even if it is not clear to him that Edwin was, in fact, a terrorist (Roncagliolo 151). I would argue that this conclusion is made possible, at least in part, due to the impersonal and scientific language used in the writing of the report, which helps to dehumanize Edwin and thereby reduce the horror associated with his torture and assumed death. Chacaltana only uses Edwin’s full name throughout the report and employs a number of impersonal adjectives to describe him, including “el sospechoso” and “el detenido” (133-34). Furthermore, the description of the injuries sustained by Edwin and his family sound like they are taken from an anonymous medical chart. There is nothing in the report that gives any sign of emotion, or even any sort of reaction by Edwin, which allows Chacaltana, and potentially the reader, to disconnect from the image and not relate to it emotionally.

Although Edwin Mayta Carazo’s torture was the most thoroughly described throughout the work, Chacaltana’s collaboration with Carrión during his investigation leads to a number of other revelations of instances of brutality. Before Chacaltana is brought to see the second murder victim, who turns out to be Edwin’s brother, Justino, he is taken to see a mass grave that had been opened on the outskirts of the city. The description of Chacaltana’s reaction reveals the immensity of the grave:

El espectáculo de adentro lo desconcertó. Al principio le pareció ver sólo

cajas, cajas viejas y destruidas, rodeadas de telas carcomidas por el tiempo

88 y la tierra. Pero luego, lo que había pensado que eran rocas y tierra fue

cobrando una forma más precisa ante sus ojos. Eran miembros, brazos,

piernas, algunos semipulverizados por el tiempo de enterramiento, otros

con los huesos claramente perfilados y rodeados de tela y cartón, cabezas

negras y terrosas una sobre otra, formando un montón de desperdicios

humanos de varios metros de profundidad (Roncagliolo 162).

While Chacaltana is at the grave, a woman appears and begins walking towards the grave only to be stopped by a few of the soldiers. Chacaltana recognizes her as the mother of

Edwin and Justino Mayta and notices that she begins to shout “algo en quechua” (163).

She manages slides out of the grip of the soldiers and, as she nears the edge of the grave, one of the soldiers pulls out a pistol and aims it at her back. Chacaltana watches the exchange, horrified, and asks Carrión to stop the soldiers, but he does nothing; “A treinta metros de ellos, el soldado seguía vacilando con el arma en la mano mientras la mujer amenazaba con echarse de cabeza entre los cuerpos. Le apuntó a la espalda, luego a la nuca, luego a la pierna. Los otros dos trataron de mantenerla quita. Le gritaron algo”

(Roncagliolo 164). The soldier ends up putting away his gun and helps the other two drag the woman away from the grave as Carrión explains that the soldiers would never kill a mother: “A veces, el miedo hace que se excedan. A veces han llegado a golpear a alguna.

Pero nunca las matan” (Roncagliolo 164-65). This excuse is immediately unacceptable in this case, as it does not make sense for multiple armed men to be afraid of one unarmed woman, especially a woman who is old enough to have two grown sons. What’s worse,

Carrión even downplays the violence that does befall women at the hands of the troops by saying that at least they don’t kill them. As despicable as one might find Carrión’s

89 response, it is also obvious that it isn’t true. While women constituted less than 20% of the overall fatalities during the conflict, that still indicates that over 10,000 women were killed45 (Informe final Tomo I, 164). Carrión’s troops might not have killed the woman in this scenario, but it is very likely that it had happened on other occasions.

As Chacaltana and Carrión drive away, Carrión accuses him of thinking of the military as a group of assassins. Chacaltana’s response represents one of the first moments in which he truly recognizes the complexity of the war and the possibility of error: “Libramos una guerra justa, commandante—lo dijo así, en primera persona—. Es indudable. Es sólo que a veces me cuesta distinguir entre nosotros y el enemigo. Y cuando eso pasa, empiezo a preguntarme qué es lo que combatimos exactamente”

(Roncagliolo 168). Carrión, in response, relays his own personal memories of the horrifying experiences of war and defends the reactions of the military against the criticism of those who were never in the trenches:

¿Alguna vez se ha sentido sitiado por el fuego y ha sabido que su vida en

ese momento vale menos que un pedazo de mierda? ¿O se ha visto metido

en un pueblo lleno de gente sin saber si quieren ayudarlo o matarlo? ¿Ha

visto cómo sus amigos van cayendo en la batalla? ¿Ha almorzado con la

gente sabiendo que quizá sea la última vez, que la próxima vez que los vea

probablemente estén en un cajón? ¿Ah? Cuando eso pasa, uno deja de

tener amigos, porque sabe que los perderá. Uno se acostumbra al dolor de

perderlos y se limita a evitar ser una de las sillas vacías que se van

45 The gender breakdown in the Informe final does not divide up the responsibility among the two sides. If we consider the fact that the State forces were responsible for around 37% of the deaths, however, one can assume that they were responsible for around a third of these deaths (Hatun Willakuy 19). 90 multiplicando en los comedores. ¿Sabe lo que es eso? No. Usted no tiene

la menor idea de lo que es eso. Usted estaba en Lima, pues, mientras su

gente moría….Ustedes los intelectuales desprecian a los militares porque

no leemos. Sí, no ponga esa cara, he escuchado sus bromas, he visto la

cara de los viejos políticos cuando hablamos. Y las comprendo. Nuestro

problema es que estamos hasta los huevos de la realidad, nunca hemos

visto las cosas bonitas de las que hablan sus libros (Roncagliolo 169).

For Carrión, the horrors of war justified the actions of the military, even the forced disappearance of those suspected to be insurgents. One of the more interesting phrases within Carrión’s speech is that which accuses Chacaltana of being in Lima while “his people” were dying. I will argue below that Carrión, in particular, holds a very specific idea of who would be included in this group, and that he is not talking about the indigenous population that constituted the vast majority of the deaths. His remarks also connect back to the previous conversation regarding the lack of help from Lima in fighting the battle. For Carrión, those who enjoyed the relative security of Lima46 don’t understand what it was like to be in the bloodiest parts of the war and, therefore, have no right to judge the actions of those who were.

Despite the impassioned speech, Chacaltana does not seem to be entirely convinced by Carrión’s defense of his actions. However, his suggestion that Edwin

Mayta Carazo might have given contradicting testimonies during his interrogation

46 The Informe final dedicates an entire chapter to the violence perpetrated in Lima throughout the conflicto interno. I use the term “relative security” here in order to contrast the situation in Lima, which was mainly aimed at instilling psychological fear and debilitating infrastructure, to the situation in the countryside, which saw the murder of entire communities and much more bloodshed. See Tomo IV of the Informe final for a breakdown of the violence through the different geographical regions of Peru. 91 because he really didn’t know anything and simply wanted to give the “right” answer only prompts another defense from Carrión, who claims that Edwin was purposely trying to confuse his interrogators. He further defends the accusations lodged against Edwin by asking Chacaltana “¿Usted también cree que no sabemos distinguir a un terrorista cuando lo vemos?” (Roncagliolo 176). Though he never clarifies the exact characteristics of a

“terrorist”, he makes it obvious to Chacaltana that he could identify one. Only one of the known members of Sendero Luminoso is described in the novel, but I will argue below that the characteristics of the guerrilla, for Carrión and for many State forces, overlapped far too often with the characteristics of an indigenous member of the community.

Glimpses of Insurgent Experiences

In Abril rojo, the only glimpse into the mentality of members of Sendero

Luminoso comes through Chacaltana’s interviews with Hernán Durango, a senderista imprisoned outside of Ayacucho who prefers to go by the name camarada Alonso. Very little is known about Durango, including his origin, background, his level of power within the organization, or even the circumstances surrounding his arrest. He does provide insight into two different topics, however: he describes instances of the commission of excessive violence by the State forces, and, perhaps even more significantly, he problematizes the definition of the word “terrorist.”

Durango discusses a number of cases of excesses of violence by the military, both experienced personally and those involving acquaintences. One of his stories in particular provides an alternative version of the report written by Chacaltana about the arrest and

“release” of Edwin Mayta Carazo. Where Chacaltana indicated that Edwin had

92 “disappeared,” probably after having joined a terrorist group such as Sendero Luminoso,

Durango provides an alternative ending and confirms Edwin’s unfortunate ending at the hands of Cáceres: “A ése lo detuvo el Perro Cáceres. Cáceres no liberaba sospechosos. Se deshacía de ellos” (Roncagliolo 145). By including the two contradictory testimonies regarding the fate of Edwin, Roncagliolo appears to highlight here the difficulty in knowing what really happened to so many people who “disappeared” as a result of actions taken by both sides of the conflict. It should also be pointed out that, while readers may not believe the sterile report provided by Chacaltana, they also have no reason to necessarily believe Durango, who is described as a convicted terrorist. It is up to the reader, then, to decide what happened to Edwin, if they are able to make that decision at all. This, for Jennifer Martino, is one of the merits of the novel. She writes in

“Collective Memory of Cultural Trauma in Peru: Efforts to Move from Blame to

Reconciliation” that, through these conflicting reports and unclear details, “readers are thus provided with the opportunity to develop their own counter-memory” (250). This echoes the aforementioned statement by Ubilluz, Hibbett, and Vich regarding the ability of literature to question dominant narratives regarding past events.

While Durango does not provide information about his life or his actions before he was imprisoned, he does provide a horrific account of violence that he experienced in prison. According to Durango, one of the fellow prisoners, la camarada Alina, had somehow obtained a small radio that was used by the prisoners during the period of a few months. The guards knew about the radio, but didn’t do anything about it until one of them had some sort of confrontation with Alina and reported the radio to his superior, el coronel Olazábal. Olazábal demanded that Alina give up a radio, but she refused. Two

93 days later, Durango says, the guards called to the central patio all of the prisoners linked to terrorism and, after Alina continued to refuse to hand over her radio, a government official accompanying the military troops declared that the prisoners were rioting.

Durango’s description of the acts that followed, when the official handed over control to the Special Forces troops are wrenching:

cuando cerraron la puerta, los de Fuerzas Especiales se nos arrojaron

encima, señor fiscal. Eran unos doscientos armados con garrotes, gases

paralizantes y cadenas, sueltos como perros rabiosos cruzando el patio

hacia nosotros. La mayoría de los nuestros estaban esposados o con

grilletes. Algunos, que estábamos libres, corrimos a rodear a Alina para

defenderla … Unos veinte de ellos vinieron directamente hacia ella. Nos

rociaron la cara, y mientras no podíamos ver nos arrojaron a garrotazos al

suelo. Ahí no se detuvieron hasta asegurarse de que no podríamos

levantarnos en mucho tiempo…A mí me dieron en la cabeza, en los

testículos, en el estómago…Pero no se quedaron contentos con eso … A

las mujeres les … les arrancaron la ropa, y luego, frente a nosotros,

empuñaron sus garrotes riéndose, diciéndoles cosas, “ven, mamita, que te

va a gustar”, decían…¿Quiere…quiere usted saber lo que les hicieron con

esos garrotes, señor fiscal? (Roncagliolo 218).

Durango continues this story as tears run down his face and says to Chacaltana that he should know what happened next, “porque luego a los hombres nos hicieron lo mismo”

(Roncagliolo 219). This episode highlights a number of different issues, including the obvious corruption of the jail guards, who were willing to overlook the radio in exchange

94 for payment in cigarettes and food, and the impunity with which they were able to lie about the severity of the situation and thereby justify their attack. I would argue, however, that it is most significant for the way in which it humanizes Durango.

There are a number of elements in this scene which enable readers to potentially sympathize with Durango in spite of his Sendero association. First, his background is never described, which means that readers are unaware if he was convicted for committing a violent crime, or simply for his association for the organization. This immediately makes him more relatable than someone who is described as a mass murderer, for example. Furthermore, his description of the attack shows that it was an incredibly excessive punishment for a small infraction committed by one person. Though

Alina was defiant in refusing to hand over the radio, he does not describe any of the prisoners in a state that would indicate they were prepared to riot or incited to any sort of violence against the guards. The brutality of the attack is magnified, then, when it is considered against the minor infraction which provoked it. Durango’s retelling of the attack itself is also detailed and graphic, which allows readers to imagine the terrifying scene for themselves and put themselves in his shoes. Finally, the emotion showed by

Durango during the interrogation is one of the few instances of raw emotion shown during the work, and particularly by someone suspected of terrorism. It is difficult for

Durango to even speak of the attack, and his emotion moves Chacaltana to tears, too. Not only is the emotion of sadness one with which most humans should be able to identify, the image of him sobbing, his voice breaking as he attempts to tell his side of the story, makes him seem much less intimidating and violent and much more like a regular human

95 being who perhaps made a questionable choice in his association with Sendero

Luminoso.

Even as I mention the possibility of his having made a questionable choice, though, his earlier testimony with Chacaltana begs the question of whether or not his association with Sendero Luminoso was necessarily criminal. In addition to his powerful story about the attack in the prison, Durango provides snippets of information which call into question the stark division between “terrorist” and “patriot” that is so often employed in this conflict. During Chacaltana’s first interview, when Durango is asked if he had committed acts of terrorism, he responds “Claro. Si uno mata con bombas caseras se llama terrorismo y si mata con ametralladoras y hambre se llama defensa. Es un juego de palabras, ¿no?” (Roncagliolo 146). The division in methods employed by both sides of the conflict immediately calls to mind Zizek’s categories of subjective and objective violence. Sendero Luminoso certainly employed methods of subjective violence, that violence which is easy to classify because it is visible and “performed by a clearly identifiable agent” (1). Durango is the only character in the novel who even alludes to the objective violence committed by the State, both prior to the conflict and in response to

Sendero’s actions. According to Zizek, objective violence is that which is “inherent in a system,” including physical violence, “but also the more subtle forms of coercion that sustain relations of domination and exploitation, including the threat of violence” (9).

Especially in his reference to hunger as a weapon employed by the State, Durango alludes to the way in which the regular operation of the government, even in times of peace, was hurting a large sector of its population. In Zizek’s words, this would be

“systemic violence,” which he defines as “the often catastrophic consequences of the

96 smooth functioning of our economic and political systems” (2). As seen in the previously discussed historical context, the economic and political policies of the Peruvian state excluded the majority of the rural populations for years and Sendero Luminoso can be seen as a response to this situation. This, of course, is in addition to the physical violence committed by the State in the name of defense and protection of the “smooth functioning” of the “economic and political systems” (Zizek 2). To refer back to

Raymond Williams’s definition of violence, the acts committed by the State were justifiable because of the authority and legitimation that those forces posessed, not because it was the correct path to take.

After this line, Durango further complicates the definition of “terrorist” as he tells

Chacaltana to take a walk through the halls of the jail. He suggests that it would cure

Chacaltana’s “manía de distinguir entre terroristas e inocentes, como si esto fuera cara o sello” and gives further examples of situations which blur the line between terrorism and victim, including an illiterate prisoner jailed for handing out Sendero propaganda and another jailed for throwing a bomb at a school, even though he is mentally handicapped

(Roncagliolo 148). He asks Chacaltana if these people would be considered guilty or innocent, and then asks about those who killed under the threat of their own death, saying that “Según la ley son inocentes. Pero entonces, señor fiscal, todos los somos. Aquí todos matamos bajo amenaza de muerte. De eso se trata la guerra popular” (Roncagliolo 148-

49). Comments like those made by Durango make impossible the description of the conflicto interno as a clean, black-and-white situation and situate it firmly in a very gray area, where each “side” is much harder to distinguish and judge than it might first appear.

97 Even though many convicted insurgents like Durango have been jailed or killed, it is obvious that tensions continue to run high regarding the suspicion of potential senderistas in Ayacucho. During the Holy Week festivities, there is an explosion among the crowds of people followed by screams, which “no eran gritos de alegría, sino de terror” (Roncagliolo 208). It is during this scene where readers can really see the residual fear which resides still in the people/mentality of Ayacucho, and the increased significance of the word “terror”, which could mean either an elevated level of fear or a fear linked to a specific act of actual terrorism. It appears that the automatic association of the explosion is with Sendero Luminoso when, in another time or another place, it might simply be attributed to a group of juvenile delinquents. Further adding to the tension of the moment, the suspected perpetrators fleeing the scene are described as having a good idea of what they are doing; as they split up to try and lose the officers chasing them, the narrator says “No eran un grupo de improvisados. Sabían lo que hacían” (Roncagliolo 208). This level of coordination, in the context of the novel, indicates a link to an organized form of violence such as terrorism.

In addition to relaying the fear surrounding the explosion, the exaggerated response by security forces reflects the continued suspension of the laws which, under normal circumstances, would have provided basic protection to those group members suspected of having participated in the explosion47. Instead, they are hunted through the city by the police, who pretend to kidnap a girl in order to force the hand of the group of juveniles hiding in the back of a store. The juveniles are led outside at gunpoint and

47 Here I refer to basic protections such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the protection from excessive force by police, etc. 98 searched before being ordered to the ground. They are physically mistreated as the police officer describes them to Chacaltana:

¿Estos? Unos cachivaches. Cuando Sendero Luminoso estaba ya

muriendo, bajó la edad de sus cuadros. Comenzó a reclutar niños de diez

años, de once, hasta de nueve. Les daban amas y los entrenaban en

manipulación de explosivos. Luego, Sendero se acabó, pero ellos

quedaron vagando por ahí, ya convertidos en delincuentes comunes

nomás” (Roncagliolo 211).

The officer continues to say that, even though he’d like to lock them up and throw away the key, there is little to be done about the delinquents, as many are or traditionally have been minors and there is no reformatory in the area to which they can send them

(Roncagliolo 211-12). No proof of their affiliation to Sendero Luminoso is ever offered or requested, though, and Chacaltana appears to believe the officer’s version of events.

Dehumanizing representations of the campesino population

Apart from the juveniles described above, Ayacucho during this time period is basically comprised of three groups: those employed by the State or the Church, tourists in town for Lent or Holy Week, and the campesino population of the town. Though they often do not speak for themselves, the campesinos as a group constitute an important character in the novel because their description by Chacaltana and other town officials sheds an important light on to the way in which they are perceived. Vich criticizes the

99 lack of campesino voice in the novel, and says that, instead of speaking for themselves, they are described by a narrator that employs a very traditional vision of them (“La novela de la violencia” 251). In general, their description centers around stereotypes derived from an orientalist perspective, which, referring back to Stern, portrays the population as a whole as the Other to Lima’s “power, wealth, knowledge, and modernity”

(“Beyond Orientalism” 6). Specifically, the non-Lima-based population of Ayacucho is described as traditional and backwards. They are said to still hold tight to their traditional religious beliefs, having only adopted Catholicism as it can be adapted to fit their previously existing worldview; violent, as they purportedly still believe in violent myths like that of the Inkarri and that somehow makes them violent as a social group; and incomprehensible, as they hold on to their native quechua language instead of speaking

Spanish.

Perhaps most importantly, the campesinos are often described as static objects, as characters that act exactly as they are assumed to behave and who are not developed fully enough to give any indication of their true feelings or motivations. Vich asserts that this type of depiction strips all agency from the campesinos during the conflict because they do not seem to be involved in the world which surrounds them: “Es decir, para Abril rojo los campesinos no fueron actors que durante los años de la violencia política tomaran decisions y a los cuales se pudiera confronter políticamente. Más bien, son siempre descritos como sujetos impenetrables y desconocidos en sus movimientos” (252). For

Vich, the campesinos are not only undeveloped, they are described as completely separate from, and inferior to, the Lima-based culture represented by the State officials:

“Al menos con los campesinos, Abril rojo, produce un discurso—de corte

100 “orientalista”—que saca a los sujetos de la historia y que los interpreta como estáticos e inmutables. En efecto, la imagen del Perú que Abril rojo propone es la de una ‘muñeca rusa’ donde las culturas parecen no haberse mezclado y donde una de ellas se encuentra

‘resistiendo’, casi de manera intacta, debajo la otra” (253). Vich ultimately attributes this characteristic of the novel to a demand set by the globalized literary market and, while I don’t disagree that this might play a role, I also believe that this image serves as an important reminder of the way in which this entire sector of Peru’s population has traditionally been viewed and continues to be viewed today48.

In many ways, Justino Mayta Carazo, the very first campesino described in the novel and the man who discovers the first murder victim, comes to represent the attitude towards campesinos in general. In documenting Justino’s “testimony” regarding the discovery of the first corpse, Chacaltana writes in his report that Justino was unable to remember where he was any of the previous three nights, “en las que refirió haber libado grandes cantidades de bebidas espirituosas” (Roncagliolo 13). The description of Justino as a drunk is then extrapolated to give the same general image of the rest of the people in town because Chacaltana writes that Justino’s version of events “no ha podido ser ratificada por ninguno de los 1.576 vecinos del pueblo, que dan fe de haberse encontrado asimismo en el referido estado etílico durante las anteriores 72 horas con ocasión de dicha festividad” (13). Further damaging Justino’s character, Chacaltana reports that

Justino discovered the dead body only because, after sleeping off his drunken state, he thought he had discovered a safe full of money and wanted to steal it—an action for

48 In the Preface to the Informe final, the CVR recognizes that “estas dos décadas de destrucción y muerte no habrían sido posibles sin el profundo desprecio a la población más desposeída del país, evidenciado por miembros del PCP-Sendero Luminoso y agentes del Estado por igual, ese desprecio que se encuentra entretejido en cada momento de la vida cotidiana de los peruanos” (13-14). 101 which he was admonished sternly by Chacaltana (14). During Chacaltana’s stay in

Yawarmayo, he is attacked by Justino and, in the description of their encounter,

Chacaltana attempts to describe to Justino the trouble he is facing for his actions.

Chacaltana describes Justino’s quechua-language response and the tone of his voice, saying that his voice reflected “más miedo que valor” and that Justino was “profiriendo espumarajos quechuas” – almost as if the response were coming from a cornered dog instead of a human being (Roncagliolo 122). Reflecting upon the situation, Chacaltana realizes that Justino doesn’t know much Spanish and he comes to understand Pacheco and Carrion’s claim that “esta gente no habla, que no sabe comunicarse, que está como muerta” (Roncagliolo 122, emphasis added). Considered in the context of the conflict and the general relationship between the indigenous population and Lima, it appears as though the inability to communicate in Spanish equals an inability to communicate at all and, consequently, a symbolic death. This is especially true in Justino’s case, as he is unable to defend himself well against Chacaltana’s accusations due to his limited command of Spanish and his inability to express himself well.

Justino’s case represents both a dehumanization through the loss of humanness and a dehumanization through an orientalist representation. Referring back to Carrión’s observation that Chacaltana was safe in Lima while “his people” were dying, it becomes clear with his comment here regarding communication challenges that the group to which

Chacaltana belongs does not also include the campesino population. By referring to them as “esta gente,” it is clear that both Carrión and Pacheco think of this group as different, as the Other. Their opinion is backed, of course, by the fact that “these people” cannot even communicate because they only speak their traditional language, thereby supporting

102 their classification as backwards and not modern, like those from Lima. Furthermore,

Justino displays here a number of the characteristics that Haslam associates with an animalistic dehumanization. It is possible to classify Justino’s language barrier as a lack of culture, and he certainly shows little self-restraint in terms of his drinking and his desire to steal what he thought was money. By the end of the encounter between Justino and Chacaltana, he appears more dog-like than human, nearly foaming at the mouth and cowering, ready to attack, when he realizes that he is cornered.

Though Justino is the most frequently mentioned and most fully described campesino in the novel, he is not the only one to be represented in terms of alcohol consumption and an incomprehensible language. When Chacaltana is sent to

Yawarmayo, he stays with a quechua-speaking family that is forced to open their home to him. During the night of the disturbance in Yawarmayo, however, Chacaltana says that the family seems to be “un nido de serpientes” (Roncagliolo 106). Just as Justino was depicted as a rabid dog, frothing at the mouth with his quechua language, the family in

Yawarmayo becomes a den of snakes, which projects a very dangerous, animalistic image. The scene continues as Chacaltana asks Teodoro, the patriarch of the family, what is going on. Of Teodoro’s response he says: “Sintió su aliento a alcohol en la cara.

Teodoro empezó a hablar en quechua. Su voz sonaba como un lamento, como si se estuviera disculpando por algo” (Roncagliolo 106). The animalization continues, then, as

Teodoro, who already was described as part of a den of snakes, loses all communicability and, instead of language, produces a sound which can only be described as a moan.

In addition to the descriptions related to Chacaltana’s perspective on the campesinos, Carrión holds a firm belief of their violent nature. As Chacaltana tries to

103 back up his belief that Sendero Luminoso is indeed behind the first murder, Carrión refuses to believe that it was anything other than a violent dispute between campesinos.

In response to Chacaltana’s plea, he says “Es usted conmovedor, Chacaltita. Pero lo comprendo. Lleva poco tiempo acá, ¿verdad? No conoce a los cholos49. ¿No los ha visto pegándose en la fiesta de la fertilidad? Violentos son” (Roncagliolo 44). In addition to considering the celebration of fertility, which Chacaltana concedes is violent, but stemming from religion and not from terrorism, Carrión asks him to consider the celebration of Turupukllay, a bloody spectacle during which a condor is tied to the back of a bull, pecking constantly at the bull as it tries to free itself, while the bloodied bull tries to buck the condor off its back. For Carrión, the participation in these celebrations or the mere belief in violent myths means that the entire social group carries violent tendencies.

The final proof of their “violent nature” lies, for Carrión, in the memory of the massacre at Uchuraccay50:

“Los campesinos no les preguntaron nada a esos periodistas. No podían,

ni siquiera hablaban castellano. Ellos eran extraños, eran sospechosos.

Directamente los lincharon, los arrastraron por todo el pueblo, los

acuchillaron. Los dejaron tan maltrechos, que luego ya no podían

49 Though “cholo” technically refers to someone of indigenous and European heritage, it is used pejoratively. It could be considered the equivalent of a “halfbreed,” and can also refer to someone of a low social standing who attempts to appear more civilized through the adoption of European customs. 50 In 1983, a group of journalists were assassinated in Uchuraccay due to a tragic misunderstanding in which the indigenous residents of the town mistook the journalists for Sendero Luminoso members and killed them for fear that they had arrived to attack the town in retaliation for a previous altercation. Even though there were two quechua speakers in the group of journalists, a lack of comprehensibility between the two groups prevented any sort of communication that could have prevented the attack. As a result, the town suffered from a great deal of violence which killed many residents of town and forced most of the others to flee. The Informe final dedicates an entire chapter to the details of the attack; for more information see Tomo V, Chaper 2.4: “El caso Uchuraccay”. 104 permitirles volver. Los asesinaron uno por uno y ocultaron sus cuerpos

como mejor pudieron. Creyeron que nadie se daría cuenta. ¿Usted qué

opina de los campesinos? ¿Que son buenos? ¿Inocentes? ¿Que se limitan a

correr por los campos con una pluma en la cabeza? No sea ingenuo, pues,

Chacaltana. No vea caballos donde sólo hay perros (Roncagliolo 45).

Contrasted with the information that has since been documented regarding this attack,

Carrión’s opinion serves as an example of the danger in reducing such a complex situation down to a fight between a “good” side and a “bad” side. Carrión never mentions the fact that the residents of Uchuraccay had been consistently subjected to violence by both Sendero Luminoso and the State forces or that they weren’t able to understand the explanation given by the journalists. He certainly does not explain that, even if they had been able to understand the journalists, they might not have believed them because of an ongoing fear of outsiders stemming from Sendero’s first attack on the town. Carrión’s story serves to only reinforce the need for constant suspicion of the campesinos.

Even Father Quiroz, one of the priests in Ayacucho, does not hold a positive opinion of the group and, while he does not necessarily consider them inherently violent, he does not trust the campesinos. Quiroz is particularly skeptical regarding their practice of Christianity, stating that “Los indios asistieron a misa encantados y en masa…Rezaron y aprendieron cánticos, inclusive comulgaron. Pero nunca dejaron de adorar al sol, al río y a las montañas. Sus rezos latinos eran sólo repeticiones de memoria. Por dentro seguían adorando a sus dioses, sus huacas” (Roncagliolo 54). He even claims that they purposely mislead the priests (54). Father Quiroz’s claims harken back to the earliest justification for the domination of the Indians, as they were considered to have no soul and to be less-

105 than-human due to their heathen religion. He never goes so far as to justify their death at the hands of the State, but he certainly does not defend them, either.

Since Father Quiroz is the only religious figure featured in the novel, he comes to stand for the Church as an institution in Peru. For this reason, the prejudice held against the campesino population takes on further significance because it reveals a potential justification for the actions taken by the Church during the conflicto interno. According to Vich, “la novela muestra cómo la Iglesia peruana se posicionó pasivamente ante los hechos de la violencia y cómo pactó con las Fuerzas Armadas” (“La novela de la violencia” 255). The crematory oven described by Father Quiroz is a clear example of this relationship; though readers are not made aware of the initial discussion regarding its placement, it is clear that it ultimately ended up in the basement of the parish house, where it was used during the conflicto interno to dispose of the large quantities of bodies from the area. For Vich, the representation of the relationship between the Church and the

Armed Forces is one of the more important aspects of the novel, as it reflects “el accionar de determinadas instituciones nacionales durante el conflicto armado interno” ( “La novela de la violencia” 255). In addition to highlighting the dubious behavior of the State,

Father Quiroz comes to represent the questionable beliefs and actions of the Church during the conflict, as well.

Conclusions

Though Roncagliolo highlights a number of troublesome issues throughout the novel, including bringing to light the excessive violence perpetrated by the military during the conflict and the corruption which runs rampant through the government, he

106 provides little hope for change at the end of the novel. Readers are aware that Carrión organized or personally committed all of the murders during the novel, but in spite of his confession and the general idea that all of the town officials would have knowledge of

Carrión’s involvement, Chacaltana is still ultimately charged with the crimes. In the final report, however, it is stated that all of the officials who might be called to testify in this case have been transferred to different parts of the country and therefore are unavailable.

Even Chacaltana, the accused, has disappeared and no one knows where he might be.

Furthermore, the case has been kept hidden from the public and all of the files associated with it have been made to disappear and have been transferred to the National

Intelligence Service. The claim made here is that “las instituciones civiles no tienen competencia en casos que puedan estar referidos a la seguridad nacional, los cuales son automáticamente derivados al fuero del Consejo Supremo de Justicia Militar”

(Roncagliolo 324). This claim appears to complete a cycle of justification of military authority in security matters, as it comes full circle from Chacaltana’s comment at the very beginning of the novel that the Armed Forces typically had control over murder cases for security reasons51.

It isn’t just the case against Chacaltana that has been covered up, though; along with the files related to his case, all files related to “desapariciones, torturas y malos tratos practicados durante el periodo de estado de emergencia” have also been transfered

(324). The justification for this action is that “De momento, no cabe esperar que tales casos sean elevados ni a la justicia civil ni a la opinión pública, de modo que puedan ser

51 Chacaltana feels that his responsibility for the murder case shows progress in the Peruvian justice system because, “Hasta ese momento, cualquier caso de muerte había ido directamente a la Justicia Militar, por razones de seguridad” (Roncagliolo 17-18). The irony here is undeniable, as this clearly is not true at any point during the novel, and certainly hasn’t changed by the end. 107 manipulados por elementos inescrupulosos con el fin de dañar la imagen de nuestro país en el exterior o empañar los importantes logros del Gobierno en materia de lucha contrasubversiva” (324). Instead of admitting to the mistakes made by the State in their fight against Sendero Luminoso, then, they choose to maintain the image of the

Government as protector through a manipulation of information and the selective destruction of documents. This necessarily means that the general public will only be receiving part of the information that they would need to create a fully informed opinion about either side during the conflicto interno.

To top off this massive coverup, Carlos Martín Eléspuru, an agent with the

National Intelligence Service who makes only brief appearances during the novel, asks for a transfer to a new location as he states that he has completed his misión to

“salvaguardar la paz y la seguridad de la región, a la vez que ha canalizado la información hacia los derroteros que mejor convienen a los intereses del orden y la ley, coadyuvando así en el desarrollo en un país con futuro como nuestro” (Roncagliolo 326).

As readers are aware of the ongoing violence in Yawarmayo and the continued tension regarding the presence of Sendero Luminoso, it is obvious that Eléspuru’s claim is false.

Furthermore, it is this final cover-up which appears to leave very little hope for a less corrupt future because, even knowing about the horrific violence, the corruption, and the truth of the involvement of Carrión, nothing changes and no one is held accountable.

Despite the bleak outlook of this report, however, Jennifer Martino finds a significant meaning in this style of conclusion. Of this ending that does not appear to assign full blame to any one party, Jennifer Martino posits that the novel “leaves the impression that the act of laying blame would be senseless” (250). She argues that it is ultimately this

108 lack of resolution which permits the novel to focus on the suffering of all parties in the conflict instead of naming one group definitively responsible for the atrocities (250).

To this end, one can argue that the novel as a whole is designed to be revelatory in nature, and intends to bring to light the corruption surrounding the conflicto interno and the systematic repression of information. By including admissions of violence and stories which point to excessive measures and stereotyping by the State, and especially in using the final report as an example of the attempts made by government officials to cover up these issues, the novel does stand to reveal the kinds of information hidden from the public for so many years. Vich asserts that “la novela ha sido escrita para reveler aquello que el discurso official ha intentado reprimir” (“248). Furthermore, Vich asserts that

(with this type of novel) “la novela sostiene que el conocimiento de la verdad, entendida como una ‘revelación’, puede transformar a las subjetividades e iniciar así un proceso de reconciliación nacional” (235). The Informe final had been in existence for a few years by the time Abril rojo was published, and therefore the general public would have had access to facts and figures about the involvement of the State in the commission of excessive violence. What Abril rojo brings to the table, then, is an exposure of some of the stories behind those facts and figures, namely the justifications employed for that violence and details about the crimes that can help readers reject any sort of justification for them. Though the novel does not give much of a voice to Sendero Luminoso, the few, short interactions between Chacaltana and Durango call into question pre-conceived notions about the image of the “terrorist” through humanizing details such as Durango’s emotion and his ability to think rationally about the motivations behind the conflict.

Where the novel falls short, however, is in its representation of the campesino

109 community, as it maintains the same sort of orientalist discourse that has been employed for years and that not only dehumanizes an entire group of people, but completely disregards their experience during the conflicto interno.

110

Chapter 2: Incomplete Humanization and the Absent State: Fabrizio Aguilar’s Paloma de

papel (2003)

Fabrizio Aguilar’s film, Paloma de papel, is a unique contribution to the collective memory surrounding the guerra interna of Peru due, in part, to the explicit intention of the director to humanize the representation of the members of Sendero

Luminoso. In the analysis of the film, I argue that Paloma de papel does not accurately represent the social context of rural Peruvian towns during the guerra interna and that it presents the residents of the main town as static, non-individualized figures. Additionally,

I propose that the exclusion of the Peruvian armed forces from the majority of the film gives the idea that they were not as involved in the commission of violence during the conflict, which is untrue. Finally, considering Aguilar’s goal of providing a humanized representation of the members of Sendero Luminoso, I examine their representation in the film. I ultimately conclude that Aguilar falls short of that goal, due to contradicting discourses which indeed humanize the senderistas, but also, and to an even larger extent, dehumanize them.

Paloma de papel narrates the guerra interna from the perspective of Juan

(Antonio Callirgos), a young boy kidnapped by Sendero Luminoso members and forced

111 to join the organization. The opening scenes show Juan, now an adult, as he is released from prison and the film proceeds almost entirely through the use of a long flashback.

The real story begins during Juan’s childhood; his mother, Domitila (Liliana Trujillo), is in a relationship with Fermín (Aristóteles Picho), a Sendero sympathizer, and when Juan learns of Fermín’s activities he goes to warn her, but is snatched by two senderistas and taken to their camp in the countryside. Juan trains reluctantly with the senderistas, but wishes constantly to return home.

When Juan finally manages to escape the group and return to his hometown, he rings the bells which were installed to warn of a Sendero attack. The town patrol, or ronda, unaware that Juan was taken against his will by Sendero, mistakenly assumes that

Juan willingly joined the organization and thinks that he only came back to try and trick them or spread propaganda. Juan becomes the object of the searches of both the town ronda and the senderistas and, when he is finally coerced from his hiding spot by one of the senderistas, he joins a group of people assembled in the town plaza by Sendero

Luminoso in order to carry out a “juicio popular52”. One of Juan’s friends alerts the ronda by ringing the anti-terruco bell again and when the ronda finally arrives at the plaza a battle ensues and a number of people are killed, including Fermín, Domitila, and a young senderista. The two Sendero leaders escape from the scene at the end of the battle, but

Juan does not leave his mother’s body and he is arrested when the army comes to load up the bodies. The movie finishes where it begins, with Juan’s release from prison, and

52 The Informe final defines a “juicio popular” as a type of “tribunal sumario encargado de juzgar, condenar e imponer las penas en contra de quienes la organización subversiva acusaba de supuestos crímenes de índole político o relacionados con la delincuencia común en zonas rurales” (Tomo VI, 141). 112 follows him back to his hometown, which is largely destroyed, where he is recognized and embraced by his two best childhood friends.

The funding for Paloma de papel came largely from CONACINE (Consejo

Nacional de Cinematografía)53 after it won an award for its script, thereby also securing funding for the production of the film (Valdez Morgan 109) 54. Additionally, it received funding from Ibermedia55 and “material fílmico por parte de USAID (The U.S. Agency for International Development) 56, del Instituto Cubano de Artes e Industria

Cinematográfica y de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación” (Valdez Morgan 109-

110). As Keith John Richards explains in “Paloma de papel (Paper Dove)”, the movie

“won the Silver Precolumbian Circle at Bogotá, and the Golden Apple at New York’s

Latin American Cinema Festival, LaCinemaFe, both in 2004” (84). Sarah Barrow, in

“Paloma de papel (Fabrizio Aguilar 2003): Shaping memories of national trauma”,

53 CONACINE was a national body that served to foment and promote cinematography in Peru. In 2011 it was disolved and absorbed by the Ministerio de Cultura de Perú, and now serves a consultory function. For more information on its dissolution, see http://www.cinencuentro.com/2011/05/02/ministerio-cultura- pretende-disolver-conacine/ (Accessed 23 March 2014) 54 In this section, I draw heavily from Keith John Richards’s chapter “Paloma de papel (Paper Dove)”, from Themes in Latin American Cinema: A critical survey (McFarland, 2011), Sarah Barrow’s chapter entitled “Paloma de papel (Fabrizio Aguilar 2003): Shaping memories of national trauma” from her dissertation, Peruvian cinema, national identity and political violence 1988-2004 (University of Sheffield, 2007) and Jorge Luis Valdez Morgan’s dissertation, Imaginarios y mentalidades del conflicto armado interno del Perú, 1980-2000. Una aproximación historiográfica al cine peruano sobre la violencia. (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2005), as the official website for the movie Paloma de papel is no longer operational, Luna Llena Films does not operate a website, and the websites of the companies which helped to fund the film do not provide any information regarding its creation or debut. 55 Of their purpose, Ibermedia says the following: “Ibermedia es un programa de estímulo a la coproducción de películas de ficción y documentales realizadas en nuestra comunidad integrada por diecinueve países. Nuestra misión es trabajar para la creación de un espacio audiovisual iberoamericano por medio de ayudas financieras y a través de convocatorias que están abiertas a todos los productores independientes de cine de los países miembros de América Latina, España y Portugal” (http://www.programaibermedia.com/el-programa/, Accessed 23 March 2014) 56 USAID says this about their mission: “U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America's interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad” (http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are, Accessed 23 March 2014) 113 likewise points out that the film was Peru’s representative during the 2004 Academy

Awards (262). As Astrid Erll pointed out in her discussion of film’s contribution to collective memory, Paloma de papel certainly has received a wide span of attention that has turned the film itself, and particularly its subject matter, into a topic of conversation.

The inspiration for Paloma de papel and Aguilar’s relationship to the guerra interna have also been much-discussed in works related to the film. Though he doesn’t elaborate, Richards states that Paloma de papel “was based not so much on literary or testimonial works but rather on data from psychological research done on children abducted by Shining Path. This showed what their lives had been like inside the group”

(89). Barrow further explains that, “Although the idea and script for Paloma was inspired by national TV reports watched by Aguilar, as a child, about the violent conflict raging in more remote areas of Peru, the film is not based on actual real events” (263). She continues to say that the film “is a fictional account of what [Aguilar] imagines life might have been like for children growing up in the midst of the violence” (263). Though it is not based on any particular events, however, the research performed by Aguilar prior to beginning the film indicates that he wishes it to represent the conflict fairly faithfully.

Aguilar’s memories of the war are very telling in terms of his relationship to the conflict. As he mentions, his “memories” came from the mass media—in this case, newspapers or television reports. His age during this time period also is important considering the choice of Juan as a protagonist; Barrow reports that, “Born in 1973,

Aguilar would have been the same age as his protagonist Juan (12) when Sendero violence was reaching its peak in the Andean regions in the mid-1980s” (263). The fact remains, however, that Aguilar was raised in Lima and did not live in the regions or

114 among the people most seriously affected by the violence of the conflict. This is not lost on Barrow, who comments that Aguilar’s “fascination with events that were distant from him not only temporally, but also geographically and culturally, is intriguing” and that it raises questions “regarding national identity, the ethics of representing the experiences of a marginalized community, and the creation of new bonds and affiliations between different social and ethnic groups” (263). Valdez Morgan, who examines 6 films from 5 different directors during this time period57, asserts that “Aguilar es el director más ajeno a la realidad que retrata. No sólo por el tratamiento del argumento en su filme, sino por su experiencia y vivencias” (107). Compared to other directors who live and work in Lima, like Francisco Lombardi and Alberto Durant, Valdez Morgan concludes that “Aguilar no logra acercarse verosímilmente a la realidad que evoca” in the way that these other directors are able to achieve (107). Some of the questions raised in this work, as well, will be attributed at least in part to this same cultural and geographical distance, including the representation of the countryside and the way in with Aguilar treats both sides of the conflict—the armed forces and Sendero Luminoso—, as well as the campesino population caught in the crossfire.

Valdez Morgan writes that Paloma de papel was filmed in 2002 in the town of

Ahuac in Callejón de Huaylas and also in “la laguna de Querococha” within the

Huascarán National Park (110). The selection of the location was one source of criticism about the movie due to the fact that, though the actual setting of the story isn’t revealed in the film, it was shot in an area where “the indigenous Quechua language is barely

57 Valdez Morgan analizes La Boca del Lobo (1988) by Francisco Lombardi, Alias La Gringa (1991) and Coraje (1998) by Francisco Durant, La vida es una sola (1993) by Marianne Eyde, Sangre Inocente (2000) by Palito Ortega Matute, and Paloma de papel (2003) by Fabrizio Aguilar in his study. 115 spoken” (Richards 90). The relationship to the quechua language is important, given that the vast majority of victims of the guerra interna were quechua-speakers58. Additionally, as Valdez Morgan opines, “la elección del paisaje no está relacionada directamente con el argumento, y más bien parece obedecer a otros factores como la estética misma del filme” (121). Set inside a national park which is popular with tourism, Valdez Morgan supposes that the location was chosen more for its beauty and recognizability, and less for its ability to accurately represent a typical Andean village (121).

Another critique stems from the adaptations made in order to film in Callejón de

Huaylas, including the fact that the crew had to work with Hidrandina, a local electric company, to bring electricity to the town for the first time in order to be able to film

(Paloma de papel. Locaciones. qtd. in Valdez Morgan 110). The official movie description of the location cited above also mentions that Luna Llena Films brought potato and wheat seeds, along with other “productos agrícolas” for the filming of the movie, both “para el consumo de los lugareños y como ambientación del filme” (qtd. in

Valdez Morgan 110). The very fact that these sorts of accomodations were needed highlights a gap in modernity still faced by a large part of the Peruvian population and the persistence of a series of conditions which ultimately led to the formation of a group like

Sendero Luminoso. There is no information regarding what happened after the filming wrapped, but the accomodations which were made in this situation certainly has the feel of a forced modernization on the part of the a city-based company which really has nothing to do with wanting to seriously improve the long-term conditions of that location, and is instead based on the short-term needs of a money-making enterprise.

58 “De cada cuatro víctimas, tres fueron campesinos o campesinas cuya lengua materna era el quechua” (Informe final 13) 116 The casting of the actors for Paloma de papel also raises a particularly strong criticism of the film. A number of the actors featured in the movie, mostly the children, were amateur actors who were discovered during open calls (Richards 88). Richards describes the process of selecting these actors:

The production team made an open call for young actors and looked at

more than 500 children in a selection process that lasted over five months.

Twelve were chosen to take part in a training workshop, from which

emerged Antonio Calligros (Juan, the protagonist) and his three

companions. Other natural actors were the film’s extras; these were local

inhabitants who had never even been near a film set (88).

Apart from these younger actors selected from a pool of amateurs, however, the film relies heavily on a set of well-known actors to portray many of the most important roles.

Valdez Morgan attributes this decision to the fact that “uno de los medios más usados para que una película peruana sea atractiva es la presencia de actores conocidos para el mercado limeño” and supposes that, due to this fact, “el casting giró alrededor de esa preocupación más que un criterio en miras a la construcción de los personajes” (108). As a result, many of the films most prominent characters are portrayed by actors who do not accurately represent the people on which the character is based, either in physical phenotypes or in their style of speech.

One of the most problematic results of this casting strategy lies in the interpretation of the senderista roles, especially the three main figures of the group.

According to Valdez Morgan, Sergio Gallani (Wilmer), Tatiana Astengo (Carmen), and

Melania Urbina (Yeni) are “tres de los actores más conocidos para el público limeño, ya

117 sea por otros filmes, telenovelas o apariciones en televisión”, which means that they are already known to many people through other roles, and that they have a physical type and speech which do not relate to that of the senderistas they are meant to represent (108). He continues to propose that this selection was deliberate because, “por más que sus tipos físicos no concuerden con los de los líderes senderistas promedio, son adecuadas y hasta humanizantes, como fue la intención del mismo director” (108-9). In mentioning a desire to humanize the senderistas, Valdez Morgan refers to an intent expressed by Aguilar himself, such as in the following interview response:

Yo quería mostrar que en realidad todos somos seres humanos, no

importan las ideologías. Yo puedo ser el ser más maquiavélico, el más hijo

de puta, pero soy un ser humano que puedo tener una familia a la que le

voy a entregar todo mi amor. El lado malo es esa cierta locura ideológica,

que está mal, que niego y es terrible; pero a una persona no tengo que

dibujarla cien por ciento mala, porque tiene sentimientos, se ríe, se

estremece, sufre y tiene miedos. Eso es lo que tiene la película, los hace

más reales. Yo creo que el mensaje lo saca cada uno, pero sí es mi

intención que la película diga algo más (Morillo Cano, 20).

By giving them the opportunity to show emotion and to act like normal human beings,

Aguilar intends to show that the members of Sendero Luminoso, although they committed a number of heinous acts, were not completely evil and that they were capable of feeling the same range of emotions as everyone else. The efficacy of this strategy as implemented in the film will be further analyzed below.

118 In continuing to discuss the representation of the senderista roles, Valdez Morgan states that Aguilar employed this humanizing strategy in order to take advantage of the relaxation in the political climate, that creating the movie after the conflict and post-

Fujimori gave him more flexibility to show different aspects of the senderistas without political repercussions. Barrow echoes this notion, writing that by the time Paloma de papel was released in 2003, “some critical distance was established that allowed for a more comfortable reception” of the film (260). Along the same lines, she also notes that

Paloma de papel “was the first national film since 1998 to focus on the specific political conflict between Sendero and the military, and the first since 1993 to address the effect of that conflict on highland communities” (262). In spite of the intention, however, Valdez

Morgan maintains that the casting decision ultimately leads to an unbelievable representation of the character because “su tipo físico y forma de hablar dista mucho del papel que interpreta, del cual parece tener sólo la vestimenta” (109).

Though the actors do not necessarily look the part, Valdez Morgan does concede that the fact that the main senderistas in the film are limeñan might facilitate an easier identification with similar audiences: “justamente el tipo físico y forma de hablar de los actores puede permitir una identificación con el espectador limeño, con lo cual la incompatibilidad física es dejada de lado y sólo se recibe el discurso elaborado” (127).

By casting actors with whom an audience in Lima can identify, Aguilar opens the door for those spectators to feel comfortable with the characters they see on screen and listen to the message they are producing. Aguilar himself defends in particular the casting choice of Melania Urbina and Tatiana Astengo, explaining that he is happy with their work and that, in his opinion, “lo han hecho muy bien, sólo que puede resultar algo

119 extraño verlas ahí, porque en otras películas han hecho otro tipo de personaje” (Morillo

Cano 20). Research would need to be done on the audience reception of the actors in their roles before a definitive conclusion could be made, but it is certainly an aspect of the film which raises eyebrows.

Paloma de papel debuted in Peruvian theaters on September 25, 2003, and found instant success among audiences. Valdez Morgan reports that the movie attracted around

300,000 spectators, a number considered fairly high for Peruvian films in the 2000s, and

Barrow states that the film was the “third most popular film at the domestic box office in

2003” (111-12; 259). Part of the success of the movie could potentially be attributed to the fact that its debut immediately followed the realease of the final report of the

Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission nearly a month earlier, which drastically increased the general interest in the subject. If the Truth and Reconciliation report could be considered the “official”, or sanctioned, version of the events which took place during the conflict, then Paloma de papel, like a number of other fictional works, can be considered another representation of the events as described in that report. Valdez

Morgan confirms that “Paloma de papel funcionó como parte del debate, pues asume una toma de posición que apuesta por la resolución positiva del conflicto, llámese reconciliación, perdón, etc.” (111). In addition to drawing a solid number of spectators, it also received generally positive comments from the press, as Valdez Morgan reports that

“Es poca la crítica cinematográfica que haya presentado una visión crítica del tratamiento del tema” (112). Having received a number of positive reviews does not, however, make the film immune to criticism; in my analysis I will dialogue with a number of points from

120 both positive and negative commentaries in order to analyze the way in which Aguilar represents the conflict in his film.

Representation of the rural population and initial stages of the conflict:

Given the setting, it would seem that the residents of the town featured in the film would be the protagonists of the movie. This is not the case, however, and much as they are in Abril rojo, the campesinos in general are very under-developed and inconsequential to the movie. Apart from El Viejo, the town blacksmith with whom Juan develops a close relationship, very few of the characters have much dialogue.

Furthermore, many residents are only seen in the background as the camera pans across a shot and they are largely presented in the middle of their everyday tasks, such as doing laundry or working together to construct a building. Although Valdez Morgan asserts that

“El protagonismo de la comunidad campesina se va destruyendo a medida que avanza el filme” I disagree because I don’t believe they were ever endowed with any real sense of protagonism to begin with (134). I do, however, agree that the community is presented

“como un conjunto de individualidades poco desarrolladas a lo largo del filme” and that these brief portraits of the town members “no contribuyen a establecer un perfil del grupo” (Valdez Morgan 134). Simply going on the information presented in the film, viewers are able to draw few conclusions about the sociopolitical dynamics of the town, or even the relationships among many of its members.

Except for a few terrifying moments of violence, most of them occurring towards the end of the film, the people in town appear to be largely unaware of, or unaffected by,

121 the conflict unfolding around them. In his explanation of orientalism, Said writes that the language of orientalism presents “Arabs” “in the imagery of static, almost ideal types, and neither as creatures with a potential in the process of being realized nor as history being made” (321). I would argue that this representation of the countryside falls in the same category and proposes the exact image that westernized audiences would expect to see of a rural, indigenous town. This romanticized idea of an indigenous population presents its residents as docile and quiet, working hard on their daily tasks much in the way they have for years. Regarding their lack of dialogue, I find a double explanation.

First, there’s no need for them to speak because, in their traditional image, they most likely speak a language which is unintelligible to Western ears anyway. Second, in their role as “static, almost ideal types,” they become doll-like, which gives the idea that, as a characteristic of their indigenous identity, they look and act like real people but are blank on the inside, a blank slate onto which the Western viewer can project their own opinion regarding their opinions of or reactions to the guerra interna. Using a film vocabulary, they become extras in the movie of their own lives.

In addition to this lack of agency of the individual campesinos, a number of scholars have noticed the unrealistic representation of rural society seen in the film. Pablo

Rojas, in “Urpillay: Paloma de papel,” writes that “toda la primera y cansina parte de

Paloma de papel parece querer mostrar…que antes de la llegada de los ‘tucos’ toda era paz, armonía y felicidad, como si estuviéramos en la fábula del lobo y las ovejas” (9).

Beasley-Murray echoes this point and asserts that, in the film, “the conflict is almost all external: bad people arrive from outside to disrupt what would presumably otherwise be an idyllic rural order” (“Accidental”). This contrasts with the proven reality of the

122 countryside, Rojas says: “toneladas de trabajos de ciencias sociales indican—y el propio informe de la CVR lo confirma—que el accionar de Sendero Luminoso no fue sobre un campo sin problemas, ni idílico, sino por el contrario, empobrecido y con agudos antagonismos y enfrentamientos internos e inmemoriales” (9). The conflicts among the residents and groups of the Peruvian countryside were, as Barrow explains, “exploited by

Sendero leaders when recruiting campesinos to join their cause,” but are not depicted nor discussed in the film (280). Apart from the intimation that a number of residents of Juan’s hometown view Fermín as an antagonistic character, the social relations of the town are never explored or represented. In the scenes where groups of adults are shown together, such as when the men are working to construct a building or the women are washing clothes in the river, viewers only hear the sounds of slopping mud or the running water of the river. These opportunities, which could have provided an occasion to present the viewpoint of the community in terms of the conflict happening around them, end up instead providing an image of the residents as simply co-existing,

After the quiet opening scenes, the guerra interna seeps into the town little by little as the film develops. Viewers without prior knowledge of the film’s subject matter would not be aware of the significance of the first signs of the guerra interna, as they are are not fully contextualized until Juan discovers that Fermín, his stepfather, is a supporter of Sendero Luminoso. The very first indication of the presence of the conflict occurs when Juan is sent to sleep in the barn as a punishment for getting his clothes dirty: as he eats the dinner his mother brings to him an explosion can be heard in the distance and, as the camera focuses on the single light bulb hanging above his head, the scene goes dark

123 as it goes out. Later, as Juan and his friends are playing “terrucos” and “ronda”59, they come upon Pacho’s father, hanged from the church. During the funeral procession, a group of small papers falls down on the mourners and Domitila reads one which says

“Así mueren los perros traidores. ¡Viva la guerra popular!60” (Paloma de papel). Then, following the funeral there is a round up perfomed by the military, during which multiple people are hauled out of their houses and taken away on a military vehicle without any explanation. More than twenty minutes into the film, Pacho stumbles upon a meeting between Fermín and two other individuals who end up being members of Sendero

Luminoso, but the purpose of the meeting is not made entirely clear. While it is indicated in all of these moments that there is some dangerous force lurking in the background, especially considering that many of these events occur in the darkness of night, they are certainly not linked together as they are happening.

Clarity regarding the connection between the preceding events comes after the scene with Fermín and the two other individuals. As the clandestine meeting ends, the film cuts to a shot of Juan, Pacho, and Rosita, where Pacho concludes, as a result of what he overheard during the conversation, that Fermín “¡Es terruco!”(Paloma de papel). Juan appears to be in disbelief and reacts violently when Pacho accuses Fermín of having killed both his own father and Juan’s father and of potentially planning to kill Juan. This emotional scene serves as the final puzzle piece which helps viewers contextualize a number of the previous scenes that, until this point, appeared to be very disjointed and

59 This would be equivalent to a “cops” and “robbers” game, only in this case the “good guys” are the ronda, or the civil patrol units formed in countryside towns for the purpose of self-defense, and the “bad guys” are the “terrucos”, or terrorists, who belong to Sendero Luminoso. 60 Those familiar with Sendero Luminoso will recognize these phrases as slogans of the organization. Slogans like these are also repeated later in the film during the training scene, which provides a sort of hindsight for anyone who remembers this earlier part of the film. 124 without deeper meaning. Furthermore, the emotional reaction of Juan and Pacho’s combination of anger, fear, and grief, help viewers to understand the severity of the situation and the imminent danger present in the film (Paloma de papel).

Representation of the Armed Forces:

When the conflict does erupt within the town borders, the residents become victims of both sides of the guerra—Sendero Luminoso and the State, mostly in the form of the Peruvian Armed Forces. The military, however, is largely absent during most of the film and only makes brief appearances which are made to seem fairly inconsecuential, given the fact that the appearances, or their effects, are never discussed or recalled at any point later in the movie. The first time viewers see members of the military in Juan’s hometown, they are performing the previously mentioned round up of both men and women from the town, violently forcing them from their homes and shoving them towards a military vehicle which is waiting to take them away. The terrifying effect of the roundup is made evident by the sobs of a little girl whose mother was dragged away from her and forced into the truck. Juan appears to be paralyzed by the commotion of the roundup and stands frozen in the same place, watching it happen without saying anything.

As the film cuts to the next seen, Juan is seen, still immobile and clearly still affected, sitting silently on the window ledge while el Viejo works in his shop. As they begin to discuss the round up, it becomes clear that that it was not the first of its kind because the blacksmith explains that the people taken away will not return: “Ellos no van a regresar. Una vez que se los llevan ya no regresan, Juan” (Paloma de papel). Juan

125 cannot understand why the round up occurred because he says that the people who were taken away were not “terrucos” and the blacksmith, seemingly overcome by emotion, can only respond “Lo sé. Lo sé, pues” (Paloma de papel). It is then that el Viejo tells Juan the story of the paloma de papel in an effort to take his mind off of what he has just witnessed. This brief exchange between Juan and el Viejo is the only mention of the round up in the entire film, and el Viejo’s abrupt change of subject prevents any further contextualization. The identity of those who conducted the round up is never actually confirmed, the fate of those who were taken away is never again mentioned, and lingering effects on the town are not seen nor discussed. In spite of this lack of discussion, though, I would argue that this is one of the strongest interactions between the military and the town, especially considering the violent nature of the round up and its link to the history of the guerra interna61.

Considering that none of the residents of Juan’s town apart from Fermín are known to even sympathize with Sendero Luminoso, let alone actually participate in the organization, this round up is one of the few moments during the film which alludes to the campaign of indiscriminate violence carried out during the guerra interna by the

State forces against the indigenous population. The practice of forced disappearance is

61 Of the two most in-depth studies of the film, neither explores this moment and its impact on the film. Sarah Barrow, in “Paloma de papel (Fabrizio Aguilar 2003): Shaping memories of national trauma” mistakenly identifies the first appearance of the military as their second and says “The military, representing the state and hence the dominant national image, is shown entering in the village only twice; once to hand out arms to the community as part of the government strategy of defence, and once more at the end to take Juan away” (279). She also states that the town organizes a ronda after finding the body of Pacho’s father hanging in the town square, but this occurs nearly ten minutes after that gruesome discovery, and in between those two points she misses the important moments of the round up and of the discovery that Fermín is associated with Sendero Luminoso. Barrow incorrectly identifies the formation of the ronda as the first appearance of the military in her discussion of this moment (268). Jorge Luis Valdez Morgan, in Imaginarios y mentalidades del conflicto armado interno en el Perú, 1980-2000. Una aproximación historiográfica al cine peruano sobre violencia y política, does not analyze the presence of the military at all, only briefly mentioning in one sentence the round up and focusing instead on the representation of Sendero and the campesinos. 126 documented in the final report of the CVR, which dedicates an entire section to

“Desaparición forzada de personas por agentes del estado” (Informe final, Tomo VI,

Capítulo 1, 1.2). This chapter reports “4,414 casos de desaparición forzada de personas atribuidas a agentes del Estado,” which would indicate that the round up was one of a number of cases of forced disappearance seen during the guerra interna (Informe final,

Tomo VI 74). According to the Informe final, el Viejo’s suspicion that the people taken away would not return was factually supported: “En el 65% de estos casos, el paradero final de la víctima permanece desconocido hasta la actualidad” (Informe final, Tomo VI

74). This would have been a perfect moment to criticize the actions of the State, but without any contextualization or discussion after the fact, the film completely misses the opportunity and, instead, it appears to have little consequence.

The military’s second appearance in town comes in response to the painting of

Sendero Luminoso slogans on buildings in the main town square. Instead of hauling people away this time, though, they form a Civil Defense Patrol, or ronda, by supplying town members with weapons and bells which are to be rung in the event of a Sendero attack62. Though the military also appears in later moments of the movie, this instance is the only one in the film in which the town receives any sort of state-based support to fight

Sendero Luminoso. As the weapons are being dispersed, the Sendero slogans are being covered with fresh white paint and an official emblem takes center stage as it appears above the steps. In this case the military assumes the role of hero, for after the arms are

62 This was a common practice, as the Informe final explains: “En diciembre de 1982 las FFAA se hacen cargo de la lucha contrainsurgente en Ayacucho y, tres semanas después, se instala la Infantería de Marina en Huanta. Una de las primeras medidas que los militares aplican es agrupar a los campesinos en núcleos poblados y organizarlos en Comités de Defensa Civil (CDC), al estilo de las aldeas estratégicas organizadas por el ejército estadounidense en Vietnam y las Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PAC) de Guatemala. 127 distributed and the bells are installed, a song of peace and joy literally rings throughout the town as everyone begins to ring their antiterruco bells in unison and the sound of the ringing bells is accompanied by upbeat traditional Andean music. The residents of town stop all of their daily tasks to listen to the bells, many of them smiling, and it would appear that this one action has solved all of their problems. In portraying the State as a heroe here, the film falls into the trap described by Jacqueline Fowks in “Dejar la histeria.

Un comentario al libro de Lurgio Gavilán,” where she writes that many residents of Peru don’t even like to use the term conflicto to describe the period of violence between 1980 and 1992 because they feel like it recognizes Sendero Luminoso as a combatant in a justified war (“Dejar la histeria”). Instead, she notes, these same people prefer to declare that “solo hubo terrorismo y del otro lado pacificación, lucha contra el terorrismo”

(“Dejar la histeria”). Recognizing the conflict in this way makes the actions of the Armed

Forces seem not only justified, but heroic, as they were necessary to defeat the insurgents and restore peace to the country. Simultaneously, this image delegitimizes Sendero

Luminoso as a group that committed spontaneous acts of violence and was subsequently and rotundly defeated by the Peruvian military in the name of peace. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification of both the history behind the conflict and the trajectory of its violence and amounts to little more than pro-State propaganda.

The defense patrol formed by the armed forces is not seen in action until the very end of the film. When Juan arrives back in his town after escaping from the Sendero group he rings the antiterruco bell, but his warning is considered a trick by the defense patrol, who suspect him of supporting Sendero. Their persecution of Juan and the other

Sendero members in town culminates in a bloody battle in the town square which causes

128 the death of a number of people, both from the ronda and from Sendero Luminoso.

Though it is hard to declare a victor in a battle which causes so many deaths on both sides, the film appears to hand the victory to the defense patrol, as they kill a number of

Sendero fighters and cause the others to flee from town.

Barrow takes issue with the depiction of the defense patrol in general during the film and asserts that the “ambiguous status and sometimes dubious conduct of the Civil

Defense Patrol is not depicted” in the film (280). She is not alone in highlighting the questionable behavior of the defense forces in general, as the Informe final also makes note of this fact. In the introduction to the chapter about Los comités de autodefensa, the

CVR writes that “En ningún otro actor de la guerra, la línea divisora entre perpetrador y víctima, entre héroe y villano es tan delgada y tan porosa como en los Comités de

Autodefensa (CAD) o rondas campesinas contrasubversivas” (Informe final Tomo II

437). I agree that this represents another missed opportunity where the film could have given a more complex portrayal of the situation instead of a surface-level portrait.

Referring back to the one-dimensional character of most of the residents of Juan’s town, it is impossible to know what kind of people form part of the ronda or how they might feel about either side of the guerra interna. They are also only shown in action one time, in a situation which is involves defending the town from a very obvious Sendero threat, so it is also unclear if they ever have, or ever would, participate in situations where the political or moral motivations were less clearly drawn.

Barrow continues, though, to claim that through Juan’s “memories” in the film, the defense patrol is depicted as a “heroic group of untrained amateurs who somehow defeat a fierce enemy without the backing of the military” (280). I don’t completely agree

129 here. I would argue that the “victory” at the end of the battle in town is not so clear cut considering the number of deaths on both sides and the fact that at least two of the

Sendero members, including Carmen, one of the leaders, manage to escape. Furthermore,

I would argue that Juan would not necessarily view the patrol members as heroic given their suspicion of him and the fact that they failed to protect him from being arrested.

Additionally, the death of Fermín, arguably one of the biggest threats to Juan outside of the actual senderistas, comes at the hands of Sendero Luminoso and not from the defense patrol; they clearly were unable to see that Fermín was a Sendero supporter or did not do anything about it during the entire film. Barrow is correct in signaling that the defense patrol acted without the backing of the military, though. Apart from having actually supplied the weapons, the military doesn’t enter the town again until their brief appearance after this battle when they come to pick up the bodies and arrest Juan. They depart right away, leaving the town on their own again, and it is never made clear if there were any additional conflicts with Sendero Luminoso after the film ends.

Throughout the course of the film, viewers see the armed forces one additional time—in this case outside of the town borders. During his time with the senderistas, Juan and Yeni are assigned to blow up a military checkpoint in the countryside. As they approach the checkpoint, assuming the false pretense of simply having gathered supplies, they briefly chat with the military commander. Here, the commander is depicted as less- than-scrupulous, as he takes the supplies carried by Yeni and Juan and as makes a pass at

Yeni: “Esta buena la cholita, ¿no? … Si hubiera más Yenis como tú por acá...” (Paloma de papel). He then invites her to join the soldiers inside the checkpoint building and gives

Juan a slap to the face as he tells him that they’ll signal when they’re done, indicating that

130 they plan to rape Yeni. She and Juan run away, blowing up the checkpoint building and setting the stage for a brutal senderistas attack which leaves most of the military members dead and the commander taken hostage by the organization. As in the previously discussed military round up, this brief encounter with the military serves as another example which paints the military in a negative light, but, again, it is not further contextualized or discussed and it seems to pass as quickly as it began.

Where the military round up appeared to be an ambiguous criticism of the forced disappearances caused by the armed forces, the dialogue between Yeni and the military commander hints at a criticism of the use of rape as a weapon throughout the guerra interna. Sexual violence against women is a well-documented offense in the Informe final, which found that, of the reported cases of rape63, “alrededor del 83% de los actos de violación sexual son imputables al Estado” (Tomo VI 277). Furthermore, they report that,

“En relación al Estado, la CVR tiene evidencias que le permiten concluir que la violencia sexual, fue una práctica generalizada y subrepticiamente tolerada pero en casos abiertamente permitida por los superiores inmediatos, en determinados ámbitos” (Informe final Tomo VI 277). The scene between the military commander and Yeni, then, is another instance which could have been used to seriously denounce a pattern of reprehensible behavior. Unfortunately, a number of details in this scene, including its conclusion, downplay its significance.

Though there are a number of soldiers at the checkpoint, the commander is the only one who actually makes any comments to Yeni and the participation of the other men is limited to taking the supplies the commander tosses to them and laughing at his

63 Other forms of violence against women, such as forced marriage, forced abortion, etc. are not considered in this statistic. 131 “jokes”. It is impossible to say that these men would have been innocent if Yeni had been raped, or even to assume that they would not have participated, but the commander certainly appears to be the most determined to carry out the act. Consequently, instead of the harrassment and potential rape of the young girl serving as an example of systematic abuses of power that were found throughout the conflict, the situation comes off as one dirty old man who is giving a bad name to the military or, at most, a group of a few lonely soldiers in the mountain who might make a bad choice. Furthermore, this situation is immediately resolved as Yeni and Juan blow up the military checkpoint, instantly killing most of the soldiers and nearly wiping out this malevolent faction. The one surviving soldier, coincidentally the one who made the pass at Yeni in the first place, suffers an even worse fate as he is captured. He is then brought before the senderistas and forced to stand there, crying, until Carmen forces Juan, who is also crying, to stab and kill him. Not only does he lose his bravado, he loses his life in an act that can be viewed as a direct punishment for his actions.

All told, the armed forces appear for only around 3 minutes of the entire 88 minute film. Aguilar himself acknowledges their missing presence in the film and explains it to be a choice of focus in the work: “No podía hablar de todos. Mi personaje central era un niño. Hay una presencia del ejército, no del todo buena pero siento que más o menos podría haber sido así. No me estoy metiendo dentro del mundo del ejército, probablemente si lo hiciera también encontraría un grado humanista, el cual se refleja en una escena, pero esa no era la historia” (20). He does not expand on this statement to indicate which exact scene he considers to reflect the humanitarian perspective of the military, though it would almost have to be the scene in which Juan is forced to stab and

132 kill the crying military commander after blowing up the checkpoint. Barrow instead reads into this absence and its significance in terms of the relationship between the State and towns like Juan’s.

In discussing the significance of the absence of the armed forces from the vast majority of the movie, Sarah Barrow writes that it “serves to emphasize a failure on the part of the state to protect Peruvians away from urban areas” and that it also “highlights a failure to recognise such indigenous communities as national citizens that should be included in the remit of official state protection” (268). While this was certainly the case during the guerra interna, especially when one considers that 75% of the victims were indigenous, I don’t know that there is enough in the movie to fully support this theory.

The only time the town truly is victimized as a whole by Sendero Luminoso is at the very end of the film during the battle scene, and in that case the defense patrol, armed by the

State, is able to come in and fight against the senderistas. Again, this theory is completely valid considering the historical context of the guerra interna and the victimization of the indigenous people, but I would argue that this particular movie is not consciously trying to make that point.

Barrow continues to say that, in their desire for national security, the armed forces show “little regard…towards the different cultural practices and beliefs they encounter in the highlands” and that “such communities are treated with suspicious and disdain based on ignorance and fear” (268). As above, this situation was certainly the case during the guerra interna but is not shown during the film in question64. The residents of Juan’s

64 The Informe final reports that “las fuerzas del orden reprodujeron prácticas racistas frente a las poblaciones entre las cuales debían desenvolverse. Los oficiales de las fuerzas del orden provenían de sectores medios urbanos; sus distancias culturales y sociales con la población eran muy altas y 133 hometown are not shown expressing any sort of belief other than those tied to the

Catholic religion (in the memorial service and during the funeral procession) or engaging in any sort of cultural practice which is belittled or frustrated by the army; they are able to farm, construct buildings, and wash clothing, among other practices, without any interference. Furthermore, there is no discussion at any point of the movie which indicates any sort of repression of their cultural practices or expression of beliefs. Even after a number of people are taken away during the roundup, there is no discussion of any way in which life in the town has changed or worsened and things seem to return to normal without any discussion of its long-term effects.

As a summary to these points, Barrow suggests that “Juan’s community suffers abuse at the hands of the military almost as much as it does at the hands of Sendero”

(268). I would argue, however, that the general absence of the military and its apparent inconsequentiality both for the functioning of the town and in the lives of most of the residents portrays the armed forces almost as a non-factor in the conflict. I argue below that the overwhelming focus on Sendero Luminoso, and especially the amount of violence attributed to them, gives viewers the idea that they were nearly solely responsible for the ills that plagued Peru during the guerra interna. Though the State may be depicted as absent and their failure to adequately protect indigenous communities cannot be denied, the human rights abuses committed on its behalf, which were public knowledge at this time due to the investigations of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission, are neither depicted nor discussed. As a result, it is as if they did not

determinaron un extendido desprecio por la misma gente a la que tenían que ganar. En muchos casos, en vez de proteger a la población ayacuchana contra el senderismo que los sojuzgaba, se actuó como si se pretendiera proteger al Perú de esa población” (Tomo I 221). 134 happen, as if their worst crimes included a few roundups of innocent citizens and a failure to provide more protection for indigenous communities—a dangerous misrepresentation of their participation in the guerra interna, where it has been shown that they propogated violence as they ostensibly worked to restore peace.

Incomplete Humanization of Sendero Luminoso:

As mentioned above, the main focus of the film appears to fall squarely on

Sendero Luminoso. As will be discussed in this analysis, the representation of the senderistas is complicated: while Aguilar clearly attempts to humanize their representation, the film ultimately appears to attribute most of the brutality and violence of the conflict in general to Sendero Luminoso, which may cancel out any humanizing characteristics. During the course of the movie, viewers are introduced to three main members in particular (Wilmer, Carmen, and Yeni), as well as one of their sympathizers

(Fermín) in Juan’s hometown. The very presence of Sendero Luminoso in Juan’s hometown perplexes Valdez Morgan who reflects that, given that Fermín is the only known sympathizer in town, “Dentro de la verosimilitud con la cual se nos presenta el conflicto armado interno, no cabe la presencia del PCP-SL en una comunidad en la que no contaba con cierto grado de apoyo” (135). Regardless of this question of authenticity, the organization plays a primary role in the film.

One of the strategies used by Aguilar to humanize the representation of the members of Sendero Luminoso is to lend a set of maternal characteristics to the two main women in the group, Carmen and Yeni. During the first few moments in which viewers are introduced to each of these women, they appear to fulfill the role of what Sjoberg and

135 Gentry describe as the “nurturing mother terrorist” (33). In this scenario, they explain,

“The nurturing mother terrorist is fairly non-threatening. She is still a terrorist, revolutionary, genocidaire or criminal, but one does not have to worry too much about her personal violence” (33). Yeni, in particular, appears to fulfill this role. During Juan’s first day with the organization, she approaches him with a smile and reassures him during their training. She also gets him to eat and spends time talking with him on the shore of the lake where the group is based. Even as she is shouting Sendero slogans during the morning training session, she seems more like a teacher than a violent fighter. While

Carmen is clearly more strict from the very beginning, she also has moments which lend her a maternal air. When Juan hangs back from the group, Carmen comes up behind him and accuses him of wanting to escape. As he begins to cry and deny it, she reassures him and tells him that she believes him and then challenges him to a foot race to catch up with the rest of the group. In this moment, she appears to be a mother who scolds a child for misbehaving, but then creates a game to motivate the child to do what she wants. Her most maternal moment, however, comes during the battle in Juan’s hometown, when she is clearly horrified by Yeni’s death and holds her lifeless body, crying, until she is pulled away by a fellow senderista in order to escape.

Placing both Yeni and Carmen in the role of mother, even for a very brief time, is a significant step in their humanization. As Sjoberg and Gentry note, this position makes both women seem less threatening, even with the knowledge that they belong to a terrorist organization. Furthermore, they can be seen as falling in line with the expectations which accompany their assumed gender. In the words of Sjoberg and

Gentry, in their maternal roles they operate “within the woman’s ‘field of honour’” since

136 “mothering violent men is mothering no less” (33). I would caution, though, that the potential consideration of Yeni and Carmen as mothers creates an even more impactful shock when they commit acts of violence. In this stark contrast, I would argue that they approach Sjoberg and Gentry’s “monster” narrative, which consequently strips them of their femininity and, more importantly, of their humanity.

Since women who fulfill the traditional gender role of the docile, caring woman are not supposed to be capable of violence, Sjoberg and Gentry argue that violent women are often times classified as “monsters,” or women with a “biological flaw that disrupts their femininity” and therefore permits them to commit acts of violence (36). They posit that the classification of monster “takes away not only violent women’s agency” by accounting for their violence through a biological flaw and therefore stripping women of the possiblity of any true ideological motivation for their crimes. Additionally, it renders them inhuman “by stripping them of rational thought” (41). This very thought process can be employed to account for the violence committed by both Carmen and Yeni.

During the discussion between Carmen and Juan regarding his consideration of escape, which I employed above to demonstrate her maternal qualities, Carmen also shows a strong propensity for violence. When she accuses Juan of wanting to escape, she also explains the consequences if he were to go through with it, namely that she will not kill him, but will instead find and kill his mother. Her violent actions only increase during the film, and a particularly shocking moment comes after the capture of the military commander who had insinuated that he would rape Yeni. Juan is assigned to kill the commander, but cannot bring himself to do it. As he stands in front of the commander, crying, Carmen literally forces Juan hand as she puts her hand over his and makes him

137 stab and kill the commander. By the end of the film, she is fully engaged in the battle between Sendero Luminoso and the defense patrol of Juan’s hometown, and even directly fires on Juan’s mother, killing her. Yeni is not shown engaging in as many violent acts as

Carmen, but her scenes are no less gruesome. In spite of Yeni’s first appears as a smiley, friendly face, she is the one who forces Juan from his hiding spot after his escape from the group by threatening to kill his mother and cut out her tongue if he does not come out.

To prove her point, she takes a chicken from the barn and kills it with her knife without so much as flinching. Yeni also takes part in the final battle, though her participation is very short-lived. She is seen crying against the side of a building as the battle rages in the background, but she musters the courage to participate and stands up as she begins to open fire. She is killed immediately, but proves her ability to participate in such a violent activity.

It is not only through these violent moments themselves, but particularly in the contrast between these and the more maternal moments of Yeni and Carmen that viewers lose sight of any humanity in the women. Furthermore, neither character ever provides a rationalization for their participation in Sendero Luminoso, which only contributes to the support of an idea like the one put forth by the monster narrative. Considering that they both choose to fall outside of the generally assigned qualities of femininity and have no rational motivation for participating in a violent organization, viewers may find no other explanation for their actions than to consider that there must be something “wrong” with them. These and other violent moments stand in stark contrast to the brief glimpses of kindness or humanity seen on these characters’ faces and greatly diminish the efficacy of this attempt by Aguilar.

138 Of the Sendero leaders shown in the film, Wilmer is by far the most developed character. He is the undisputed leader of the cell to which Juan is brought and he is typically shown to be all business as he leads the training exercises and stands stoically in the face of dangerous or unfortunate situations. During Juan’s first few days with the group, however, Wilmer is briefly depicted in a paternal light and Barrow describes him as fulfilling “to some degree the paternal role that is missing from Juan’s life by instructing and guiding him in his new environment, offering him a purpose in life that transcends individual concerns and freedoms” (274). This paternal characteristic is most definitely subordinated to Wilmer’s role as cell leader, however, and dissipates pretty quickly as Juan begins to train in earnest with the group.

Though Wilmer is not necessarily a main character in the movie in general, appearing only in a few key moments and having little dialogue, he is crucial in that he serves to provide some basic insight into the ideology behind Sendero Luminoso. It is this sort of dialogue which also provides the rationalization for his actions during the rest of the film, something which is clearly lacking in the representation of both Carmen and

Yeni. During the first few days of Juan’s training, Wilmer sits down with him to explain the reasons behind Sendero’s actions. Wilmer asks Juan what he would like to be when he grows up and then asks “¿Y a ti te gustaría que cuando seas herrero y tengas mucha plata, que haya gente que se muere de hambre?” (Paloma de papel). Juan, of course, answers that he does not and says that he would give those people money and bread to help them. When Wilmer suggests that what Juan should really do is not charge them for his work, Juan worries about his own financial situation and asks what he should do if he wants to buy something, like a cookie, and doesn’t have any money. Wilmer explains that

139 he wouldn’t have to worry because he wouldn’t be charged either for the things he wants, prompting a hesitant smile from Juan as he asks if the cookie would be free. Wilmer’s response sums up the purpose of Sendero Luminoso in very basic terms: “Nosotros queremos que así sea y peleamos por eso. Por eso luchamos contra el gobierno reaccionario, la burguesía y la autoridad del sistema semi-feudal, ¿entiendes? Queremos cambiar para mejorar. Pero hay gente mala que no quiere esos cambios. Por eso nosotros luchamos contra ellos” (Paloma de papel). According to Barrow, this scene is “pivotal” because it “addresses the most fundamental aspects of Marxist/Maoist thought on which the Sendero manifesto was based” (274). Its importance is also magnified when one considers the fact that this scene is the only one of its kind in the entire movie and the only contextualization provided for Sendero violence throughout the entire film.

Federico de Cárdenas, in his review of Paloma de papel, likens the film to a children’s story and uses this very scene between Wilmer and Juan to support his claim.

According to de Cárdenas, this conversation attempts to “reducir la jerga senderista y hacerla comprensible” even to a child (“Paloma de papel”). Barrow agrees and states that

“Wilmer, assuming a mask of kindness and benevolence, makes his argument gently but unequivocally using language and examples that make the theory plausible and comprehensible to a child” (275). She continues to explain that “Juan has difficulty understanding the abstract concepts of elitism, corruption, reactionary government and semi-feudal systems, but grasps the simple fact that people are hungry, that the existing conditions are unfair for many, and is seduced by the chance to participate in making life better for people like him and his community” (275). This idea can be extrapolated to understand that the purpose of this very simplified conversation is to make clear the end

140 goal of Sendero Luminoso in a way which can be understood by all viewers of the movie in an attempt to prevent their representation as a group which was violent for violence’s sake.

Wilmer’s conversation with Juan is not unlike a common strategy used by

Sendero Luminoso in the ideological training of their recruits. As Hazleton and Woy-

Hazleton explain, “Since the party’s objective is not depth of understanding, but political and personal commitment, its ideology is presented in ways that make few demands on sympathizers. Basic ideas are usually compressed into a sentence or two, and repeated over and over in political lectures and tracts” (73). It would appear, then, that Wilmer intends to employ basic, easy-to-comprehend ideas in order to convince Juan enough to win his loyalty to the organization. Though Juan is intrigued by the idea of not having to pay for cookies, though, his excitement is short lived as he begins to think about the violence that has already accompanied this perspective. He questions Wilmer regarding the death of Pacho’s father because he was killed even though, as Juan puts it, “No era malo” (Paloma de papel). Even when Wilmer explains that Pacho’s father didn’t want the positive change that Sendero was fighting for, Juan remains quiet, seemingly unconvinced by his argument. Though he might be seduced by the Sendero convictions, he definitely does not appear to agree with their methods.

Though they are only briefly alluded to or discussed in the film, it is important to remember the historical context out of which Sendero Luminoso developed and the reality-based reasons which led to its creation. Aguilar is to be commended for acknowledging these ideas even briefly in Wilmer’s conversation with Juan because it is easy to simply portray the members of Sendero Luminoso as crazy, bloodthirsty villains.

141 This justification, however, is nearly nullified by the fact that the most disturbing acts of violence during the movie are committed entirely by Sendero Luminoso; that is, that the group ends up appearing to be one with good, if perhaps lofty, motivations, but which ultimately was responsible for the massive amounts of violence during the war. It is this same contradiction which plagues Juan: agreeing in general with the motivation behind the Sendero movement, but disagreeing with the violent way in which they attempted to implement their ideas.

Employing again Zizek’s discourse on violence, I posit the violent acts committed throughout the film by Sendero Luminoso reinforce my claim of an emphasis on subjective violence which consequently occults the objective violence from which the conflict developed. As discussed in the historico-political contextualization of the conflict between Sendero Luminoso and the State, the region from which Sendero Luminoso developed had traditionally been either repressed or completely ignored by State policies.

Additionally, the rural populations of Peru had been marginalized and considered backwards and inferior to their urban counterparts. The State’s role in these issues, which would have been attributed to “the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems,” is never addressed in the film, however (Zizek 2). Though Wilmer alludes to it in his discussion with Juan, it is not framed in terms of a system perpetuated by the State.

Similarly to what will be seen below in Yoyes, the focus is placed largely on the acts of subjective violence committed by Sendero Luminoso in response to the objective violence which had been committed for a long time by the State. Added to the fact that acts of subjective violence by the State are shown only briefly and sparsely throughout the film, the State avoids much of the blame, which consequently falls squarely on

142 Sendero’s shoulders65. In this regard, it is helpful to examine two specific kinds of violence in the film: that which is committed towards the Sendero Luminoso members themselves, and that committed towards Peruvians in general. Additionally, I will examine the kinds of support which Sendero Luminoso receives throughout the film.

Though adults are included in the Sendero community portrayed in the movie, many of the shots of the group include a particular focus on the child soldiers recruited or kidnapped by Sendero. This was a documented strategy employed by Sendero Luminoso during the guerra interna66 and Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez has recently published his autobiographical account of his time as a child soldier, as well as his life since then, in

Memorias de un soldado desconocido: Autobiografía y antropología de la violencia67.

Gavilán Sánchez’s account provides a useful counterpoint to various aspects of the film, especially considering that he first joined Sendero Luminoso of his own free will and gives a detailed account of his life after his time with the organization—information that viewers do not have from Juan. The existence of child soldiers, then, cannot be denied and the impact that it had on the social structures of the communities it affected cannot be understated. I argue, however, that Aguilar’s focus on child soldiers does very little to

65 The atrocities committed by Sendero Luminoso cannot be denied and should not be ignored. Focusing primarily on their acts of violence, however, makes it appear that they were the only ones responsible for this kind of violence during the guerra interna, which has been proven to be far from the truth. 66 According to the Informe final, “La aprehensión y la utilización de niños y niñas en las hostilidades es una práctica generalizada y sistematica que Sendero Luminoso usó desde el inicio del conflicto” (Tomo VI 613). 67 Carlos Iván Degregori, one of the most prominent scholars of the guerra interna praised Memorias de un soldado desconocido in his prologue to the work, where he writes that it “contribuye a la humanización de los senderistas, especialmente los de base; a superar la visión simplista de que fueron una suerte de “encarnación del mal”. Fueron cientos los niños-soldado y miles los adolescentes o adultos que fueron ganados, en muchos casos solo temporalmente, por el discurso y las acciones de SL. No fueron extraterrestres llegados de alguna galaxia muy lejana” (14). I would caution that Degregori’s concept of “humanización” would mean that the members of Sendero Luminoso are portrayed as figures who are combinations of both good and evil, as the details of many of their violent actions are not spared in Gavilán Sánchez’s work. 143 help him accomplish the goal of the humanization of the organization. While I am aware that his intended humanization of Sendero members does not necessarily include the defense of their methods or their actions, I posit that scenes in the film which focus on young children shouting Sendero slogans, learning how to make and fire weapons, and living in rudimentary camps in the middle of the countryside has the effect of bestowing upon Sendero Luminoso the quality of being inherently evil, which is in direct contrast to the goal stated by Aguilar68.

Viewers are aware of the events leading up to Juan’s capture and forced participation in Sendero Luminoso, but he is not the only child to have come into the group in this way. Sitting with Yeni and Modesto, one young recruit who had befriended

Juan, Juan listens as Modesto describes in horrific detail the circumstances surrounding his capture as he draws a version of the scene in the sand on the shores of the lake.

Modesto says: “Esta es mi casa que se está quemando. Hay mucho fuego…Hay dos compañeros más. Uno tiene un arma y el otro tiene una piedra, y con esa piedra le está rompiendo la cabeza a mi papá mientras acá, acá mi mamá me está agarrando de la mano mientras yo estaba llorando. Antes yo lloraba” (Paloma de papel). He goes on to say that his father died and that he was brought to the group, along with his mother who later died of an illness, when he was eight years old. He says it was hard for him to integrate into the group at first because the group members told him that his father was “un imperialista reaccionario,” which he understands now to be a bad thing, and says that he now fights for his country and his “compañeros,” and that people like him are needed to save the country from deteriorating into a condition like that of the United States, “donde todos

68 I do not deny that scenes like these occurred during the guerra interna. I simply argue that, considering Aguilar’s goal of humanizing the Sendero members, scenes like these may have the opposite effect. 144 son malos” (Paloma de papel). Where Juan is intrigued by Sendero’s motivations but unconvinced by their methods, Modesto seems to have developed, at least outwardly, an unwavering commitment to the cause.

Interestingly enough, Gavilán Sánchez was about the same age as both Juan and

Modesto when he joined Sendero Luminoso, as he says that he was 12 the day he set out to meet up with the group. His method of entry into Sendero Luminoso was very different, as he had made up his mind to join Sendero and sought out the leader who could facilitate his entry, but the kind of ideological inculcation that is evident in

Modesto’s speech is also present in Gavilán Sánchez’s story. Where Modesto describes fighting against “imperialistas reaccionarios,” like his father apparently was, the main focus in Gavilán Sánchez’s record is that of eliminating the “soplones,” the residents of local towns who would divulge the Sendero presence to the military authorities69.

Gavilán Sánchez does not necessarily appear to be as convinced of the need to eliminate these people as Modesto, but he clearly went along with it and recounts his participation in a number of “eliminations” during his time with Sendero.

Though they are children, the young soldiers in the film are expected to carry out dangerous missions and put their lives at risk for the cause. In different moments of the film Modesto and Yeni lose their lives as a result of their participation with Sendero.

Modesto is sent on a night mission shortly after the scene by the lake with Yeni and Juan and returns gravely injured and missing most of his left leg after a problem with an explosion. As he is laying on the ground, bleeding to death, he is trying desperately not to

69 Gavilán Sánchez notes in one particular case that “Nuestro objetivo era eliminar a los yanaumas en las comunidades campesinas. Así, nuestra visita a la comunidad de Tankar no fue de paseo. Los mandos, con los ‘mil ojos y mil oídos,’ se habían enterado que dos personas de dicha comunidad iban a la base militar de San Miguel para avisar de nuestro paradero. Y esas personas debían ser eliminadas inmediatamente” (69). 145 cry and repeatedly shouts “Yo no lloro” (Paloma de papel). He finally asks to be killed in order to not be a burden on the group, and Wilmer shoots him point blank to put him out of his misery, though this occurs off camera and viewers only see Wilmer’s face as it happens. Occurring at night, the camera focuses tightly on Modesto’s face during a large part of this scene, making it impossible to look away or focus on anything else, as the entire background is pitch black. Not only is it emotional for viewers to see such a young boy so gravely wounded and asking to be killed in order to not be a burden, but it is also difficult to see the faces of the other young children in the group as they watch the situation unfold and bear witness to Modesto’s terrible death.

Considering again Aguilar’s intent to humanize the representation of Sendero

Luminoso in the film, a different reaction to Modesto’s death could have better supported his goal. Gavilán Sánchez remembers that, during his time with Sendero Luminoso,

“Llorar era normal. Llorábamos cuando un compañero se marchaba a otro sitio, cuando moría en una emboscada. Hasta nuestros mandos lloraban. Éramos seres humanos tan iguales como los campesinos o los que vivían en otras partes del mundo” (72). While much of the information in Gavilán Sánchez’s autobiography helps to support the representation of the child soldier experience in the film, this situation is a significant departure from the film. As the camera focuses in on individual faces in the crowd during this scene, including those of Carmen, Yeni, and Juan, it is clear that everyone is doing their best not to cry. Even Wilmer, tasked with ending Modesto’s misery by ending his life, clearly struggles with having to shoot him, but clenches his jaw and steadies his face before firing the shot. Afterwards, the mood is hardly celebratory as the group members gather around small fires at the site where they are staying, but no one shows any great

146 deal of emotion. It seems as though this scene would have been a particularly significant opportunity to show an emotional side of the Sendero Luminoso members. For film purposes it would have allowed them to mourn the loss of one of their group, but also it could have helped establish the notion that they were, as Galiván Sánchez puts it, “seres humanos tan iguales como los campesinos o los que vivían en otras partes del mundo”

(72). Instead, their steely resolve not to cry and the lack of open emotion displayed by the group members renders them detached and cold, two aspects which do not help humanize them to viewers.

Towards the end of the film, during the battle between Sendero Luminoso and the ronda of Juan’s hometown, Yeni becomes the second young casualty of the group.

Though she clearly holds a leadership position in the group and shows herself to be fearless and even violent on different occasions during the film, viewers are reminded in this scene just how young she is as she is shown, terrified, crying, and hiding behind a building during the battle. Regardless of her dedication to the cause, it is obvious that the threat of real violence is still terrifying to her and the frames which focus on her crying face make her look much more like an innocent little girl who just happens to be holding a weapon than a hardened guerrilla. With tears still on her face, she finally summons the courage to enter the battle, but is quickly killed by multiple gunshots as she begins to fire on the ronda. Carmen runs to her and cradles her body, crying as a mother would grieve a child, and this is the last clear image that viewers see of Yeni, leaving them with the image of a girl who was forced to be brave and died for the cause, even if she was entirely too young. I would argue that this is one of the most successful moments in terms of making one of the Sendero members a relatable human being instead of just an

147 insurgent. This is one of the few scenes that serves to remind viewers that, as Ramón

Pajuelo notes in “El libro de la memoria o las ideas y vueltas de la vida de Lurgio

Gavilán en la vorágine de la violencia,” the actors in the conflicto interno were “hombres y mujeres reales” (“El libro de la memoria”). Given that Yeni is clearly an insurgent figure, this humanizing moment is even more important in reminding viewers that the members of Sendero Luminoso, in spite of the atrocities that many of them committed, were still human beings with emotions just like everyone else. As is the case with

Modesto’s death, however, the camera quickly cuts away as the battle rages on, leaving viewers very little time to reflect on Yeni’s death.

Apart from the violence experienced by their own members, Sendero Luminoso is also shown to be responsible for a number of violent acts towards both the military and the campesino population. They are responsible for the deaths of the soldiers at the military checkpoint and the stabbing death of the surviving soldier, though there is never any violence shown on behalf of the armed forces towards Sendero Luminoso.

Furthermore, in addition to the death of Pacho’s father and the allusion to their role in the death of Juan’s father a number of years before the film, they kill various members of the ronda during the battle in Juan’s hometown, as well as Fermín and Domitila. Though it is obvious that there is a general sense of fear surrounding the idea of Sendero Luminoso or the terrucos, especially since even Juan and his friends are aware of the danger as young children, there is no discussion during the movie that would indicate the level of support of the group within the town or even within the general area. When members of the group are seeing collecting supplies from campesinos and store owners, then, the indication is that those people are forced to hand over their supplies. When Juan and Yeni visit a store,

148 for instance, they collect supplies as Yeni holds up the store owner at gunpoint. Instead of providing true support, it appears that these people are simply trying to survive by giving

Sendero what they want, an attitude which represents a common dilemma faced by many campesinos during the guerra interna.

The only character in the film who appears to willingly support Sendero

Luminoso is Juan’s stepfather, Fermín. His character is significant for this reason, as it is the only instance which provides any insight to the characteristics of a any sort of

Sendero supporter, at least according to Aguilar’s representation. Fermín is Juan’s stepfather and is a sullen, mean man who is an alcoholic. He speaks very little during the film, but his snippets of dialogue play into his hostile character: one of the first times viewers hear his voice is when he is behind closed doors beating Juan for playing in the mud and dirtying his clothes, and after Juan’s disappearance he threatens Pancho and

Rosita if they tell anyone. Valdez Morgan confirms that Fermín “es presentado como individualidad casi maligna y se le atribuyen antivalores como la cobardía, la agresividad y el alcoholismo.” (134). Despite Fermín’s seemingly violent disposition, however, there is also a rather pathetic aspect to his character. Though he is a Sendero supporter, he clearly holds no power within the group, and, though he obviously has enough economic power to provide for Domitila and Juan, he does not seem to hold any sort of political or social power in town. Any shred of power or dignity that he might have attempted to maintain quickly disappears as he spends the last few minutes of his time in the film pleading for his life with the senderistas.

While viewers are aware that Fermín supports Sendero Luminoso, there is never any discussion of what led him to support them or if he even understands or agrees with

149 their motives and doctrine. It is insinuated that his association with Sendero is beneficial to him in terms of material goods, as he is able to provide for Domitila and Juan, but other than that one hint, he doesn’t ever openly receive any sort of benefit from them. It also isn’t clear what he actually does to support Sendero Luminoso; it is insinuated that he had a hand in the death of Pacho’s father, but his real role is never made clear. As

Valdez Morgan comments, “No se le va haciendo trabajo político ni manejando un discurso propio de un miembro del PCP-SL” (134). Furthermore, Fermín doesn’t fit the

“typical” profile of a Sendero recruit; Hazleton and Woy-Hazleton explain that

“Sendero’s recruits have largely been young, lower middle class mestizos from provincial cities and towns, not peasants. Many are either high school or college students who come to feel that because of their ethnic and cultural backgrounds, their education will not necessarily secure them employment or a place in Peru’s traditional class structure (73).

This isn’t to say that someone like Fermín couldn’t have supported Sendero Luminoso, but given the traditional makeup of their cadre, he certainly doesn’t represent the majority.

Conclusions

The movie begins to wrap up with the battle scene between Sendero Luminoso and the ronda. Valdez Morgan maintains that the battle scene affirms the implausable character of the film in general, which can be seen “en el momento en que los senderistas llevan a cabo a un ajusticiamiento popular en la plaza del pueblo, con las Fuerzas

Armadas en las cercanías y la ronda campesinda buscándolos en las afueras del pueblo”

(135). The fact that the ronda would somehow be out of town and unaware of the

150 situation is perplexing, given that their job would have been to protect the town itself and not to head out into the countryside to hunt down senderistas. Even with the ronda searching for them, the senderistas “llevan a cabo parte del ajusticiamiento antes que los ronderos desaten una batalla campal en la plaza” (Valdez Morgan 135). Unconvincing as it may be, however, Valdez Morgan does find an important significance in this final battle; according to his interpretation of this scene, the deaths of both senderistas and members of the ronda serves to “enfatizar que hubo pérdidas de todos los sectores”

(135). In this situation, it would appear that the members of the ronda serve more as a representation of the State than of the campesino population, as the binary is drawn during the battle in opposition to Sendero Luminoso. The difficulty in drawing these lines, however, is representative of the number of directions in which the campesino population was pulled during the conflicto interno, as well as the number of outside forces that acted upon the population, many times in the commission of violence.

Though the movie appears to excessively attribute the violence of the guerra interna to Sendero Luminoso, I don’t mean to indicate that Sendero Luminoso was not responsible for a number of heinous, horrific crimes and a campaign of terror during the guerra interna or to excuse their actions based on their motive. The only point to be made here is that, by focusing so much on the violence perpetrated by one side of the conflict, the State largely escapes criticism and the blame appears to be placed squarely on the shoulders of only one side, when the information from the CVR report proves that both sides committed an unacceptable amount of crimes against the humanity of Peru. As

Jon Beasley-Murray explains, “presenting the conflict through the eyes of a child tends to stress the conflict at the price of losing the politics” (“Accidental”). By focusing more on

151 the violence experienced during the film—and, by extension, during the conflict— without contextualizing it historically, viewers are left with an incomplete picture of a period of violence that appears to have no cause, no rationalization, and a bleak future.

Barrows comments in particular are useful in referring back to the contribution made by Paloma de papel to the overall development of a collective memory surrounding the guerra interna. She highlights the added weight the film carried due to its release nearly simultaneously with the Final Report of the CVR and its Oscar nomination, and cautions that the shortfalls of the film could have a larger impact than normal on the way it is received by viewers (264). According to Barrow, Aguilar:

seems to resist the notion of social fragmentation and does not discuss—

even when invited—the potential hazards of conveying the complex and

traumatic experiences of the highland population of Peru via a national

fiction film centered on one boy’s adventures that might, given its funding

awards and its Oscar nomination, be taken as synonymous for the entire

conflict”(264).

She continues to explain that “This broader understanding of the film arises in part as a result of the timing of its release, and its inevitable connection to events that affected the very fabric of Peruvian society and the way the nation imagined itself” (264). If this film is taken to be representative of the entire conflict, as Barrow suggests, viewers might walk away having an incomplete, and at times historically inaccurate, picture of what really happened during that time. Additionally, if we consider once more Aguilar’s intent to humanize the Sendero Luminoso members, viewers are able to catch only fleeting

152 glimpses of their humanity in between a number of horrifically violent acts which I believe almost completely stifle this undertaking.

153

Part 2: Spain

In Ethnicity and Violence: The Case of Radical Basque Nationalism, Diego Muro aptly describes the “Basque problem” as a “two-level nationalist conflict” involving, on one level, a military conflict between ETA and the Spanish national government and, on the second level, a socio-political conflict which “opposes two coherent ideas of national belonging and territorial demarcation” (3-4). Though the interest of this project lies in the representation of the first level of conflict, it is impossible to discuss the Basque problem without including the history of both aspects. This chapter will describe the development of Basque nationalism through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to contextualize the appearance of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna – “Basque Homeland and

Freedom”) in the middle of the twentieth century. I will then outline the trajectory of this organization over the years and briefly discuss their role as the subject of Spanish film and literature.

At the most basic level, it can be said that the Basque conflict stems from an idea of Basque identity which seeks to protect a culture it views as unique and also to gain political autonomy, even to the extent of separate self-rule. Santiago de Pablo describes main tenants of Basque national identity in The Basque Nation On-Screen: Cinema,

154 Nationalism, and Political Violence. According to de Pablo, “The edifice of Basque nationalism was erected upon several pillars of distinctive sociocultural identity: the conservation of the Basque language, Euskara, especially in the countryside; the deeply rooted Catholicism of the inhabitants of the Basque Country70; and the ongoing existence of the fueros” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 17). These fueros were particularly significant because they were a set of laws which granted certain powers to individual regions while still linking these regions to the central Spanish government. In the Basque

Country, for example, each of the provinces enjoyed a high degree of self-rule “based on a coherent system of councils (at both the municipal and provincial level) that were sovereign within their province” (Watson 32). Furthermore, each province enjoyed rights such as “the power to tax property and to mobilize soldiers, not being automatically subject to the authority of the royal army” and the right to “review and possibly to veto any laws introduced by the king” (Watson 32). In a symbolic ceremony that pledged the protection of these fueros, all incoming Spanish monarchs “had to travel to the Basque provinces in order to swear an oath of loyalty to their fueros” (Watson 32). This structure, which was in place for hundreds of years following the unification of the Spanish kingdoms, granted a high level of autonomy to the Basque Region. Conversely, the discontinuation of the fueros ultimately led to the birth of the Basque nationalist movement, as will be seen below.

70 The Basque Country in this sense refers to a geographical territory covering the north of Spain and the south of France, and traditionally includes seven regions: Araba, Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, and Nafarroa (Navarra) in Spain, and Lapurdi, Nafarroa Beherea, and Zuberoa in France. 155 Nineteenth-Century Historical Developments:

The nineteenth century was significant for a number of reasons in the Basque region and in the Spanish nation. Political instability at the national level rocked the country for most of the century, largely due to the Carlist Wars71. When Fernando VII died in 1833 after a twenty-year absolutist rule, he named his infant daughter, Isabel, to succeed him instead of his younger brother, Don Carlos María Isidro. This decision resulted in a dynastic struggle which, as Watson notes, brought to the forefront a number of divisive issues “in a Spain stumbling in its evolution from a traditional to a modern society” (35). In this conflict, the supporters of Isabel II were aligned with a more liberal agenda and viewpoint due in large part to a focus on secularization, while those supporters of don Carlos, the Carlists, fought to protect the traditional values and customs of Spain. Watson spells out the beliefs of the Carlists, explaining that “Carlism was a rural, religious, and traditional sociopolitical outlook, reflecting the fears of a society under threat from the escalating importance of secular capitalism” and that “regional liberties were central to the ideological formation of Carlism” (35). This political and ideological division led to multiple brutal civil wars in Spain during the nineteenth century: the First Carlist War from 1833 to 1839 and the Second Carlist War72 from 1873 to 1876.

71 There is an extensive body of work which explores much more deeply the Carlist Wars. See, for example, the works cited here from Diego Muro, Cameron J. Watson, and Santiago de Pablo. Additionally, consult works such as Jordi Canal’s El carlismo: dos siglos de contrarrevolución en España (2000); El carlismo y las guerras carlistas: hechos, hombres e ideas (2003) by Julio Aróstegui, Jordi Canal i Morelli, and Eduardo González Calleja; or Las guerras carlistas (2006) by Antonio M Moral Roncal. 72 Some scholars consider this war the Third Carlist War, following what they deem to be the Second Carlist War from 1846-1849. Others, such as the scholars discussed here, consider the political conflict from 1846-1849 to have been too minor to be considered a “war”, therefore disregarding it as part of the series of Carlist Wars and naming the war from 1873-1876 the Second Carlist War. 156 The Basques, in their support of Carlism, were important players in the First

Carlist War. According to Watson, “The conflict began, ended, and was largely conduected as a guerrilla war in which Basques, well schooled in this type of warfare73, played a prominent role” (35). This is not to say that all Basques were Carlists, either; “it was…a struggle in which different sections of Basque society allied with one or another of the competing forces” (Watson 36). He further contends that “It was not a war of national liberation, but rather a conflict between two ideas, two different versions of what actually constituted Spain: the aforementioned liberal and traditionalist visions” (36). The war itself was bloody and brutal, with a great number of atrocities committed by both sides. Ultimately, the Carlists were unable to win the war outside of their own geographical territory, and the Compromise of Bergara was signed in August of 1839, effectively ending the First Carlist War. This treaty took up the issue of the fueros, but referred a decision on their continuance to the monarchy. A few months later, “a law was passed that, although actually confirming the Basque fueros, also stipulated that they should not infringe the constitutional unity of Spain” (Watson 36). By removing the power to veto laws handed down by the monarchy, this new law began to chip away at the overall power of the fueros and, consequently, of the regional governments.

The second half of the nineteenth century was rife with political instability in

Madrid, including the Gloriosa Revolution in 1868 that forced Isabel II to abdicate the throne and flee to exile. After a series of changes of hands, which saw the government under the power of liberals and then Carlists, the Second Carlist War erupted in 1873. As

Watson explains, “The immediate cause of the Second Carlist War was the proclamation

73 Watson postulates that “The strength of Carlism lay in the rural Basque peasantry, and it was from this peasantry that the Basque culture of guerrilla warfare emerged” (36). 157 of the first Spanish Republic, a radical, anticlerical regime that for the first time distanced itself from any constitutional arrangements with potential monarchs” (37). The Carlists again enjoyed strong support from the Basques, but were ultimately defeated in 1876. It was at this point that Alfonso XII, the son of Isabel II, assumed the throne “in an Alliance with moderate and conservative liberals” (37). Most importantly for the Basques, the

1876 Constitution created in the wake of the Second Carlist War completely eliminated the fueros.

For Diego Muro, the defeat of the Carlists in the Second Carlist War was an undeniable turning point in the consolidation of a common Basque identity that would eventually develop into what would be deemed today nationalism. At the root of the impact of this war was the issue of the fueros; though they hadn’t been a central point of the First Carlist War, by the Second Carlist War the Carlist motto had evolved from Dios,

Patria, Rey to Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey (Muro 47). When the fueros were finally eliminated by Alfonso XII, widespread discontent radiated throughout the Basque

Country and, as Muro notes, “for the first time, the defense of the fueros was unanimous, regardless of political orientation…Even though not all the provinces were equally

Carlist and many urban liberals were not against the fueros, the abolition produced an indignant body of citizens which mourned together and shared a common discontent with

Spain” (47). As will be seen below, this sense of general discontent would be used to garner support for the first official signs of Basque nationalism with the founding of the

Basque Nationalist Party.

Though the loss of legal autonomy was tough for Basques to swallow, the economic and social changes which swept the region after the 1876 Constitution

158 drastically changed not only the way that business was done in the Basque Country but also the face of the region itself. In the background of the political turmoil enveloping

Spain during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Basque Country had begun to experience marked economic growth due to a process of modernization linked to the processing of steel. Muro notes that this modernization was most notable in Biscay, due to the invention of the Bessemer process in 1855, which “required a low phosphorous iron, hematite, which was difficult to find in industrialized areas of Europe and was only widely available in Biscay and Sweden” (51). Muro also signals the advantages of Biscay over the hematite in Sweden, notably that “the Basque mines had three geographical advantages: they were open (which eliminated the need for expensive digging), were closet to the coast, and enjoyed mild climate that allowed for exploitation all year round”

(51). Between the discovery of this mineral in the area and the laws in the 1876

Constitution which relaxed restrictions on foreign capital and established lower taxation rates, the area around Biscay exploded with economic success74 and a huge wave of immigrants who wanted to claim their share of it.

One of the unintended consequences of this rapid industrialization was, as Watson illustrates, “a social diversification previously unknown in the Basque provinces” as people came from all over Spain to look for work (41). In concrete numbers, Watson demonstrates that the population of Bizkaia rose to 350,000 from 190,000 over a period of around 30 years and that the population of Gipuzkoa rose from 167,000 to 227,000 over the same period (41). This conversion of Bizkaia from a small port town to an

74 Watson notes that “By the turn of the century, 21.5 percent of the world’s iron ore was produced in Spain, predominantly in Bizkaia” (41) and Muro claims that “The province of Biscay became the most economically advanced area of Spain in a matter of decades” (51). 159 industrial melting pot planted the seeds for a Basque nationalist movement, as sharp divisions began to emerge between an overcrowded and overworked working class and the “privileged industrialists who did not hesitate to show off their wealth by building palaces in the centre of the Biscayan capital” (Muro 53). The original, traditional, middle- class Basques looked on in horror as they witnessed the changes happening around them.

Muro neatly summarizes the social conflicts of this period with the following lines:

The unfolding class struggle between the socialist proletariat and the

industrial oligarchy was witnessed by an increasingly confused and

worried traditionalist bourgeoisie that wanted to keep the Basque

microcosm free from social unrest. After all, the process of

industrialisation had turned their world upside down in a matter of years

with the dismantlement of pre-industrial and agricultural modes of

production, the dissolution of traditional social relations, and the decline

of religious beliefs and the use of Euskara (53).

In an attempt to protect the aspects of their Basque-ness that they saw slipping from their grasp, this same “traditionalist bourgeoisie” banded together under a set of ideas which would come to form the tenets of the official Basque nationalism.

The Birth of Basque Nationalism:

The development of Basque nationalism is commonly traced to Sabino Policarpo de Arana y Goiri (Sabino Arana), a prominent Basque figure who wrote the fundamental text, Biskaya por su independencia, outlining the characteristics of the Basque community and differentiated it from that of Spaniards. Arana was born into a family that

160 was well off due to their participation in the shipbuilding and arms manufacturing industries. Watson points out, however, that, unlike many other middle class families at that time, Arana’s family was very traditional and his father was a staunch Carlist who had spent time in exile during the Second Carlist War (49). Arana himself witnessed the changes brought about by the 1876 Constitution during some of the most impressionable years of his life and saw firsthand the effects of the industrial capitalism that was sweeping the region. As Watson notes, “The Arana family…lost a lot of money through both its financial support for the Carlist cause and the restructuring of Basque shipbuilding from the traditional wooden to the modern iron-clad hulls” (49). In addition to witnessing the economic struggles of his family, it is said that his brother, Luis, had a great impact on his political ideology. According to Watson, “Luis convinced Sabino that the Basque people are distinct from the Spanish through their blood, race, and traditions and that those distinctive qualities had been endangered by the liberal victories of 1839 and 1876” (49). It is little wonder, then, that Sabino held such a negative opinion of the new wave of liberalism and industrial capitalism that was spreading like wildfire through the Basque Country.

As a result of his ideological formation and political beliefs, Arana published

Bizkaya por su independencia in 1892. Of this work, De Pablo comments that “On the basis of a legendary conceptualization of history that drew both from historical works that idealized the fueros and from nineteenth century Romantic literature, Arana contended that the Basque homeland was suffering under the yoke of Spanish domination” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 19). From this idea, Arana “constructed a movement characterized by traditional Catholicism, antiliberalism, antisocialism, and an

161 essentialist and racial conceptualization of a Basque nation whose origins reached far back into the dim mists of history” (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen 19). Arana felt that the only way to achieve this idealized Basque nation was through the isolation of the Basque Country from Spain (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen 19). Through the promotion of his ideology, Arana “introduced the new Basque-language name of the

Basque Country (Euzkadi or Euskadi), the national anthem, and the design of the national flag (the ikurriña), which he created with his brother Luis” (de Pablo, The Basque Nation

On-Screen 19). De Pablo also makes note of the fact that these identifying items “remain

(with certain small changes) officially in use in the Autonomous Community of the

Basque Country” (19). Arana also entered the political ring with the founding of the

BBB (Bizkai-Buru-Batzar), which would later turn into the Basque Nationalist Party

(PNV)75. Arana faced intense government repression and was jailed shortly after founding the PNV, which was closed down by the national government. In spite of the government pressure, Arana remained active with a number of groups and publications.

He was jailed again in 1902 after attempting to send President Roosevelt a congratulatory telegram regarding the liberation of Cuba from Spain. Though he only spent six months in jail, he contracted Addison’s disease and died at age thirty-eight on November 25th,

1903, less than a year after he was released (Muro 56).

Arana’s activities were continued by many others following his death. Muro notes that “To the government’s despair in Madrid, the death of the young nationalist did not bring peace to Spain” (56-7). Even in his death, Muro asserts, Arana left behind all of the necessary elements for the Basque nationalist movement, including the name of Euskadi,

75 The PNV, due to a number of splits and alliances, has had a number of variations on this original acronym. In the interest of consistency, I will use PNV throughout this chapter. 162 the design of the flag, a patriotic anthem (Gora ta Gora), and the date of what would become the Basque national holiday (Aberri Eguna – Day of the Fatherland) (58).

Despite Arana’s heritage, however, it was up to the remaining members of the group to decide the direction of the PNV in Arana’s absence. The group reorganized under the common goal of the restoration of the fueros and, upon its recognition as a legitimate political party, the Basque National Party entered the political world in Spain.

Growing Pains and the Early Twentieth Century:

The first decades of the twentieth century saw a flurry of activity in the Basque nationalist movement. As the political participation of the PNV increased, so too did the cultural activities of the party. During this time, as de Pablo explains, the PNV founded their first Juventud Vasca (Basque Youth Organization) in Bilbao and, “During the following years, the party established centers and periodicals in the other three provincial capitals of Donostia-San Sebastián, Iruñea-Pamplona, and Vitoria-Gasteiz” (The Basque

Nation On-Screen 22). Additionally, the party elected their first National Council in

1922, created a “Catholic and nationalist union” named Solidaridad de Obreros Vascos

(Basque Workers Solidarity), and in 1915, the PNV “gained representation in the

Diputación of the provincial government of Gipuzkoa” (de Pablo, The Basque Nation

On-Screen 22). The party was able to report on all of this activity in their daily newspaper, Euzkadi, which was founded in Bilbao in 1913 (de Pablo, The Basque Nation

On-Screen 22).

163 As a result of these and many other efforts76, the PNV experienced rapid growth in less than a decade. Watson reports that, “In 1909, it had 380 members in Bilbao. This figure rose to 1,000 in 1915, and the number of local chapters rose from twenty-five in

1904 to seventy-two in 1911” (101). As the PNV continued to expand, however, it began to experience serious growing pains. Amidst debates over the future of the party, during which the “hard-line elements who sought independence continued to express their opposition to the moderates who controlled the party”, Sabino Arana’s brother, Luis, was expelled from the party (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen 22). Additionally, in

1916 the party was renamed the Basque Nationalist Communion (CNV), which reflected the desire of the party to “follow a strictly moderate program, distancing itself from

Arana’s original radical vision” (Watson 101).

The conflicts within the party were only exacerbated by Spain’s political instability during the 1910s. According to Watson, since before the turn of the century the country had been suffering from “wave after wave of social protest, compounded by an increasingly corrupt political system that divided the country along class and national lines” and, by the end of the 1910s these crises has brought the country “to its knees”

(103). Spain began to rely heavily on its military to suppress unrest, and the nation saw a period of heavy street violence as protests and riots sprang up in cities all across the country. De Pablo argues that, due to the “antinationalist persecution on the part of the

Spanish authorities” that resulted from their attempt to regain control of the country, the gains made by the PNV in the previous decade were stifled (The Basque Nation On-

Screen 23). In turn, he postulates, “the radical elements of the party, which had kept a

76 For more detailed information of the methods used to grow the PNV, see Watson or de Pablo. 164 low profile in the face of the past success of the moderates, went back on the offensive”

(The Basque Nation On-Screen 23).

The tension within the party ultimately led to a split in 1921 when Elías

Gallastegui founded the Partido Nacionalista Vasco Aberriano77. According to de Pablo,

“The Aberriano schism did not result from any profound ideological differences regarding social or religious questions. Instead, it was the product of a difference between the two groups regarding the relationship between the Basque Country and Spain” (The

Basque Nation On-Screen 24). While the original PNV continued to advocate for autonomy through the restoration of the fueros, the newly formed party instead took complete independence from Spain as its final goal (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-

Screen 24). Spain’s political climate changed yet again in 1923, however, as Primo de

Rivera began a dictatorship that would last until 1930. During his rule, the more radical

Aberriano party suffered a great deal of repression, and many of the party leaders were forced into exile. The more moderate PNV, however, was able to continue a number of their activities, though, as de Pablo notes, “its publications were subject to governmental censorship and it was required to cease all political action and instead focus on cultural regeneration, the revival of the Basque language, and the promotion of Basque culture and sports” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 24). This period of time was especially significant for Basque nationalism in general as it became a sort of renaissance of Basque culture and helped to solidify the idea of what it meant to be Basque.

77 Gallastegui added Aberriano to the name of the party as a nod to Aberri, the weekly newspaper of the Juventud Vasca organization of Bilbao of which he had been the leader (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On- Screen 23). 165 After the resignation of Primo de Rivera in 1930 and the abdication of Alfonso

XIII in 1931, the Second Republic was installed in Spain. Concurrently, and partly as a result of the common struggle against Primo de Rivera’s authoritarian rule, the two

Basque nationalist parties rejoined under the original PNV name (Muro 81). The PNV was already facing ideological competition from a very strong Basque wing of the

Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), which reportedly stood at thirty thousand members in the early 1930s (Watson 130). Adding to the complexity of the situation, a separate faction of the PNV split to form its own party, the Basque Nationalist Action

(ANV). Watson explains that this party was “a liberal and nondenominational republican party that rejected the PNV’s reactionary traditionalism and sought a complete modernization of Basque nationalist ideology” (131). Soon after, there was yet another split led by a more radical wing of the group, Jagi Jagi (Arise, arise), which “sought outright independence in place of the official PNV goal of limited autonomy” (Watson

132). Furthermore, as a means of achieving this goal, the group advocated for “personal sacrifice through civil obedience” (Watson 132). Even with this split, however, the PNV maintained its influence, albeit unevenly in terms of geography, in the Basque Country, and continued to work towards Basque autonomy.

In March of 1932, the objectives of the PNV appeared to be almost within reach as they began working on a statute which, in line with the Republican Spanish constitution, would lead to Basque autonomy (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen

26). This process only highlighted the already existing divisions in Basque society, though, and in June of that year, “the majority of the Navarre city governments decided to reject inclusion in the new Basque statute” (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen

166 26). Now only representing three of the four territories, the PNV “repositioned itself in the center of the Basque political spectrum” in an attempt to garner support for their proposal (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen 26). Given the Republican control of

Parliament from 1933 until 1936, the PNV had to wait until the Popular Front gained control in 1936 for their proposal to be considered. According to de Pablo, approval of the statute “appeared to be imminent” in 1936 until the Civil War broke out on July 18 of that year (de Pablo, The Basque Nation On-Screen 27).

The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Years

From 1936 until 1939, Spain was embroiled in the bloodiest and most destructive political conflict of its recent history. On July 18, 1936, General Francisco Franco launched a coup against the government of the Second Republic and his troops would fight against the Republicans until their surrender in 1939. In terms of geography, the

Basque Country was split in its support of the Republic (in the regions of Bizkaia and

Gipuzkoa) and Franco and the Nationalists (Araba and Navarre) (de Pablo, The Basque

Nation On-Screen 27). The PNV, in its role as the voice of the Basque nation, supported the Republican government in an attempt to secure the passage of their autonomy statute.

As de Pablo reports, their alliance was solidified in October of 1936, “when the Basque autonomy statute was approved and the first Basque government in history, led by nationalist José Antonio Aguirre as lehendakari (president) was formed” (27). De Pablo cautions, however, that the participation of the PNV should not necessarily be seen as a fight against Franco, but that their primary goal was the protection of Basque freedom, which they saw threatened by a potential Franco triumph (27).

167 Official Basque participation the Civil War lasted only until June of 1937, when

Franco’s forces took control of Bilbao and the recently established Basque government was forced into exile. In the year between the launch of the war and the fall of Bilbao, however, the Basque Country witnessed a great deal of devastation. The most famous of the attacks is the air raid on Gernika on April 26, 1937. Muro details the disastrous effects of the raid which later inspired Picasso’s Guernica painting: “In only three hours, the combined efforts of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria levelled 90 per cent of Gernika, left 1,645 corpses, and broke the Basque spirit of resistance in preparation for the advance of ground forces” (88). As de Pablo notes, it was only a few months later that, “Having lost its territory, the Basque government went into exile, while the EAJ-PNV as a party chose to end its participation in the war, its troops separately surrendering to the Italian armies allied with Franco in the Santoña Agreement of August 1937” (29). There were PNV leaders who carried on with their support of the

Republicans from exile, but the region remained under control of Franco’s Nationalist troops until the official end of the Civil War in 1939.

Though Franco would be in power until his death in 1975, the first two decades of his rule were particularly repressive, especially in the Basque Country. Nationally, the

Law of Political Responsibilities of 1939 meant that “anyone who had supported the

Republic or had hindered the triumph of Franco’s forces since October 1934 would be subject to prosecution”, and the law enabled a massive wave of persecution and execution following the conclusion of the war (Watson 167). Due to their open support of the

Republican forces, the provinces of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa in particular were named

“traitor provinces” in 1937 (Muro 93). Franco banned the use of Euskara in general and

168 “Basque cultural expressions, such as theatre, literature, folklore, and the use of Basque names for baptism” were prohibited (Muro 93). Furthermore, he imposed “up to twelve

‘states of exception’, a measure that allowed the authorities to detain citizens for up to seventy-two hours without notification to the family and without formal charges” (Muro

93). Though four of these twelve states of exception were implemented nationwide, “six of the eight others covered the Basque provinces of Gipuzkoa or Biscay, or both” (Muro

93). On top of the political repression, economic and agricultural controls sent a massive wave of poverty and hunger throughout the entire nation. The result was a silencing of dissident voices; as Muro notes, “The repression of the 1940s and 1950s was so vicious and discouraging that there was hardly any political resistance to challenge Francoism”

(93). By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Basque workers were able to organize three large-scale strikes, but they accomplished very little and did nothing to chip away at

Franco’s firm grip on power. Basques also collectively felt the blow of two agreements which only served to legitimate Franco’s power at the international level: the Pacts of

Madrid, an agreement signed in 1953 which gave the US Air Force 5 air bases in Spain in exchange for military and technological assistance, and the 1953 Concordat with the

Roman Catholic Church (Muro 93).

By the mid 1950s, the Basque nationalist movement was in crisis and showing few signs of life. Watson notes that, during this time, the PNV “failed to recognize and respond to the changes of postwar Basque Society” (182). For Watson, this is understandable when one considers the party leadership, comprised of “an older generation who had witnessed the war and its terrible effects firsthand” and who attempted to continue to lead the party from exile (182). Ultimately, though, Watson

169 explains that the leadership in exile “could never fully appreciate the sense of grieving within the Basque Country itself” (182). By the 1950s, he continues, “the PNV was unable to adapt its general policy to such changing times, instead stagnating in the face of the significant social and economic changes now affecting the Basque Country” (182).

As a result of the changing times, Watson notes, “it was a new generation of Basque nationalists who realized, ahead of the traditional leadership of the PNV, that a more socially progressive policy was the key to establishing a grassroots movement in the

Basque Country” (183). One of the most important aspects of this new group of leaders was the drastic difference in life experience between the newer and older generation.

Watson explains that those leaders who emerged during the 1950s, “this new generation of Basque nationalists, who had known neither war nor (for the most part) the clandestine activity of the 1940s, were more than just a product of Spain’s Civil War and postwar era; they were also a post-World War II, post-Holocaust, and postimperial generation keenly aware of postwar European intellectual and political trends” (183). All of these characteristics would bring about a very different approach to the articulation of Basque nationalism by the end of the decade (Watson 183).

170 Formation of ETA and the Early Years78

Frustrated with the policies of the PNV, a group of students in their early twenties created a group named Ekin (To Act) in 1952. Muro explains that, in the beginning, Ekin

“had the limited aim of examining and expressing the radical youth’s ideological ambitions and tactical dissent from the PNV’s conformity” and that most of the members

“had an urban, nationalist, and middle-class background and were young idealists and autodidacts” (97). On the whole, the aim of the group was to explore Basque history and address “the repression of Basque culture and language” (Muro 97). Due to their interest in intellectual movements across Europe, Watson notes, Ekin stood upon a foundation of two main ideas:

first, the group’s own view that it reflected a return to the roots of Basque

nationalism and in this way simply represented a continuation of what it

perceived to be the authentic historical development of the movement, and

second, its incorporation of both existentialism as a means of explaining a

Basque cosmology and the rhetoric of anticolonial national liberation

struggles, as opposed to the tactic of international diplomacy favored by

the PNV (188).

As it developed, Ekin set its sights on goals which were more drastic than those proposed by the PNV; Ekin placed a great deal of importance on Euskara, which it found to be

78 The history of ETA is much more complex and detailed than what is described here. I have chosen to highlight some of the more general developments of the organization, as there are entire books which discuss only periods of their history. For more detailed reports about the organization, its developments, or the violent acts attributed to it, see the works I have cited here: Robert P. Clark, The Basque Insurgents: ETA, 1952-1980 (1984); Antonio Elorza (Coordinator), La historia de ETA (2000); or Diego Muro, Ethnicity and Violence: The Case of Radical Basque Nationalism (2008), among many other notable works. 171 indispensable to its cause, and saw it necessary to achieve complete separation from

Spain in order to form a Basque republic, whereas the PNV hoped to work within the

Spanish system to achieve a degree of autonomy for the Basque region while maintaining its relationship with the Spanish state (Watson 190). Regardless of this basic ideological difference, Ekin merged with the youth wing of the PNV in the late 1950s, but this agreement did not last long. Muro explains that “the idealists of Ekin were a clearly distinct group” within this newly formed wing and that, “over the course of the next three years they became frustrated with the subordination to the PNV” (97). In reaction to the expulsion of one of the Ekin leaders from the new umbrella group, the rest of the Ekin leaders split and, in 1959, founded ETA.

In their split from the PNV, the leaders of the new group chose to officially found

ETA on July 31st, which, as Muro notes, was “the day chosen by Sabino Arana to officially launch the PNV” (97). Additionally, the group took with them “hundreds” of members of the youth wing of the PNV (Muro 97). Muro also comments on the significance of the name chosen for the group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, which means

Basque Homeland and Freedom, and highlights the fact that the acronym of the group,

ETA, is the conjunction “and” in Euskara (97). Muro cites Mark Kurlansky’s point that, due to the fortuitous coincidence or planning of their name and its resulting acronym, when reading Basque, the text “appears to be peppered with these initials” (qtd. in Muro

97). ETA committed its first act of force on July 18, 196179, as it used a bomb placed on

79 There was a bombing of a train station in Donostia-San Sebastián in 1960 which killed a very young child, and this bombing is sometimes attributed to ETA (see Carmona, El terrorismo y ETA en el cine). The Spanish Ministry of the Interior lists 1968 as the year of the first death attributed to ETA, which would appear to rule out ETA’s responsibility in the 1960 attack. See “Últimas víctimas mortales de ETA: 172 railroad tracks to derail a “train of Francoist excombatants travelling to San Sebastián to celebrate the regime’s ‘25 years of peace’” (Muro 97-98). As Muro notes, this bombing was significant for two separate reasons: first, it was meant to dishonour the dictatorship on such a public and meaningful day, and it also represented a “prudent and calculated use of explosives which would gradually be abandoned as the organisation increasingly favoured more indiscriminate acts” (98). Following this act, the ETA leaders were arrested and imprisoned, and as a show of force, “the state exerted a disproportionate level of repression on the Basque population as a whole” (Muro 98). This only strengthened the resolve of ETA, however, and the group began to debate the merits of employing political violence in their struggle against the dictatorship.

The decade of the 1960s was largely spent on the ideological development of

ETA. The organization held a series of meetings during this decade which shored up organizational structures and ideological beliefs. By the final assembly, ETA had

“defined itself as a Marxist-Leninist movement, adopted a North Vietnamese-style fighting strategy, and decided to work on different fronts: cultural, political, workers, and military” (Muro 98). Ideologically, the organization distanced itself from the PNV in its continued pursuit of national self-determination and its belief that this could not be achieved through “participation in established political institutions”, and instead required

“mass revolutionary violence” in order to defeat the dictatorship (Muro 99). With their base firmly established through these meetings, their all-out war against the Spanish state would officially begin in 1968.

Cuadros estadísticos” at http://www.interior.gob.es/es/web/interior/ultimas-victimas-mortales-de-eta- cuadros-estadisticos (accessed 15 February 2014). 173 ETA under Franco

To date, ETA has been responsible for the deaths of over 800 people, in addition to the injuries of many others (“Últimas víctimas mortales de ETA”). The very first of these deaths came in 1968, as Txabi Etxebarrieta opened fire on a Civil Guard agent that had stopped his car. Just a few hours later, Etxebarrieta and the other man in his vehicle,

Iñaki Sarakseta, were stopped at a control point and Etxebarrieta was killed in retaliation.

ETA’s response to Etxebarrieta’s death came only two months later on August 2, when they killed Melitón Manzanas González, the police chief of Gipuzkoa and a figure “who had a reputation for torturing Basques” (Muro 105). The counterreaction from the

Spanish state was swift and harsh; as Muro notes, the government declared a state of exception, first in Gipuzkoa and then throughout all of Spain, and “Within a month, the police had arrested numerous ETA members who were taken to court without further ado” (105). Though the aim of the State was to crush ETA’s challenge of its absolute authority, their heavy response would end up having the opposite effect.

The Burgos trial of 1970 was a decisive moment both for the public image of

ETA and the international image of the Franco regime. In the trial, “sixteen ETA militants were accused of various acts of terrorism and banditry and six of them were accused of having murdered officer Manzanas” (Muros 105). Among these militants, there were two women and two priests. Muro indicates that the State intended to use the

Burgos trial as a deterrent for any future ETA action and, after a twenty-five day trial,

“the military court granted six death sentences and gave three of the accused double death sentences, thus increasing the penalty the prosecutor had asked for” (105). Those not sentenced to death received sentences of either twelve or thirty years, depending on the

174 crime. While the State saw these severe sentences as a way to prevent additional ETA crimes, the reaction both in the Basque Country and in the rest of the world was one of shock and outrage. In the Basque Country, many members of the community joined in protests or strikes and the international community at large (including the Vatican) voiced such a strong opinion against the heavy-handed punishments.

As a result of the pressure both domestically and internationally, Franco commuted all of the death sentences to sentences of thirty years in prison. In addition to emboldening ETA and making the group an attractive option for young Basques, the trial and resulting international discussion severely damaged the image of the Franco regime.

As Muro explains, “ETA militants were taken as a reference point by the Spanish opposition and large sectors of international public opinion led by Jean-Paul Sartre looked to ETA as the vanguard of anti-Francoist resistance” (106). As the world began to really see the brutality of the Spanish state, the actions of ETA were justified as acts of resistance against a repressive force.

Three years after the Burgos trial, ETA solidified their anti-Franco image during one of their most politically significant murders. On December 20, 1973, “Franco’s right- hand man and Prime Minister,” Luis Carrero Blanco, was killed by an explosion planted in a secret tunnel “under a Street Carrero used every day to attend Mass” (106). For ETA, this act, named Operación Ogro, was significant for two reasons. As Muro notes, it both

“demonstrated that ETA could carry out complex actions and boosted the organisation’s confidence that armed struggle was the single most effective weapon against the dictatorship” (106). For Franco, Carrero Blanco’s death was devastating, both politically

175 and personally. As his closest political ally, Franco lost not only his confidant, but also his successor.

After Carrero Blanco’s death, ETA’s violent activities became much more common, and their use of violence much more indiscriminate. Nearly all of the deaths attributed to ETA in 197480 were the result of one bombing: that of the Cafeteria Rolando in Madrid. This bombing, which occurred on September 13 in a very busy location, killed twelve people and wounded an additional eighty, none of which were political targets. In addition to the public outrage surrounding the attack on innocent civilians, this event caused a deep rift within ETA itself. As Carmona notes,

Este atentado hizo que surgiesen nuevas disputas en la banda,

dividiéndose nuevamente en dos facciones: la ETA POLÍTICO MILITAR,

conocidos coloquialmente como los “Poli-Milis”, que buscaban unir a la

lucha armada a una estrategia política que ayudase a resolver los

problemas vascos; y ETA MILITAR, quienes se decantan por declarar una

guerra total al Estado Español hasta lograr el objetivo de la independencia

(69).

This internal struggle is significant because it is one that has plagued ETA, and the

Basque nationalist movement in general, in various forms over the years, and continues to be an issue today.

Despite the internal debate regarding the efficacy of indiscriminate violence, ETA continued its attacks during the last years of Franco’s life and rule. According to Muro,

1974 was a particularly significant year because “between April and July 1974 the

80 Muro attributes 19 total deaths to ETA in 1974 (107). 176 Portuguese and Greek military dictatorships had been deposed, Franco had fallen seriously ill and political change could finally be seen on the horizon” (107). Motivated by the possibility of real political change, Muro claims that the violence perpetrated by

ETA in 1975 had a double goal: “In 1975 ETA unleashed a violent campaign with the double objective of destabilising the regime and achieving a position of strength in future political negotiations with the democracy” (107). Even in the last months of his life,

Franco was not without response, and, “in a desperate attempt to show firmness”, he ordered the execution of Txiki and Otegi, two ETA members who had been the subject of

Basque appeals for clemency (Muro 107). Carmona notes that “Las numerosas presiones internacionales para evitar dichas ejecuciones fueron inútiles para un régimen que pretendía dar muestras de dureza ante los ataques terroristas pero que languidecía apresuradamente” (69). This would be one of Franco’s last acts against ETA before his death only a few months later.

At the time of Franco’s death on November 20, 1975, ETA had caused the death of over 40 people (Muro 107). They had also suffered the loss of over two dozen ETA members who had died as a result of shoot-outs, mishaps during bomb detonations, and executions at the hands of the Franco regime (Muro 107). Franco’s death, then, appeared to offer a glimmer of hope for both the end of ETA’s campaign of violence and a peaceful transition to democracy through the establishment of the constitutional monarchy. As Carmona writes, with Franco’s death, “parecía abrirse un nuevo periodo en la lucha de la banda armada, pues muchos de los que la habían apoyado consideraban que uno de sus fines era el fin de la dictadura para, una vez sus comandos hubiesen abandonado las armas, comenzar el diálogo sobre la creación de un estado vasco

177 soberano” (69). This was not to be the case, however. Muro notes that, “On the contrary, radical Basque nationalists became fiercely opposed to the consolidation of the constitutional monarchy arguing that the only political change that had taken place in

Spain was the ‘democratisation of fascism’” (113). In the years following Franco’s death, this more radical faction of ETA would become increasingly violent as the more politically minded wing would eventually focus on entering the newly democratized political system.

ETA and the Transition to Democracy

The first general elections of the new democratic era were held in 1977 and the new constitution was drafted in 1978. The new set of laws legalized political participation from a number of Basque nationalist parties, which effectively removed the dominant status of the PNV as they faced competition from newly formed parties. The two wings of ETA each threw their hat into the political ring through the creation of their own parties: Euzkadiko Ezkerre (EE—The Basque Left) received support from the political- military wing of ETA while Herri Batasuna (HB—Unity of the People) was linked to the military wing. None of the three parties made a major impact on national politics during this time, however. In fact, during the referendum to approve the new constitution in

1978, the PNV encouraged its party members to abstain from voting because this new version of the constitution did not include language to recognize the fueros which had been their goal all along. As a result, voter turnout in the Basque Country was much lower than the national average, although the majority of those who did vote approved the new constitution.

178 Voting abstention in the Basque Country ended in 1979, when elections were held in order to approve a statute of regional autonomy. In this instance, the PNV and EE both asked their voters to approve the referendum, and with a 60 percent voter turnout

(compared to less 45 percent in the constitutional referendum), 90 percent of voters opted to approve the statute of autonomy. The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, or the Statute of Gernika, referring to the location where it was first provisionally approved, was formally approved in December of 1979. Muro details the provisions of the Statute, which “created an autonomous police force (Ertzaintza), allowed the Basque government to collect taxes, take control of education and health care, own radio and television stations, and granted extensive responsibilities in the fields of public works, culture, agriculture, industry, and social welfare” (121). Additionally, “Euskara was recognized as the official language of the Basque Country (together with Spanish) and a generous autonomy in financial matters was established” (Muro 121). Per the conditions of the statute, Muro argues that the Basque Country was awarded “one of the highest levels of regional self-government in the European Union” (121). Interestingly enough, however, political violence from ETA only increased during this period of expanding Basque autonomy.

During the years of the transition to democracy, the number of deaths at the hands of ETA increased sharply. Though they were not the only armed group, they were certainly one of the more well known and one of the more active organizations during this time. From 1968 to 1974, only 29 people had been killed by ETA, but between 1975 and 1980 that number skyrocketed to 284 (Muro 122-23). The organization only committed more violence as the decade progressed, killing 65 people in 1978, 80 in 1979

179 and then 96 in 1980 (Muro 122). The drastic increase in the number of deaths seems ironic, as the Basque Country was theoretically finally able to enjoy a very high degree of self-rule, and therefore appeared to have met one of their long-standing political goals.

To this end, Florencio Domínguez Iribarren affirms in “El enfrentamiento de ETA con la democracia” that

En este mismo periodo se sitúa el origen de la división entre la mayoría de

la sociedad vasca, que opta por un proyecto político colectivo en el marco

formado por la Constitución y el Estatuto, y ETA y sus simpatizantes

civiles, que se convierten en fuerzas antisistema, una parte minoritaria

aunque importante de la sociedad vasca fascinada por la violencia etarra,

cuya defensa incondicional absorbe todas sus energías” (279).

Given that the majority of the members of the Basque County chose to pursue autonomy through peaceful political channels, ETA’s violence seems out of place. Muro claims, however, that ETA’s violence during the late 1970s can be attributed to their “strategic need” to “remain a relevant force”, given the sudden competition from a multitude of other political groups which all claimed to represent the true idea of Basque nationalism

(123). Moreover, their main argument during this time was that “nothing had changed since Francoism and that the Spanish democracy was a mere facade for authoritarian rule” (Muro 123). In ETA’s view, then, their violence during the transition period was as justified as its actions under Franco because they felt they were still fighting against the same forces and hadn’t yet reached their goal of complete independence from Spanish subjugation.

180 One of the targeted focuses of ETA during the latter part of the 1970s was a campaign against Spanish military members. According to Muro, the goal of this violent campaign was to show the continued authoritarian style of government by provoking the army and security forces to violence (123-24). During the period of time between 1978 and 1983, ETA killed thirty-seven “people of rank”, and it was the first time that the group had targeted officers at all (Muro 123). Muro even attributes the 1981 coup attempt in part to these actions by ETA, explaining that, feeling the pressure from ETA, the generals who organized the coup did so “in order to slow down the pace of regional devolution and preserve the ‘unity of Spain’” (124). Domínguez Iribarren agrees, and opines that “No cabe duda que la provocación terrorista jugó un papel importante en la motivación del teniente coronel Tejero y sus cómplices, aunque no fuera éste el único factor desencadenante de la asonada” (304). The coup was not successful and King Juan

Carlos I, in his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is popularly credited with appealing to the military and saving the fledgling Spanish democracy81. As a result of all of the events of that time period, however, the government did pass the Ley Orgánica de

Armonización del Proceso Autonómico, which “slowed down the process of decentralization and brought the route to autonomy under stricter control” (Muro 124). If

ETA’s goal was to provoke the military, it was only partially effective, and the end result only hurt the end goal of Basque autonomy.

By 1980, ETA was facing intense pressure both from the Spanish State and the

Basque public. Domínguez Iribarren notes that the Basque public had begun to protest in

81 As in any political coup or coup attempt, the accounts of the event are subject to discussion and debate. The role of King Juan Carlos I as savior of the Spanish democracy is clearly an image which serves the interests of a nationalist discourse, and is as equally open for debate. 181 earnest the violence of ETA and that the PNV, which had previously at least been sympathetic to ETA’s cause when they weren’t providing direct assistance, committed themselves fully to the peaceful democratic process, thereby siding with the State in matters of Basque autonomy (301-302). Finding themselves more isolated from the popular support they had once enjoyed, however, ETA concluded that armed violence was even more necessary than before (Domínguez Iribarren 302). They had already engaged in a violent campaign against Iberduero, an electricity company that was attempting to construct a power plant in the Basque Country, and in 1981 they kidnapped and killed one of the engineers of the Project, José María Ryan. Despite the widespread outrage and condemnation in the Basque Country, ETA decided to ride out the criticism and keep up with their end goal. The death of José Arregui, an ETA member accused of having participated in Ryan’s death, at the hands of police, however, immediately helped to quiet the protest against ETA as it appeared to reinforce the message that the organization was continuing to fight against a repressive regime.

By the time the Spanish government stopped work on the Lemóniz power plant that had been so barraged by ETA violence, Domínguez Iribarren reports, the damages totaled “246 actos terroristas, con un saldo humano de cinco personas muertas y otras catorce heridas, y unos daños materiales directos estimados en 2.100 millones de pesetas, pero con un coste económico real superior al medio billón de pesetas, derivado de la paralización del proyecto” (307-308). Feeling as though they had accomplished a significant victory, ETA was emboldened to begin a new campaign of extortion against

Spanish banks. In April of 1982, the organization sent letters to the heads of 9 banks in

Spain and demanded from each one “doscientos cincuenta millones de pesetas, más otros

182 diez millones por cada miembro del consejo de administración” (Domínguez Iribarren

308). The banks were given one month to pay against the threat of armed action and, on

June 6th, two bombs exploded in the offices of Santander and Vizcaya banks. This new campaign lasted for two years and resulted in “la comisión de 188 atentados que ocasionaron la muerte de siete personas y heridas a otras veintisiete,” with damage costing “unos 900 millones de pesetas” (Domínguez Iribarren 308).

Neither of these campaigns were the single focus of ETA during this time period.

As Domínguez Iribarren notes, in the early 1980s the organization also waged simultaneous efforts against drug trafficking in the Basque Country, which they felt was a conspiracy on behalf of the police to create a generation of heroine-addicted Basque youth, and in Navarre, against the statute of autonomy for that region which they believed should be part of the Basque Country (308-309). These and other attacks continued

ETA’s campaign of violence and, although 1980 was the year which saw the most deaths by far, with nearly 100 deaths among an even higher number of injuries, ETA averaged at least 30 deaths per year during the first part of the 1980s (“Últimas víctimas mortales de

ETA”).

As previously mentioned, one of the main beliefs of ETA during the transition was that the new democracy was simply the same authoritarian rule under a new name.

While the new democratic government certainly made strides in a number of areas, including the restoration of elections, the drafting of the new constitution, the statutes of regional autonomy, and basic economic stabilization, its initial treatment of ETA certainly did not appear to be any different than the approach employed by Franco. Muro notes that, while the torture of terror suspects was “standard practice in police stations”

183 under Franco, the practice continued, albeit slightly less frequently, during the transition

(138). The anti-terrorist legislation passed at the end of the 1970s enabled this practice to continue, as it allowed for the detainee to “be held in a police station, completely incommunicado and without access to family or a lawyer, for a period of seventy-two hours” (138). If that period of time was not sufficient, Muro adds, “Under the order of a magistrate of the National Court (Audiencia Nacional), the period could be extended by a further seven days” (138). Muro cites information from Amnesty International, which found that a number of ETA members and ETA sympathizers were tortured while under police custody, and that some of those detainees died during that 10-day period (138).

Even as the State introduced legislation ostensibly intended to curb these allegations, like the introduction of habeas corpus in 1984 and the reduction in the maximum period of detention in 1988, the allegations of torture continued. Though the State typically attempted to deny or ignore the allegations, when they were pressed to acknowledge them, it was often argued that “ETA members injured themselves while in custody”

(138). This issue, especially as it attracted international attention, did little to distance the new Spanish democracy from its authoritarian predecessor.

In addition to the issue of the torture of suspected ETA members, the Spanish

State funded an organization named Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL-Anti-

Terrorist Liberation Groups) between 1983 and 1987 in an attempt to coerce the French government to provide more support in the persecution of suspected ETA members82. As

Muro explains, “The clandestine organisation was composed of security officers and contract gunmen who had links with senior government officials, including the former

82 For a more detailed description about GAL or its support by the Spanish State, see Paddy Woodworth’s Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL, and Spanish Democracy (2001). 184 Minister of the Interior, José Barrionuevo, and the former Secretary of State Security,

Rafael Vera” (139). This group carried out a number of violent acts—including shootings, bombings, and kidnappings—in the French Basque Country in order to apprehend or kill suspected ETA members, and even utilized these tactics within the

Spanish borders (Muro 138-39).

In total, GAL was responsible for twenty-seven deaths, and nine of those were of individuals who were not proven to have any association with ETA. Muro maintains that

“GAL’s state terrorism accomplished its main objective, which was to end the ‘French sanctuary’ for ETA members and force the French government to cooperate with Spain in anti-terrorism operations, assistance that was provided from 1984 onwards” (139). This small success came at a great price, though, as it “did nothing to reduce social sympathy for ETA and confirmed the widely held idea that the Basque conflict was a war between extremes” (Muro 140). Furthermore, Muro adds, “The authoritarian tendencies of the police and security forces reinforced their image as ‘occupation forces’ and made it easier for ETA supporters to persuade new generations that little or nothing had changed in the

Basque Country since the death of Franco” (140). This time period is one of the darkest moments in recent Spanish history, and the link between the Spanish security forces and the GAL called into question the supposed democratization of Spain during this time.

Muro maintains that the Spanish treatment of the Basque Conflict changed notably following their new membership in the European Community in 1986. He explains that “When, in 1986, the accession treaty and the Single European Act (SEA) came into force the state-funded ‘dirty war’ was still ongoing” (143). This changed quickly, however, and “The following year the GAL disbanded and the first anti-ETA

185 pact was signed in the Spanish parliament. With the end of the death squads the authoritarian methods disappeared and a new counter-terrorist strategy was launched”

(Muro 143). Their new approach was two-pronged, and involved both police and intelligence action and peace negotiations (Muro 143). Even as the State adopted this new strategy against ETA, though, the organization continued a wave of deadly bombings that reverberated throughout the entire nation. In June of 1987, ETA was responsible for a bombing at the Hipercor supermarket in a working-class neighborhood of Barcelona. The attack left twenty-one civilians dead and forty-five more wounded, none of whom were political targets. Muro notes that this bombing was “ETA’s bloodiest attack ever mounted” and that the outrage was especially acute in Catalonia, where Herri Batasuna, the political party of ETA, had previously enjoyed a relative degree of success due to the

Catalonian sympathy for nationalist movements (149). Later that year in Zaragoza, “a car bomb was detonated in a Civil Guards living quarters killing eleven people, including five children” (150). This year was the deadliest of the late 1980s, with fifty deaths recorded, and apart from the high death toll in general, the number of civilian deaths renewed widespread opposition against the group.

In the period immediately following these attacks, all of the political parties of the

Congress of Deputies and the Senate (except Herri Batasuna, the political arm of ETA) united to sign a series of three agreements aimed at advocating for a peaceful end to

ETA’s campaign of violence. In general, Muro explains, these agreements “helped reinforce the widely held view that political problems should be solved through the autonomic institutions, and put pressure on Herri Batasuna to enter a process of negotiation that could bring an end to the violent stalemate,” in addition to sending “a

186 clear signal to ETA that the armed group was not a legitimate representative of the popular will and could never be directly involved in the negotiation of political issues”

(147). The agreements were only symbolic, however, and Muro points out that they

“were not designed to reduce ETA’s activity and, in this respect, they contributed very little to the decline of the radical Basque nationalists” (147). While the agreements might not have had much of an impact on ETA’s campaign of violence, Muro does suggest that they helped to solidify the Basque nationalist cause: “The newly-found unity of Basque parties, who had often quarreled over the meaning and causes of violence, was particularly significant because it contributed to shift the main cleavage of division from

Basque nationalists vs. non-nationalists to a division between democrats and supporters of violence” (147).

Additionally during this time, Spain held a series of negotiations with ETA aimed at reaching a ceasefire, which was, in their view, a necessary precursor to any political discussion or debate. These talks were held in Algiers between 1986 and 1989, though they were unsuccessful in achieving a commitment to peaceful political participation from ETA. One outcome of the failed talks was the decision of the Spanish state to begin dispersing imprisoned ETA members to jails all around the country in an effort to break the sense of community that they had established in Basque prisons. Furthermore, Muro states, ETA was no longer considered to be a group of ‘freedom fighters’ in their strongholds of France and Algiers (151). Both nations stepped up security practices aimed at driving out ETA members from within their borders, as well as their cooperation with the Spanish government. The cooperation between the French and Spanish governments resulted in one of the largest police successes ever in 1992, when French

187 police were able to arrest three of the top ETA commanders in Bidart, France. In addition to providing a great amount of intelligence that was helpful to Spanish authorities, this arrest massively weakened the organization. This was especially significant in Spain, where the country was preparing to host a number of international events, including the

World Fair in Seville and the Olympic Games in Barcelona, amidst an atmosphere of fear of ETA attacks (Muro 152).

While ETA remained active throughout the 1990s, the number of deaths attributed to the organization dropped off significantly after the Bidart arrests in 1992. Between

1993 and 1999, only 65 deaths were attributed to ETA, compared to 97 between 1990 and 1992 alone (“Últimas víctimas mortales de ETA”). Of the effects of the Bidart arrests on the organization, Domínguez Iribarren comments that

se dejaron notar en todos los terrenos: en el político, porque abrió una

crisis interna de gran calado que dejó a los miembros y simpatizantes de

ETA desmoralizados y sin referencias válidas durante mucho tiempo; en el

organizativo, porque ETA se vio obligada a reconstruir sus estructuras y

sus redes en un proceso que le llevó más de dos años; en el nivel de

violencia, porque a partir de 1992 la organización no fue capaz de

recuperar el ritmo de acciones terroristas anteriores a ese año (389).

It would take a few years and a number of internal conversations for ETA to begin to recover from this blow and to implement their next strategy.

Muro writes that, in the wake of the Bidart arrests, the Herri Batasuna leaders

“began to argue that the secession of the Basque nation could not be achieved solely by the actions of the military vanguard and it was necessary for the whole of society to be

188 involved” (153). Furthermore, he notes, this “involvement” meant that ordinary Basque citizens would be made to “take sides in favour of or against the nationalist project and not just remain an observer of the clashes between the security forces and ETA” (153).

As was historically the case with Herri Batasuna, this plan was carried out through the use of violence, and the new strategy called for the expansion of violence into new areas through the kale borroka (street violence) and the targeting of new kinds of victims

(Muro 153). Muro further describes this new strategy with these words:

Carried out by young radical nationalists, often members of the youth

organisation Jarrai, the kale borroka involved acts of violence such as riots

and confrontations directed against the Basque police, attacks on the

property of rival political parties, the burning of buses, rubbish skips, and

pone boxes, and even public beatings…The Street violence was part of the

overall strategy of the socialisation of pain and involved disciplining the

‘passive’ population in the ‘political conflict’ between ‘Spain’ and ‘Euskal

Herria’ (156).

This tactic was employed from 1994 to 2001 and in addition to the massive disruption it caused in the lives of everyday Basques, it also involved targets outside of the traditional symbols of the State, including “journalists, judges, prosecutors, civil servants, low- profile politicians, businessmen, academics, and so on” (Muro 156). When they ran out of policeman to help protect this new wide range of targets, the Spanish government was forced to hire private bodyguards to help protect the lives of those who were threatened by ETA, knowing that many times those without protection were kidnapped or even killed (Muro 156-157). Domínguez Iribarren concludes that “Cerca de seis mil actos

189 violentos, con un coste económico directo superior a los quince mil millones de pesetas, es el balance de la violencia callejera hasta 1998. Los daños sobre la convivencia no son, probablemente, tan fáciles de cuantificar y mucho menos de reparar” (402). In terms of victims, Domínguez Iribarren writes, “La cifra de casi cuatrocientas personas heridas entre 1993 y 1998 da una idea de las dimensiones y la gravedad de la violencia callejera en el País Vasco” (405).

The year of 1997 was crucial in terms of the solidification of popular sentiment against ETA, especially within the Basque Country itself. First was the rescue of José

Antonio Ortega Lara, a prison official who had been kidnapped by ETA at the beginning of 1996 and held for nearly a year and a half. Muro reports that Ortega “was held for 532 days in deplorable conditions,” and that when the Civil Guards rescued him from the hidden chamber where he had been held, “The television pictures of a skeletal, disoriented, and bearded Ortega who could barely stand on his own shocked public opinion” (157). Domínguez Iribarren notes that Ortega’s kidnapping was “el secuestro más largo de la historia de ETA” and that it was meant to be used as leverage against the

Spanish government to force a change in the policy of the dispersion of ETA prisoners in jails throughout the country (406). This was not the first kidnapping committed by ETA, but, apart from the shock regarding Ortega’s terribly deteriorated physical condition, the public was also dismayed at Ortega’s selection as a target. Muro notes that

“Traditionally, ETA had kidnapped people who could pay a ransom and who could serve as an example to all those who did not pay the extortion money known as the

‘revolutionary tax’. However, in this case, ETA kidnapped a civil servant of minor importance who could not have paid any significant sum” (157). The fact that ETA had

190 expanded its list of targets to include those who really held no power and who had no possibility of paying the ‘revolutionary tax’ they demanded was worrisome and, for many people throughout Spain, marked an even more sinister change in ETA’s strategy.

The rescue of Ortega was an enormous embarrassment to ETA and Muro writes that, “As was usually the case when the police forces made an advance in the ‘fight against terrorism’, ETA responded with a spectacular action to show its continuing strength” (157). In this case, ETA kidnapped Miguel Angel Blanco Garrido, a councilman from the Basque town of Ermua. As Domínguez Iribarren explains, after

Blanco’s capture, “ETA lanzó un ultimátum de cuarenta y ocho oras para que el

Gobierno cambiara la política penitenciaria, amenazado con matar al edil si no eran atendidas sus reclamaciones” (407). Muro notes that Blanco “captured the popular imagination of many Basques and Spaniards for his low political significance and his status as an ordinary citizen” and, immediately following the issue of this ultimatum, people all across the Basque Country, across Spain, and even across the world took to the streets and to every imaginable mode of communication to protest for his safe release.

Instead of a ‘revolutionary tax’, this time ETA’s goal was the return of ETA prisoners to

Basque prisons, but Muro points out that “Even if the Spanish government had wanted to meet the organisation’s demands forty-eight hours was too brief a time for anything to be done” (157). Shortly after the time period of the ultimatum expired, Blanco was killed.

Though there had already been a surge of protests against Blanco’s kidnapping, his death caused a veritable explosion of criticism against ETA. De Pablo attributes part of this outrage to the horrific way in which Blanco was killed, opining that “The particularly cruel way in which Blanco was murdered (he was shot in the back of the

191 head and then thrown, bleeding and dying and with his hands tied, into a Street on the outskirts of Donostia-San Sebastián) galvanized the united front against terrorism” (41).

Muro cites information from The Economist, which claimed that, in response to Blanco’s death, “almost six million Spaniards spontaneously demonstrated against ETA’s grave error, including one and a half million in Madrid and a million in Barcelona” (158). This public unity against ETA was significant because, in de Pablo’s words, it “reflected a revulsion that would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier” (41). Additionally, and no less significant, was the criticism that was voiced from within the organization itself, as “un grupo de destacados miembros de la organización terrorista” condemned

Blanco’s death (Domínguez Iribarren 408).

A year after Blanco’s death, the main Basque nationalist parties in Spain signed the Pact of Lizarra in 1998. This agreement, in which parties like the PNV joined Herri

Batasuna, intended to pressure ETA “to lay down its arms” and create a unified,

“nationalist action front that would scrap the autonomy statute of 1979 and instead advocate total Basque sovereignty over the territories of the Basque nation” (de Pablo

41). As a result of the Lizarra agreement, ETA declared a “unilateral and indefinite cease- fire” in September of 1998 (Muro 169). Though the cease-fire helped recover some support for the Basque nationalist cause, it only lasted 14 months. Muro argues that neither ETA or the Spanish government ever truly believed in the first place that the cease-fire would last, though the official reasons for its end are attributed both to divisions within the unified Basque nationalist front and an inability to reach a compromise with the Spanish national government (170-171). Regardless of the reason,

192 the cease-fire was declared to have ended in 1999, and in 2000 ETA resumed its violent activity with a car bombing in Madrid that killed an army lieutenant colonel (Muro 170).

As a result of ETA’s return to violent actions, twenty-three deaths were attributed to the organization in 2000 (“Últimas víctimas mortales”). That number dropped off sharply in the years, following, however, and from 2001 until 2010, the last year which saw a fatality as a result of an ETA attack, only thirty-five people have died (“Últimas víctimas mortales”). This is due in large part to the efforts of the Spanish government to criminalize the organizations that support ETA and also to an ever-increasing system of intelligence and police work. As de Pablo notes, in the last few years of José María

Aznar’s presidency, the government implemented a widely supported strategy that was

designed to cripple the social and political institutions supporting ETA

through political and judicial measures, such as the closure of newspapers

that supported terrorist action and, most especially, the outlawing in 2003

of HB [Herri Batasuna], the political arm of ETA that, despite having

changed its name several times since then, was legally prevented from

fielding candidates in the majority of elections held in the Basque Country

since that time until 2011 (42).

Despite these harsh measures, de Pablo confirms that they led “neither to a high degree of social protest on the part of the radical nationalist left nor to an increase in ETA terrorism” (42). While they weakened ETA’s support systems, however, they did not completely stop the group’s activity; Muro notes that in December of 2003 ETA left backpacks full of explosives on a train which was destined for Madrid and that just a few

193 months later the Guardia Civil “intercepted a van driven by ETA members and loaded with over 500kg of titadyne and chlorate-based explosives heading to Madrid” (176).

Another wave of change swept through Spain in 2004, following the devastating bombing of commuter trains in Madrid on March 11, 2004. This attack during the morning rush hour, which killed 191 people and injured 1,755, was instantly attributed to

ETA, though it was quickly discovered to be the work of Islamic extremists. The bombing took place three days before elections in Spain and, due to the public outrage over what many people viewed as a political distortion of information which continued to blame ETA for the attack in spite of mounting and undeniable evidence to the contrary,

Aznar’s party (the Partido Popular—PP) lost the presidential seat to the Partido

Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) candidate, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero83. Zapatero quickly contrasted himself against his predecessor in a number of ways, particularly regarding the issue of the reformation of the statutes of autonomy, which he supported

“provided there was broad parliamentary support for the adjustment and that they did not violate the basic tenets of the constitution” (Muro 178). This change in attitude was welcomed by the Basque nationalist movement, which hoped to secure further autonomy for the Basque Country.

The first attempt to increase Basque Autonomy, named the Ibarretxe Plan after the head of the Basque government, was soundly defeated at the national level. Muro attributes the failure of this plan to a combination of the drastic increase in autonomy proposed within the document itself, its lack of overwhelming support within the Basque

83 This was only the most immediate precursor to Aznar’s Partido Popular losing the presidency. Spaniards were also becoming increasingly frustrated by Spanish participation in the War in Afghanistan and other incidents such as the sinking of the oil-tanker Prestige in 2002 (Muro 174). 194 Country, and Ibarretxe’s personal hostility toward the Spanish government (178).

Zapatero remained opened to the possibility of negotiation with the Basque government, though, and as Muro explains, “By May 2005, Zapatero argued that ETA had been weakened by numerous arrests and had not killed since May 2003, making it a good moment to work towards peace” (183). He had maintained all along, however, that any negotiation regarding the Basque statute of autonomy would take place only after ETA had ceased violent activity and that any measures proposed would have to be approved by

“ample majorities” in both the Basque and Spanish parliaments (Muro 183). That same month, Muro reports, “the Spanish Congress of Deputies voted in favour of allowing the government to hold talks with ETA if it first abandoned its arms and renounced violence” and a series of secret meetings between the Spanish government and ETA began (184).

As a result of these secret meetings, ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in

2006, which opened the door for official talks between the government and the organization. As in previous negotiations, however, the two sides were unable to reach any sort of compromise and ETA called off the “permanent” cease-fire before the end of that same year. After cancelling the cease-fire, ETA “exploded a van loaded with over

200 kilograms of explosives in the four-storey car-park of Madrid’s Barajas international airport” (Muro 186). The organization had warned police with enough time for them to clear the terminal, but the explosion killed two Ecuadoran citizens who had been sleeping in their car and wounded more than twenty additional people. In addition to the massive financial cost of the bombing, it was the first attack in over three years to cause any fatalities. Muro notes, though, that although the attack was significant for its scale and the deaths it caused, it followed a chain of violence that had been continually committed

195 amidst the cease-fire. He claims that “during the nine months and eight days of the case- fire, the Ministry of the Interior recorded over a hundred acts of street violence (kale borroka) in support of ETA’s cause which included threats against Basque non- nationalists and arson attacks against shops, banks, and public buses,” in addition to multiple cases of extortion and theft (187-188). Even after all of the violence within the

Basque Country itself and the spectacular bombing at the Barajas airport, however, ETA still officially claimed that the cease-fire was in effect. Of this apparent contradiction,

Muro observes that a number of scholars have explained the bombing as a message to the government to “speed up the peace process”, but it had the opposite effect, as Zapatero’s government decided to stop all negotiations with “a group that had evidently refused to give up its violent struggle” (188-189).

Over the next few years, ETA would continue its campaign of violence, although its scale was much reduced due to a continuing effort from the State to weaken the organizations that supported it and the investigation and arrest of a number of high- profile members. After an increase in violence in 2009, which came as a response to the arrest of multiple high-ranking members that year, ETA announced its third cease-fire in

September of 2010. A few months later, at the beginning of 2011, this cease-fire was declared to be permanent and, later that year, ETA announced that it was ceasing all armed activity. At the time of the writing of this dissertation, the cease-fire was still in place and ETA was preparing to begin a process of disarmament.

196 ETA in Spanish Literature and Film

Historically, Spanish literature has generally tended to avoid the ultra-sensitive topic of the conflict with ETA84. In reviewing Los peces de la amargura, one of the few fictional works that deals head-on with this topic, Jaime Villanueva explains that “Uno de los rasgos que parecen caracterizar la narrativa española de los últimos lustros es la frecuentísima huida del presente” (“Los peces de la amargura”). Villanueva continues to criticize this tendency with this statement:

Pocas veces los escritores se zambullen en los problemas más vivos de la

actualidad, que parecen reservados a reportajes periodísticos y películas.

Los novelistas se han dedicado en demasiadas ocasiones a refugiarse

nostálgicamente en el paraíso de la adolescencia perdida y añorada, en la

guerra civil -que tal vez ni siquiera vivieron- o en mundos aún más

remotos, como la Edad Media, cuando no han empeñado sus esfuerzos en

insulsos jugueteos constructivos (“Los peces de la amargura”).

In an opinion column for El Periódico, one reviewer echoed this criticism with the comment that “No deja de ser escandalosa la cantidad de novelas y películas que se siguen dedicando a las atrocidades de la guerra civil del siglo pasado, frente a las escasísimas que ahondan en las atrocidades actuales” (“¿Se puede sobrevivir a la vergüenza?”). The fact that this topic is not dealt with in literature does not make sense given the impact of the conflict with ETA on Spanish society during the last half century.

As Villanueva notes, “no existe en la literatura narrativa una producción que corresponda

84It is crucial to note that by Spanish literature, I refer to literature published in castellano and intended for a general Spanish audience. Given the divisive issue of Basque nationalism, this distinction is significant. This study, due to my inability to read Basque, does not take into account literature written in that language, but the authors included in this category are both Basque and non-Basque. 197 a la importancia social del asunto. Hay muy pocas obras centradas en este motivo, y a menudo discretamente” (“Los peces de la amargura”). Given the undeniable impact that the conflict with ETA has had on Spanish society during the last half-century and its frequent coverage in the news and in texts of so many other fields of study, its exclusion from the field of literature is difficult for many to understand.

Though the literary field has tended to avoid dealing with the topic of ETA, the trend has begun to change in recent years. According to Jesús Rodríguez, “la novela etarra”, those novels dealing in some way with the conflict with ETA, has been experiencing an increasing popularity in the past decade (223). Despite the attention the organization has long received in the fields of history, political science, and sociology, among others, Rodríguez claims that the last ten years have produced “un auténtico boom” (223). According to his calculations, an average of two “etarra” novels have been published per year over this period of time (223). Considering the fact that Spain houses some of the most powerful and most productive literary publishing houses in the Spanish- speaking world, though, an average of two novels per year dealing with this topic demonstrates its gross under-representation.

Generally speaking, Rodríguez finds that most of the etarra novels involve themes such as “el sufrimiento de las víctimas, el funcionamiento interno de la

Organización y la génesis y evolución del militante etarra” (224). Of the representations of ETA militants, Rodríguez finds that the three most common archetypes are “el etarra antifranquista, el etarra maketo85 y el etarra borroka86 (224). Neither Rodríguez nor other

85 Rodríguez defines the etarra maketo as “el etarra criado o nacido en Euskadi cuyos padres son originarios de Galicia, Castilla o Extremadura” (230). 198 scholars go any further in defining this genre, however, and since the field is lacking a large-scale examination and classification of the novela etarra, its other characteristics remain undefined. Rodriguez’s article examines six etarra novels, a groundbreaking approach because it is the only study to date that intends to give an overview of the etarra novel87. Included in Rodriguez’s study are the novels Padre Patria (2010) by

Vicente Carrión, Tango de muerte (2008) by Mikel Azurmendi, Los peces de la amargura (2006) by Fernando Aramburu, Ojos que no ven (2010) by Jose Ángel

González Sainz, Los hijos de la bestia (2009) by García Mercader, and En el nombre del padre (2009) by J.L. García Rodríguez. Rodríguez additionally mentions other novels published during the past decade, including El ángulo ciego (2008) by Luisa Etxenike, El hijo del acordeonista (2003) by Bernando Atxaga, and Buscar o no buscar (2007) de

César Ejido Serrano, among others. Though many of these works have been praised by literary critics and awarded a number of literary prizes, they have not received nearly enough attention from the academic world and there are very few scholarly studies of them.

For my examination here, I have chosen to work with J. Á. González Sainz’s novel Ojos que no ven. Although González Sainz has been a professor of literature in

Venice, Italy, since 1982, he was born in 1956 in Soria, Spain, and grew up during the end of the Franco era and some of the heaviest violence between ETA and the State.

While he has spoken about his opinion on the situation in various interviews, which I will

86 Rodríguez explains that the etarra borroka receives their name “por haberse cultivado como militante en la kale borroka, la organización juvenil radical controlada por Batasuna” (235). 87 After researching a number of databases, Rodriguez’s article is one of the only of its kind that I have been able to uncover. María Dolores Alonso Rey’s article “La imagen del terrorista en la novela española” also gives an overview of seventeen etarra novels but only discusses each novel briefly and better serves as a bibliography for the genre. The few other articles which discuss etarra novels tend to focus only on the novel at hand and normally examine one particular aspect of that novel, not the genre as a whole. 199 discuss further below, he has not revealed much regarding any specific event that motivated the novel nor any process of investigation that led to its writing. He has described a few of the main themes of the work, however, including “los efectos que ocasiona el fanatismo, por un lado, y, complementariamente, la indiferencia o el miedo ante él por otro (el no ver todo más que de una sola forma siempre, por un lado, y el no querer ver de ninguna forma nada por otro),” and notes that these are devastating in any context (“En España nos hemos acostumbrado”). González Sainz further claims that, in

Spain, “nos hemos acostumbrado a la devastación, física y también pasional e intelectual, que ocasiona el fanatismo como si fuera lo más natural del mundo” (“En España nos hemos acostumbrado”). It would appear, then, that the novel surges at least partly from a desire to call attention to this situation.

Whereas the etarra novel has hardly received scholarly attention, films dealing in some way with ETA have been the subject of a greater number of studies. Antonio

Malalaña Ureña and Gonzalo Fernández González postulate in “Eta y el Cine. Las fuentes de información de los profesionales del cine” (2006) that the corpus of films which deal with the subject of ETA stands at around 40 films88 (195). Of the forty films logged by Malalaña Ureña and Fernández González, “diez y ocho cuentan hechos reales, ocho serían de ficción y el resto documentales” (212). Though this group of works is often traced back to 1976 and the release of José Luis Madrid’s Comando Txikia: Muerte de un presidente, which was based on the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco, it is significant to note that one third of all films dealing with ETA debuted between 2000-

2005 (Malalaña Ureña and Fernández González 213). This percentage would increase

88 This article was published in 2006 and there have been nearly ten additional films released on this subject. 200 even more if one were to also consider the films which have been released since 2005, making it safe to say that the film industry post-2000 has had an undeniable impact on the filmography of ETA.

Many of the films that deal with ETA have enjoyed commercial success over the years. Among the most successful films in terms of number of spectators one can find La fuga de Segovia (1981), El caso Almería (1983), El Pico (1983), La muerte de Mikel

(1983), Días contados (1994), and El Lobo (2004) (“Eta y el Cine”). Additionally, a number of films have been recognized by a variety of film awards, including Goya

Awards and prizes extended by film festivals such as those in San Sebastián and Berlin89.

Additionally, works such as Santiago de Pablo’s The Basque nation on-screen: cinema, nationalism, and political violence (2012, translated by Robert Forstag) and Luis Miguel

Carmona’s El terrorismo y ETA en el cine (2004), along with a number of shorter scholarly works employed in this study, have provided additional attention and analysis of the films.

Even though this corpus of films stands at nearly fifty entries, many critics are quick to point out the taboo that continues to surround the creation of works that deal with ETA. Malalaña Ureña and Fernández González, for example, write that, in spite of the continuing creation of these films, “En ningún momento los realizadores se encontraron con un ambiente favorable: ETA es un tema tabú para el cine español” (196).

They continue to explain that “Esta situación está motivada por una extraordinaria

89 To provide only a few examples: Yoyes (2000), a film analyzed in more detail below, won more than 17 different awards from film festivals all over the world. Días contados (1994) holds the record for the most nominations ever for one film at the Goya awards, Spain’s highest film award given by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Even El viaje de Arián (2000), a film by Eduard Bosch with a relatively modest number of spectators, received special mentions in the film festivals of Málaga and Nantes, and won the “Made in Spain” category of the San Sebastián Film Festival and the best full-length film category of the Festival de cine L’Alfas del Pi. 201 contradicción: la libertad de expresión representada por el Séptimo Arte, choca con una sociedad que sufre con el dolor causado por el terrorismo. Las víctimas, por un lado, y las posiciones políticas enfrentadas, por otro, pueden generar un clima de autocensura difícil de superar” (196). The situation in the specific context of Basque Country is no better, as

Carlos Roldán Larreta notes in “Una apuesta suicida; ETA en el cine de Euskadi”: “A lo largo de la reciente historia del cine moderno vasco, cada vez que un cineasta ha cometido la ‘osadia’ de interarse por un asunto que, pese a quien pese, resulta de un gran atractivo cinematográfico, la opinión pública del país carga contra la iniciativa y en general el rigor informativo brilla por su ausencia” (182). Roldán Larreta concludes that

“No es de extrañar que muchos cineastas vascos, ante este sombrío panorama, renuncien, pese a su indudable atractivo, a centrar sus esfuerzos en este tema” (“Una apuesta suicida”182). Non-Basque filmmakers are not immune to this attitude either; filmmakers in general often find that the obstacles of securing funding and collaboration, as well as the pressure to produce a film that will do well at the box office, can overtake the allure of treating this topic.

Yoyes, by Helena Taberna, is the film that I will study in-depth in this project. In addition to adding to the growing number of films that discuss the conflict with ETA, it is particularly significant for its focus on a female member of the organization. Taberna herself has admitted that she enjoys working with controversial topics, and in an interview with Revista Elkarri had the following to say: “la verdad es que me atraen los temas que creo que deben ser mirados desde muchos puntos de vista, de muchas maneras; me molesta la mirada unidireccional…Me gusta proponer que se miren los hechos desde distintos ángulos, como se mira a una escultura, porque en la vida las cosas son casi

202 siempre complejas.” (“Entrevista: Helena Taberna”). Taberna is also a unique member of the group of creators that I work with in this project, as she is the only person that is actually from the area hardest hit by the violence of the conflict she represents. While this hardly equates to a superiority over the other authors by the simple reason of her origin, it is clear that it does add a very personal motivation to her work.

Considering the undeniable impact of the conflict with ETA on Spain over the past half-century and its gross underrepresentation in both film and literature, the analysis of those works which do treat the topic is essential because a relatively small group of works is commenting on over fifty years of a very complicated political conflict. This section, then, will explore the representation of the Basque conflict in the film Yoyes

(2000) by Helena Taberna and in the novel Ojos que no ven (2010) by J.Á. González

Sainz.

203

Chapter 3: Dehumanization of the etarra: J. Á. González Sainz’s Ojos que no ven (2010)

Ojos que no ven narrates the trajectory of Felipe Díaz Carrión’s family, which is ripped apart by the participation of his wife, Asun, and his older son, Juanjo, in ETA.

Through a dialogue with Lakoff’s family-as-nation metaphor, I examine the tensions in

Felipe’s family as representative of the issues faced by the Spanish nation in the conflict with ETA. Furthermore, and more importantly for the purposes of this dissertation, I analyze the role of the dehumanizing discourses employed in the description of both

Asun and Juanjo during the novel. I argue that these discourses are necessary in order to overcome the affective, familial bonds that tie Felipe to Asun and Juanjo and criticize their actions. This reflects the situation in the nation in general, where the figures committing violent acts are not foreign, anonymous subjects, but human beings who share the same citizenship90, the same schools, the same neighborhoods as those who oppose their actions. By extension, I conclude that a dehumanizing vision of ETA members strips them of these qualities that could, under other circumstances, suggest feelings of empathy and instead facilitates their denunciation. Additionally, I question the

90 I use “citizenship” here to reflect the fact that both ETA members and the Spanish society at-large are protected by the same rights as a result of their Spanish citizenship. I recognize that this is very different from nationality, and that many ETA members would claim to only be Basque and not Spanish. 204 focus on only two members of ETA in the entire novel, as well as the representation of the Spanish State throughout the work.

Ojos que no ven is ostensibly the story of Felipe Díaz Carrión and the changes in his family over the years. Felipe, a simple man originally from a small town in the interior of Spain, is forced to migrate north to the Basque Country with his wife and young son when he loses his job at a local printing press. Once established in their new town, he and his wife have a second son, who is also named Felipe. Within a few years of their new life, however, Felipe’s older child, Juanjo, and his wife, Asun, become involved in a group which is never explicitly named, but which is understood to be

ETA91. After Felipe separates from his wife, he and his younger son move back to his hometown. It is there that they receive the news that Juanjo has been arrested for murder, and Felipe has to deal with the immense guilt he feels over the actions of his son.

Ultimately, through dealing with the loss of his own father, Felipe is able to come to terms with Juanjo’s actions and the novel ends with a glimmer of hope for Felipe’s healing. In addition to the storyline’s focus on Felipe and his family, the novel is also a statement condemning the violence of ETA and its role in the destruction of families like

Felipe’s and the creation of tension in the nation in general.

Though the novel features an omniscient narrator, the story is told through the perspective of Felipe Díaz Carrión. This technique gives readers access to the emotions, memories, and inner thoughts of Felipe during the entire work. His memories play a central role in the novel due to its structure; it begins in the present, but the entire first

91 This assumption can be made from a number of characteristics described in the novel, including the mere fact that Felipe describes this sort of movement happening in the region of Guipúzcoa, which was one of the hotbeds of ETA activity during the time period described by González Sainz. Multiple reviews confirm this fact, however, including those by the aforementioned critics and others cited below. 205 part is recounted as a series of flashbacks. In addition to being cyclical with the structure of its time, Ojos que no ven is also, at times, cyclical in the structure of its writing. There are numerous sections of text which reappear, replicated exactly or almost exactly, at later moments in the story.

González Sainz purposely does not include many details that would help to situate the novel geographically or temporally. In an interview with Alejandro Luque, the author attributed this characteristic of the novel to his desire to focus on the theme of violence in general, instead of a specific setting: “Cualquier lector español se da cuenta de que Ojos que no ven trata del País Vasco, pero he puesto mucho cuidado en que se mencionen muy pocos topónimos. Y ello se debe a que he querido afrontar el tema de la violencia en sí”

(“Donde hay fronteras”). Even with only a handful of clues, however, it is possible to extract enough information to create a general idea of when and where the novel takes place. Ojos que no ven is set in two different locations: Felipe Díaz Carrión’s hometown and the Basque city to which the family emigrates after he loses his job. Jon Juaristi, in his review of the novel, narrows down the geographical location of Felipe’s hometown through the landmark of the Pedralén, a crucial site in the story. According to Juaristi, the mention of the Pedralén situates the novel “en las cercanías de Cervera del Río Alhama, extremo de la Rioja oriental encajonado entre Navarra, Aragón y Soria” (“Novela”). The

Basque town is never named and is harder to pin down; Felipe only says that it is “uno de los grandes pueblos industriales de una de las verdes y neblinosas cuencas guipuzcoanas”

(González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 26). Even this mention of the region is significant, however, due to its central role in the support of Herri Batasuna, long considered the

206 political branch of ETA92. Jesús Rodríguez, in “La representación del etarra en la novela española del siglo XXI,” cites an explanation of Florencio Domínguez Iribarren’s work,

Las raíces del miedo. Euskadi, una sociedad atemorizada, in order to demonstrate the relationship between this region and ETA. Domínguez Iribarren claims that, in this region, “la presencia de Batasuna es dominante y asfixiante” for those people who do not share in its ideology (qtd. in J. Rodríguez 234). This is certainly the case in Ojos que no ven and this intense environment affects the lives of each member of Felipe’s family.

In terms of time periods, there are three distinguishing moments around which all of the events of the novel turn. The first is the assassination of Felipe’s father during the guerra civil española. According to Carlos Javier García, in “Aunque no veas, algo ves: la culpa en Ojos que no ven, de J. Á. González Sainz”, Felipe Díaz Díaz was killed “en el pasado lejano de 1936”, which would have been at the beginning of the Guerra Civil

Española (21). The next defining moment for Felipe’s family comes when they emigrate north to the Basque Country. In his review of the novel, Luis Prádanos links this emigration to the phenomenon of “desarrollismo” which occurred throughout Spain during the 1960s and during which many families left their small towns in order to find work in the larger cities93 (“Review”). Though he does not explain how he reaches his conclusion, Jesús Rodríguez postulates more concretely that their move occurs in 1967

(234). This time period in this geographical location is significant, he explains, because

92 See the introduction to this section for more information regarding Herri Batasuna. 93 “El desarrollismo” was a period of economic change that swept through Spain after the passage of the Plan Nacional de Estabilización Económica in 1959. It was implemented as the result of a series of plans during the 1960s and early 1970s and helped Spain to recover from its terrible economic situation at the very beginning of Franco’s dictatorship. For more information on the details of “el desarrollismo,” see De la dictadura a la democracia: desarrollismo, crisis y transición (1959-1977) by Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa, Sergio Villar and Paul Preston (1983) or La época de Franco: del desarrollismo a la muerte del Caudillo, 1956-1975 by Antonio Sánchez and Pilar Huertas (2007), among others. 207 “al año siguiente ETA inicia la lucha armada y se recrudece la represión franquista contra los nacionalistas vascos” (“La representación” 234). Extending this calculation would locate the main action of the novel in 1987, as Felipe says in the opening pages of the story that 20 years have passed since the day he left his town (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 15).

The vast majority of the reviews to be found of Ojos que no ven are overwhelmingly positive. Jon Juaristi in his review for ABC recommends the novel and proclaims that González Sainz is “un narrador excepcional” (“Novela”). The only negative review to be found is not even entirely negative; Ricardo Senabre praises

González Sainz’s ability to create literary worlds which sync with current times, but criticizes the repetitive structure of the second part of the book and signals a few specific phrasing choices from the text with which he does not agree. Many of the positive reviews stem from the subject matter of the novel. Gonzalo Martín de Marcos opines that, in spite of its relatively short length (154 pages), “no es trivial por el tema que aborda, el terrorismo de ETA” (“La ética del lenguaje”). Carmelo López-Arias echoes this opinion and highlights the fact that Ojos que no ven breaks the general trend of avoiding this topic. He writes that “la valentía que le atribuimos no es tanto la de enfrentarse a los criminals con una gran novela corta, como la de pisar un terreno en el que ciertos exquisitos del establishment cultural prefieren no mancharse las botas, y que miran con recelo por si el barro de las botas ajenas señala con dedo acusador el lustre de las propias” (“La valentía de…”). While I agree with those reviews that applaud the technical aspects of the novel and the subject matter, I will also problematize a number of aspects of González Sainz’s novel in the analysis below.

208

Family Metaphors

Given the obvious differences in ideology and behavior among the members of

Felipe’s family, I assert that they represent a microcosm of the Spanish State in regards to the conflict with ETA. Anne McClintock affirms that “Nations are frequently figured through the iconography of familial and domestic space” and, indeed, George Lakoff discusses the nation-as-family metaphor both in his book Moral Politics (1996), and in

“The Nation as Family,” (2006) (A. McClintock 63). In this metaphor, Lakoff assigns specific roles to each member of the family, and points to “the homeland as home, the citizens as siblings, [and] the government (or the head of government) as parent” (“The

Nation as Family” 50). Extending these characteristics to the specific case of Felipe and his family, then, would mean that Felipe, as the father, would represent the Spanish government, and his children would represent Spanish citizens.

Before examining more thoroughly this metaphor in terms of Felipe’s family in

Ojos que no ven, I wish to highlight two issues that I find with the overall structure of the metaphor, particularly as it applies to this context. First, Lakoff’s notion of nation-as- family clearly does not leave room for the possibility of nationalisms alternative to the one set out by the nation-state. This is particularly problematic in the context of the

Basque Country, where one can consider themselves both Basque and Spanish, or either

Basque or Spanish. I also find it ironic that this very issue is at the heart of the Basque

Conflict in the first place, in that the radical form of Basque nationalism espoused by

ETA stands in complete contrast to Spanish nationalism, instead of within it or in conjunction to it.

209 Additionally, I would argue that Lakoff’s original description of the metaphor is masculine-centered, and that by “parent,” he really means “father94.” This, of course, proposes a question regarding the role of the mother in the family. It appears here that the role of the mother aligns with the discussion of motherhood from the introduction to this project, namely that they nurture their children in accordance with the gender roles traditionally assigned to them. Examining the tasks assigned by Lakoff seems to support this notion; he discusses the idea of “Mother Russia” and “Mother India,” but then notes that “The government’s duty is to citizens as a parent’s is to children: provide security

(protect us); make laws (tell us what we can and cannot do); run the economy (make sure we have enough money and supplies); provide public schools (educate us)” (“The Nation as Family” 49-50, emphasis original). These tasks have traditionally been performed by men, and Lakoff does not make a particular point to include the role of women participating in them.

Though the specific roles of Felipe’s family members will be analyzed in further detail below, a cursory division here will serve as an introduction. As parents, Lakoff’s metaphor would indicate that, at the very least, Felipe should represent in some way the government. Asun’s role, in this case, problematizes Lakoff’s notion of nation and the role of women in his concept of family because she appears to represent an alternative nationalism through her work with the Basque political wing of ETA and she is the only parent which takes any sort of strong political action at all during the novel. Felipe, on the

94 I would argue that this opinion is further supported by the fact that Lakoff discusses the “Strict Father” model and the “Nurturant Parent” model. Though he does discuss women in his works, I believe his focus is largely on a masculine idea of politics and politicians and that, when he does discuss women, they typically fall in to the more traditional roles that I discussed in the introduction to this project, as evidenced by the “Nurturing” part of the “Nurturing Parent” title. 210 other hand, condemns ETA and their violent methods, but never does anything to stop them, even when he suspects the involvement of his own son. Given what is known about the involvement of the Spanish State in the persecution of ETA members during both time periods described during the novel, then, I would argue that he does not fit neatly into Lakoff’s metaphor in the parent role. The differences in Felipe’s sons will also be discussed in more detail below, but they represent well the very different responses to the

Basque nationalist movement during the setting of the novel.

Early Signals of ETA Participation

As previously mentioned, Felipe’s family settles in their new town the year before

ETA initiates their violent activities, and the first years of their lives there seem to pass relatively unaffected by this development. Felipe’s status as an immigrant, however, soon begins to impede the integration of his wife and son into the social fabric of their town.

Juaristi illustrates Felipe’s placement on the social hierarchy of the town in describing

“una jerarquía social tácita que subordina la emigración de la España pobre a quienes, en las regiones industriales, se tienen por anfitriones legítimos y ponen a los recién llegados ante el dilema de asumir sus obsesiones identitarias o resignarse a un ostracismo que, tarde o temprano, derivará hacia situaciones no disimuladas de persecución política y acoso violento” (“Novela”). As Felipe’s wife, Asun, and his older son, Juanjo, attempt to distance themselves from the label of maketo and the difficulties that it implies, they choose the first of the options described by Juaristi and begin to sympathize with, and then participate in, ETA. Carmelo López-Arias describes this process as the most

211 important change that accompanies Felipe’s new life in the Basque Country: “la transformación de su hijo, maketo, hijo de maketos, resentido por sus orígenes y carcomido por el odio, en un miembro de la banda; y la transformación de su mujer,

Asun, arrastrada por el deseo de asimilación en una sociedad anclada en el miedo y el silencio temeroso, en una pieza más del engranje de justificación y apoyo implícito al crimen” (“La valentía de…”). Their decision to participate in ETA will come to define not only their family dynamic, but also the trajectory of each of their lives in very different ways.

Juanjo’s participation in ETA, in particular, appears to stem from normal teenage socialization. As he grows older he begins to spend a great deal of time with new friends and, eventually, identifies much more with his new social group than with his family.

Felipe describes this socialization when he explains that Juanjo

había entrado de lleno en la adolescencia y empezaba no ya a salir con su

pandilla de amigos, sino a estar con ellos en realidad lo que se dice a todas

horas. Nada había para él como la pandilla y ninguna de las costumbres o

las opiniones de casa, o por lo menos las de su padre, tenían el menor

valor si se comparaba con el que ostentaban las de sus amigos (González

Sainz, Ojos que no ven 29).

Felipe also explains that Juanjo begins to not publicly recognize his father when he is with this new group of friends. Although he first chalks this up to normal teenage behavior, it is apparent that he also notices something deeper in these moments: “no podía por menos de verlo cada vez más distante, cada vez más ajeno, volando lejos en enigmáticos y seguramente seductores círculos inasequibles para él” (30). Furthermore,

212 Felipe explains, “al poco de mudarse allí, empezó a despreciar los estudios y a la gente que estudiaba—no se comen ya ni una rosca, decía—y un carácter cada vez más agrio y arisco, normal si se quiere en la adolescencia, pero que ya tenía todos los visos de ser cualquier cosa menos pasajero, se había ido apoderando poco a poco inexorablemente de

él” (31). To make matters worse, Juanjo often enjoys the “apoyo o comprensión de su madre” during his outbursts, which leads his father to only tolerate his presence in the house and hope that the phase passes (31). This is one of the situations in which Felipe sees his attempts at parenting frustrated by Asun’s parenting style, which is much more permissive for Juanjo. Additionally, the bond between Juanjo and his mother only deepends from this moment on, and eventually joins them both in opposition to Felipe.

This family dynamic will be examined in further detail below, particularly in the context of the family-as-nation metaphor.

As Juanjo’s involvement stems from his socialization, so does his mother’s. Asun appears to have had few problems fitting into her new surroundings and, at first, the changes produced by her new social group appear to be positive ones95. She also quickly begins to pick up the language, a very important aspect of her integration given her non-

Basque heritage, and Felipe is quite impressed: “hasta daba la impression de haber estudiado, o por lo menos aprendido un sinfín de frases y palabras que pronunciaba de corrido con una seguridad pasmosa que a él no dejaba de asombrarle” (33). During this period of time, Asun and Juanjo develop a much closer relationship due to their shared

95 In the novel, readers find the following description of her changes: “Asun, Asunción García Bellido, sobre todo a medida que el pequeño se fue haciendo mayor, había ido encontrando su grupo de amistades y sus distracciones y parecía haberse aclimatado, o como ella decía, integrado, a la perfección” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 32). Additionally, the narrator notes, “era como si se hubiera soltado, como si hubiera dicho adios a cualquier inhibición o timidez anterior, a cualquier apocamiento” (33). 213 interests, and both begin to pull away from Felipe. As with Juanjo, Felipe notices these changes in Asun but attributes them to a much more innocent cause:

Pero aunque era verdad que aquel carácter dulce y cariñoso que había

tenido hasta no hacía mucho había ido cambiando, y que se le habían ido

poniendo unas maneras no sólo bruscas sino hasta despectivas y coléricas

desconocidas hasta entonces, pensaba que no podía ser sino cosa

seguramente de la edad, de la lucha por la vida y por salir adelante, de la

satisfacción incluso por haberlo conseguido, y que no siempre se tiene por

qué ser igual en la vida ni es mejor lo de antes (33).

The fact that Felipe is able to explain away the behavior of both Juanjo and Asun will haunt him later in life as the consequences of their changes become evident. At this moment, however, I would argue that the affective, familial bond between Felipe and his wife and son prevent him from accepting the reality of their behavior and that their dehumanization throughout the rest of the novel is what finally forces him to open his eyes to the truth.

There are a number of other signs of the increasing participation of Juanjo and

Asun in what will obviously be ETA, though it does not spur Felipe to act. Felipe describes the papers that Juanjo brings home to read and explains that they were “noticias de crímenes a veces lo que leía, de atentados, decía el periódico, de acciones, de gentes que asesinaban a otras gentes—que las ajusticiaban, había leído, que les causaban baja— o las secuestraban y ponían bombas debajo o al paso de los coches” (González Sainz,

Ojos que no ven 32). As Asun’s involvement increases, these types of news stories serve as discussion between mother and son. Felipe notices, for example, that Asun begins to

214 discuss more and more “esos atentados—o acciones, según decía el hijo—contra gentes cuya dignidad humana él se daba cuenta de que, aunque no alcanzase a comprender la razón, siempre aparecía cancelada de antemano en sus palabras por un rancor y una malevolencia para él inexplicables por más explicaciones que se empeñaban ambos en darle” (34). Felipe does not agree with the way they talk about these events, but limits himself to respond simply that “Me parece que no sabéis muy bien lo que decís” and explains that he does not want to argue with people who he assumes will not listen anyway (34).

During this period of increased involvement by Juanjo and Asun, Felipe’s favorite neighborhood bar becomes a metaphor for the changes in his personal life and also in the society around him. Though he had been accustomed to spending time at the bar while

Asun was out of the house with her friends, a new owner brings in a wave of changes: “al cabo de los años un día el bar cambió de dueño y, con el dueño, cambió también la concurrencia, y algunos de sus amigos, tanto los venidos también de otras tierras como los de por allí, fueron poco a poco dejando de ir” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 34).

This new ownership of the bar, once a neutral zone, shadows the way in which ETA begins to assume control of the town. Felipe continues to frequent the bar even amidst these changes, and the reaction of his friends is one which is echoed throughout many moments of the novel: “Tú es que no te enteras” (34). Along with this moment of foreshadowing, Felipe’s account of the more specific changes in the bar give a foreboding image of what is to come:

Las paredes del bar se fueron llenando de banderas, de fotografías de

desconocidos para él, de convocatorias a esto y lo otro y eslóganes…Por

215 cambiar también cambió hasta el café, que era casi lo único que él tomaba;

lo notaba más ácido y más fuerte, o a lo mejor sería la leche o el modo de

prepararlo, que, como el resto de las cosas, parecía haberse transformado

allí de un plumazo de la noche a la mañana (35).

Again, Felipe does not stop going to the bar and, for a short period of time, it seems like the owners are even friendlier to him than before. Felipe mentions that they joke with him and make references to “hechos de los que él daba a entender que se enteraba pero de los que, la mayor parte de las veces, se quedaba a dos velas y, el resto, la verdad era que no quería enterarse” (35). Coincidentally, during this period of friendly treatment from the new ETA-sympathizing bar, Juanjo leaves home and moves to France for “work”, and so readers are to understand the hospitality enjoyed by Felipe is based on the belief that he is supporting his son’s participation in ETA. The changes in Juanjo and Asun from this moment on, however, are even more stark than those that Felipe notices in the bar, and it is to these two characters in particular that I would like to now turn.

Animalistic dehumanization of Juanjo

Though Juanjo had been pulling away from his father for quite some, their last conversation before he leaves for France reflects the stark change in his personality.

Felipe notices that Juanjo appears to be bothered by something and asks what is wrong in an attempt to help, but Juanjo reacts violently to his father’s offer: “Qué me vas a ayudar tú, si eres un paleto de mierda…un paleto de mierda y además uno de ellos” (González

Sainz, Ojos que no ven 37). When his father, obviously shocked by Juanjo’s vitriol, asks him to elaborate, Juanjo explains that Felipe is “De ellos, de quién va a ser, de toda esa

216 inmunda morralla de mierda que no nos deja vivir y nos tiene históricamente oprimidos”

(37). In terms of Lakoff’s family-as-nation metaphor, this statement by Juanjo is particularly interesting because he appears to associate his father with the political forces that have traditionally oppressed the social group to which he now belongs. At one point in one of his later diatribes, Juanjo even calls his father a fascist in an open allusion to the ideology so closely associated with Franco, one of the most severe oppressors of Basque nationalism. Even though Felipe never acts openly against ETA, except for his participation in the protests in the plaza, Juanjo clearly associates his father with a

Spanish nationalism that is opposed to, and oppressive towards, his own newly formed

Basque nationalism.

Juanjo’s discourse does not improve from there and, this discussion becomes a defining moment in the novel, both for the relationship between Juanjo and his father and for Juanjo’s involvement in ETA. Felipe recalls Juanjo’s reaction with the following description:

Se trataba también, junto a todo ello, de un desahogo cada vez más

acerbamente violento por parte de su hijo en el que, ante el asombro cada

vez más afligido y alarmado del padre, no cesó de hacerle reproches y

achacarle culpas, de lanzarle acusaciones y pedirle amargamente cuentas

como quien lleva un tiempo mucho mayor que el humanamente soportable

esperando a que se produzca la primera ocasión para estallar sin encontrar

nunca el motivo o el momento adecuados: la culpa de sus mierdosos

apellidos, le gritó, y de su mierdoso lugar de origen, de su sumisión

aborregada y de su cochina pobretería, de su vejez, de su apocamiento, de

217 su inactividad, todo el día deprimido y jugando a las cartas, la culpa de

que él hubiera nacido justamente de quien había nacido y de tener un

padre que era un don nadie que no era nada y era un fascistón de tomo y

lomo (38-39).

The replication of this long description is necessary because, in addition to signifying a definitive break in the family, it brings to the forefront a number of themes which will be discussed below. First, in his diatribe, Juanjo gives important clues as to the reasons behind his joining ETA. Considering that the novel is told from Felipe’s perspective, this conversation is also important because the only ETA members that readers actually

“meet” in the novel are Juanjo and Asun. His descriptions of their personalities and their actions, then, take on an increased level of significance because, for better or for worse, they come to stand for all ETA members. Furthermore, Felipe’s response to this moment is indicative of his general attitude towards ETA throughout the novel and this is the only moment during which he tries to stop Juanjo.

Among the many things of which Juanjo accuses his father, a few particular elements stand out: his unfortunate last names, his unfortunate place of origin, and his poverty. Jesús Rodríguez proposes that “la atracción de Juanjo por el nacionalismo radical se debe en parte a la vergüenza que le produce su origen maketo y su deseo de integrarse en el colectivo abertzale que en algunos pueblos de Euskadi representa la mayoría de la población” (235). By rejecting all elements of his heritage that would link him to a non-Basque identity, Juanjo attempts to assert his new social identity. Rodríguez also affirms the importance of this move in terms of his social standing; he quotes José

Sanmartín, who states that “su entrada en ETA le ha dado una salvaguarda contra la

218 discriminación y le ha hecho participe, a su vez, de su indiscutible prestigio social” (qtd. in J. Rodríguez 235). Though Juanjo never mentioned having any problems integrating into a new group of friends, the torment suffered by his younger brother, Felipe, is most likely representative of Juanjo’s experience, as well. He never complains of it while it is happening, but years after the fact Felipe reveals to his father the sort of persecution he suffered at the hands of his classmates: “¿Te acuerdas de aquel día que volví a casa sangrando del instituto—le dijo—porque me habían atizado una buena tunda de palos? El hermanito facha, me llamaban, el hermanito cabrón. Escribían todos los días Felipe Díaz en la pizarra rodeado de una diana, y hasta había algún profesor que no la borraba en toda la clase” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 112). If Juanjo had suffered this same torment during his school years as a result of his being an outsider, it makes sense that he would improve his social standing and put and end to the discrimination by joining those who were formerly his tormenters.

Regardless of his reasons for joining ETA, Juanjo’s outburst at this moment is significant when considering the overall depiction of his character. As previously mentioned, Juanjo is the only member of ETA who is discussed in any sort of detail in the novel. Consequently, readers’ conceptions of what an ETA member is like are potentially based only on his character and he comes to stand for all ETA members.

Considering, then, the vile language and the emotional violence of the outburst towards his father, joining ETA appears to have turned Juanjo into a monster. Additionally,

Juanjo mocks his younger brother’s interest in botany on numerous occasions, commenting on his brother’s studying of plants by saying “¡Que no son mujeres, espabilao, que son unos mierdosos hierbajos!” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 44).

219 This insult becomes even more cruel on one occasion as Juanjo adds “niñato de mierda” to it. Young Felipe stands up for himself on this particular day and attacks Juanjo, who is taken completely by surprise. After their fight has ended and before he storms out of the house, Juanjo says “en alto y bien claro, con una mirada que el padre tardó muy poco en reconocer, que como se le volviera a cruzar en su camino el niñato ese de mierda a lo mejor no lo contaba” (47). That someone would treat their own father and younger brother this way, especially considering that the victims of these attacks had never done anything to Juanjo in the first place, paints Juanjo in the worst light possible.

Juanjo’s last appearance in the novel comes on the heels of his arrest for his role in at least one, and possibly three, murders. As if the accusations were not heinous enough, Felipe allows himself to imagine how the crimes were committed. In one case,

Felipe imagines that, after inviting Juanjo into his office, the professor

levantaría entonces la vista bien levantada y aun vería el hombre, con un

pasmo tan helado como no habría sentido en su vida, el contorno del

individuo y la sombra de la pistola que se lo estaban llevando en aquel

preciso momento al otro mundo: el resplandor de los disparos, dos en el

pecho y otro, ya caído de bruces sobre sus escritos, en la nuca…y la

sombra de los ojos del individuo que era mi hijo y que había decidido, él o

quien fuera, como un Dios y a la vez como el más estúpido de los

mentecatos, llevárselo para siempre de este mundo (González Sainz, Ojos

que no ven 114).

There is something so cold about the way Felipe envisions Juanjo in this moment, from the three very precise shots to the shadow that he imagines in his son’s eyes, as if he were

220 hollow inside. Felipe continues to let his mind imagine the details of another murder as he envisions the death of the journalist who, in his version, leaves a bar after having a cup of coffee and begins to walk home. At this point, Felipe imagines that Juanjo, noticing that no one else is around,

va y echa mano de la pistola, de la misma pistola con la que ya había

matado al pobre hombre que hacía de guardia civil y mataría después al

profesor, y le descerraja de pronto dos tiros, dos tiros en la nuca, dos tiros

por la espalda, así, pin pan, tal y como iba el hombre delante, con sus

periódicos sólo en la mano y los ojos en su camino, que ni le dio ocasión

de ver siquiera de refilón al valiente ejemplar de alimaña que le quitaba la

vida igual que si fuera un juez supremo” (116).

Felipe, in this moment, describes Juanjo as “esa alimaña petulante y asqueada que es mi hijo” and assumes that, in that moment, “seguramente no abriría la boca más que para decir a lo mejor toma, chúpate eso, cagatintas de mierda, o profe de mierda o mierdoso madero de mierda” (116). Ultimately, Felipe imagines his son as a cold-blooded killer who not only does not feel remorse, but would go so far as to mock his victims as they are dying. This is a significant turning point in the image that Felipe holds of Juanjo; while readers are aware that the news of Juanjo’s arrest is personally devastating to

Felipe, they also see for the first time that Felipe is clearly able to view his son as a monster instead of avoiding the thought.

Readers’ image of Juanjo does not improve when Felipe goes to visit him in prison. Though Felipe imagines a number of things that he would like to say, he is rendered absolutely speechless when Juanjo is brought in. Recognizing this as weakness,

221 Juanjo lays into him yet again, shouting “Eres tan cobarde y tan poca cosa…que no te atreves ni a hablar. Eso es lo que has sido siempre, nada, nada de nada, ¿me oyes?, una puta mierda seca y aplastada en ese camino que tanto te gusta, un pobretón muerto de hambre que ni pinta nada en mundo ni ha entendido nunca por dónde van los tiros. ¿No has venido a hablar? ¡Pues, habla, coño, di algo!” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 129).

The situation only worsens as Felipe gets up to leave without having said a single word to his son. In this moment, Juanjo, enraged, continues to yell at his father and begins to beat on the glass separating them. The last mention of Juanjo in the novel comes as the guards quickly move in to subdue and remove him. Felipe says that “Se lo llevaron a rastras hacia la puerta metálica del centro de la sala sin que él dejara de gritar a voz en cuello cipayos de mierda y puto padre de mierda, vete de una vez a la mierda de la que no tenías que haber salido nunca y donde ojalá te pudras más de los que siempre has estado en tu puta vida de mierda” (133). Between his pounding on the glass and yelling obscenities,

Juanjo appears much closer to a rabid animal than a person with any shred of humanity left. When readers consider the emotional toll that Juanjo’s imprisonment took on his father when he found out, his actions appear to be even more cruel because it is obvious that, while his father obviously still loves him, Juanjo holds absolutely no shred of familial love for Felipe.

In an effort to assuage his guilt regarding Juanjo’s commission of these horrific crimes, Felipe pulls out an old photo of his son when he was young. Much like the young version of Asun that was the person Felipe wanted to remember, this young, innocent version of Juanjo is the child that Felipe recognizes. Referring to the adult, murderous version of Juanjo, Felipe even says to his younger son, “¿vez como no es él? ¿ves como

222 no tiene ni por asomo la misma mirada?” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 138). Though

Felipe looks at the picture in an attempt to deal with his own guilt as a father, this moment is an example for readers of the abhorent way in which Juanjo’s membership in

ETA has converted a young, smiling little boy to a cold-blooded killer who doesn’t even respect his own father.

If Felipe is meant to represent a figure of power in the nation-as-family metaphor,

I would argue that the complete dehumanization of Juanjo is a necessary step in Felipe’s condemnation of his activities. As described in the introduction to this project, this aligns closely with the dehumanization of subjects which are persecuted by the government, particularly during states of exception, in that their dehumanization helps to justify the violence committed against them by the government. Felipe obviously never lays a finger on his son, but readers can see that he finally breaks through the intense guilt that he feels for Juanjo’s participation in ETA only after he witnesses his son acting like a rabid animal in jail. It is this final act which appears to ultimately free Felipe from the relationship he had with his son and, by comparing Juanjo’s animalistic face in jail to his childhood photo, Felipe only further confirms that Juanjo is no longer the boy he knew as his son.

Begoña Aretxaga, in “The Intimacy of Violence,” sheds interesting light on to this situation, both in terms of Felipe and Juanjo and as it pertains to the larger national context. In particular, Aretxaga notes the way in which social intimacy complicates the classification and condemnation of violence as “terrorism” and explains that these acts can “lead to a feeling of social dislocation or cultural shock” (169). She continues to describe the heightened impact of these acts when they are committed by a “familiar face

223 or someone previously close,” noting that “In these cases, closeness turns to estrangement and lack of recognition” (169-170). I find this last comment particularly poignant considering Felipe’s inability to recognize in Juanjo’s violent character the sweet young son from his childhood photo. This is also seen in Felipe’s description of the changes in the environment around him, where even his neighborhood bar becomes nearly unrecognizable. Referring back to the fact that Felipe’s family can come to stand for the divisions in the Spanish nation, this points to an even deeper division that can surge among the larger population when one politically affiliated group begins to see themselves separate from another. Instead of a nationally united population, then, these sorts of acts can lead to factions and divisions that can ultimately destroy the national

“family.”

Dehumanizing Representations of the Mother

Juanjo is not the only member of the family who suffers a terribly negative change as a result of their involvement with ETA. Though his mother is only involved in the political arm of the organization, she, too, snaps as she solidifies her involvement with the group. Despite having left home a few months prior, she arrives to the house one day and has the same sort of outburst towards Felipe as Juanjo. Felipe describes her as always picking fights, and on this day in particular she references his going to the plaza each day to protest against the kidnapping by ETA of one of his bosses at work:

“Vendido, no eres más que un vendido y un fascista, allí como un pasmarote en la plaza llenándome de vergüenza a ojos de todo el mundo. Tu marido, me decían, ahí tienes a tu marido, a ver si un día le va a pasar algo. Ni entendemos cómo puedes estar con uno así”

224 (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 64). As Juanjo was embarrassed by his father’s origin and working-class status, Asun is mortified that her husband would spend his time publicly protesting against ETA—an organization which she has likely worked hard to join, given her outsider status—and causing a scene against which she has to defend herself. Felipe had already suffered a brutal physical attack for his participation in the protests, but Asun also attempts to make Felipe feel guilty for his actions by mentioning that he owes her a great deal of credit for his safety: “Pero tú no sabes nada, claro, tú no sabes lo que nos debes a mí y a Juanjo, que nos debes hasta el estar ahora mismo respirando” (64). Though Felipe was the victim of the violent attack, it appears his life was spared due to Asun’s and Juanjo’s participation in ETA.

Though the change in her character is evident, by the last time readers see Asun in the novel, she has lost almost all traces of their humanity just like Juanjo. After Asun’s previously described verbal attack on Felipe, he loses control much in the way that his young son did with Juanjo and fights back. In this case, he maps out a representation of the cell where his boss was held by ETA for over a year and yells at Asun to imagine what it was like to be kept in such a small space, with no light or human contact or basic supplies, for over a year. As he finishes describing what it was like for the prisoner, he turns to Asun and says: “¿me has oído? ¿O es que ya no tienes ni oídos ni ojos ni entrañas ni tienes ya más que un rencor imbécil que te ha podrido por dentro?” (González Sainz,

Ojos que no ven 69). He effectively removes a number of elements from Asun’s being which would make her a real person: her ability to see and listen and her gut instinct, which would theoretically be horrified by his description. Furthermore, he asks if she has

225 rotted on the inside, implying that the space which would normally encompass her soul is completely devoid of anything resembling it.

Also resembling the description of Juanjo, when Felipe sees Asun’s picture in the paper after she is elected councilwoman in town, he says that her smile “Era la sonrisa que, más que ninguna otra cosa, más que agrado o satisfacción por haber obtenido el cargo, mucho más sobre todo que verdadera alegría o jovialidad, del todo ausentes, traslucía también otra cosa que era rivalidad, animadversión y en el fondo asco, una mueca de asco reconcentrado y desafiante y una engreída obstinación rencorosa” (75).

This is an inverted replication of his comparison between Juanjo and his photograph, in which Juanjo’s humanity was emphasized in the photo and compared to his animalistic qualities in real life. Here, Asun’s photo in the newspaper serves as visual confirmation of the dramatic, negative change in Asun due to her participation in ETA.

An issue which is not addressed in the novel but which bears examination is

Asun’s role as mother. It has already been made evident that she became a terrible wife after joining her new social group in the Basque Country; she is never home, and when she is home, she is constantly picking fights with Felipe and screaming at him.

Interestingly enough, though, her relationship with her younger son, Felipe, is never described. Readers know that she gave birth to him after moving to the Basque Country, but they are never described together and she never shows any sort of affection or attention towards him. Furthermore, it doesn’t appear that the younger Felipe keeps in contact with his mother after he and his father move away from the Basque Country, and she seems to completely disappear from his life. While Felipe never addresses the

226 relationship with his mother, I view her cold detachment as the ultimate step in her dehumanization.

As Sjoberg and Gentry note, women who abandoned their “primary role as mother” in order to join the paramilitary fight in Northern Ireland were considered to

“‘forfeit’ a sense of ‘innocence or purity’” (7-8). This same decision certainly opens

Asun up for judgment since, considering the traditional roles of women described in the introduction to this project, she chooses to reject both motherhood (at least to her non-

ETA son) and her role as wife after joining ETA. As will be seen in the following chapter, however, Asun’s dehumanization as a result of her apparent abandonment of her motherhood is completely opposite to the humanization that occurs with the historical figure of Yoyes in her choice to pursue motherhood after ending her participation in ETA.

It must also be noted, as well, that Asun only abandons the child that does not pursue radical Basque nationalism. While she is shown supporting Juanjo in his early days before joining ETA, her son, Felipe, never demonstrates any interest in anything but nature and science and is never even depicted in conversation with his mother. According to Atxaga, however, this rejection of motherhood might be necessary for Asun’s political participation. In her discussion of the figure of Yoyes, which will be examined in the following chapter, Atxaga writes that “A mother by definition cannot be a hero or traitor in the cultural context of radical nationalism; she is beyond these categories” (“The Death of Yoyes” 161). I take this to mean that a mother, by traditional definition, has no place in the radical nationalist fight since her role places her firmly in the home in a caretaking position. She therefore cannot be a hero or a traitor because she is a non-participant in the struggle. It is only by renouncing her role as mother, or at the very least not emphasizing

227 it in the novel, that Asun is able to fully embrace this politically charged and divisive role.

The stark contrast between the empty shell that Asun has become and the loving woman she once was is made even more distinct through Felipe’s description of the beginning stages of their romance. As a reaction to seeing Asun’s cold expression in the newspaper photo, Felipe wishes that he could see “los ojos reidores y la mirada cálidamente sosegada de la que se había enamorado hacía ya casi cuarenta años”

(González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 76). He continues to reminisce about Asun during this time period and remembers the day that they conceived Juanjo, describing it as a day that

“ambos solían decir que había sido el día más feliz de su vida en común” (76). As he remembers the afternoon, he recalls waking up next to Asun and accidentally smearing some dirt on her, but says of her reaction that “Ella se rió—o tal vez se rió la fronda, el río, el canto de los pájaros—con una risa plácida y queda a través de la que dio la impresión de trasparentársele el mundo un instante, y el mundo era bueno y jovial y todo alcanzaba” (79). This sweet, innocent expression on young Asun gives her blank stare in the newspaper photo an even more sad and ominous air.

Oedipal Resonance and Family Dynamics

Because of the relationship I find with Ojos que no ven and the family-as-nation metaphor, and especially considering the lines along which Felipe’s family is divided during the novel, I find that the situation lends itself to an examination of the Oedipal structures present in the work. Here I refer to Freud’s description of the Oedipal

228 Complex, which at its base claims that young children might subconsciously wish for the death of their same-sex parent in order to satisfy the sexual desires held for their opposite sex parent. This, of course, refers to the legend of King Oedipus, who unknowingly and unintentionally fulfills a prophecy claiming that he will kill his father and wed his mother. Freud, in The Interpretation of Dreams proposes the following regarding the effect the work continues to hold on contemporary artists: “His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him. It may be that we were all destined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers and our first impulses of hatred and violence toward our fathers” (85). For Freud, only those individuals who are succeed in “withdrawing our sexual impulses from our mothers, and in forgetting our jealousy of our fathers” are able to avoid a psychoneurotic fate, and it is this difference which separates us from Oedipus himself (85). I would argue that this scenario helps to explain the significance of a few particular aspects of the novel, including the relationship between Juanjo and his father, the metaphor of their relationship in terms of the Spanish State, and the stark difference in character between Juanjo and his younger brother.

At first glance, Juanjo’s relationship with his father appears to sour as a result of his participation in ETA. Upon considering the ideas put forth by Freud, however, it could be argued that Juanjo rebels against his father because he views Felipe as representative of the Spanish State, an oppressive force which seeks to stifle his political agency. This appears to make more sense when we consider the relationship between

Juanjo and his mother, who supported his initial social interaction with Basque nationalist youth and with whom he is completely politically aligned by the end of the novel.

229 Although Felipe never makes any attempt to separate Juanjo from his mother, which would perhaps be the most classic Freudian cause of strife between son and father, he does stand in total opposition to their sympathy for and participation in ETA.

Furthermore, both Juanjo and Asun appear to use the term fascista to link Felipe to the

Spanish State, employing the term on different occasions to criticize him in their outbursts. Atxaga might argue that this term in particular is useful for Juanjo and Asun to break the intimacy between Felipe and themselves by locating Felipe “firmly on the

Spanish side of the Basque/Spanish boundary” and aligning themselves with the Basque side of the conflict96 (“Out of Their Minds?” 251). In the same way that Felipe was only able to disconnect from Juanjo and Asun after their complete dehumanization, they insisted upon categorizing Felipe with the Spanish State in order to break the affective familial bonds that would have otherwise prevented their criticism of him.

Freud’s discussion of the Oedipal Complex would indicate that a young male child subconsciously wishes for the death of his male parent in order to remove the barrier between himself and his mother. This certainly seems to be the case with Juanjo, as seen in his violent outbursts towards his father. Though he never actually commits violence against his father97, Juanjo most definitely appears to possess the inclination to

96 Atxaga discusses this breaking of intimacy in the national context during her analysis of the word cipayo as a derogatory term for the Basque Ertzaintza, or the Basque police force. She argues that radical Basque nationalists began to use this term in order to demonstrate that, by policing and arresting members of their own community, the Ertzaintza were on the Spanish side of the Basque/Spanish debate. For Atxaga, this represents a trauma for the Basque nationalists, and she says that the term cipayo “contains the traumatic residue of an imaginary unity that has not been given up, while it signals the fact that it no longer exists” (“Out of Their Minds?” 251). I argue that the same trauma, albeit on a much more personal level, can be found in the use of the term fascista by Juanjo and Asun. 97 There is never any specific mention of violence committed by Juanjo against his father. The only suspicious case that I find in the novel is the brutal attack on Felipe, as the identities of his attackers are never made known. Juanjo himself never alludes to having participated in the attack and Asun indicates 230 do so, particularly in his final scene in the novel as he beats against the glass and screams at his father from his confinement in prison. Again, I would argue that his feelings take on added weight considering the family-as-nation metaphor. If we posit that Felipe represents the Spanish State, which certainly seems to be the opinion held by Asun and

Juanjo, I consider Asun to represent the Basque nation. Given Lakoff’s references to

“Mother Russia” and “Mother India,” as well as Asun’s political participation, I feel that this association is well-supported. The Oedipal Complex comes out even more strongly here, as we can consider Juanjo to struggle against Felipe, or the Spanish State, who is standing in the way of his complete association with Asun, in her role as the Basque nation. Wishing for his father’s death, then, really represents a wish for the death of the

Spanish State, or at least for its control over the Basque Country, in order to unite fully with the Basque “motherland.” This is not necessarily brought out in the novel, as

Juanjo’s association with ETA is attributed more to socialization than to political ideology. I will further critique this aspect of the novel below.

In addition to better explaining the dynamic between Juanjo and his parents, I believe that the Oedipal Complex also helps to demystify a very significant element of the relationship between Juanjo and his younger brother, Felipe. Here I refer to the fact that Juanjo, born outside of the Basque Country, ends up supporting and participating in

ETA while Felipe, his younger brother who was actually born in the Basque Country, shows no interest in supporting the organization. First, the importance of the boys’ names is undeniable. Although Juanjo’s father was named after his own father, they do not carry on that tradition with Juanjo and he is immediately marked as being different than his that Felipe’s life was spared in that attack by the influence of herself and Juanjo, but it would not be out of the question to suspect Juanjo’s involvement. 231 father. Instead, his younger brother takes their father’s name, drawing even more clearly the line between Juanjo/Asun and the two Felipes. Furthermore, young Felipe is almost a carbon copy of his father; he enjoys all aspects of nature and loves spending time in the

Spanish countryside, and he is typically a quiet person who only snaps after suffering repeated exposure to the taunts of his older brother. In aligning Felipe (the father) with the Spanish State, I find young Felipe’s interests to be meaningful; not only does he enjoy being in the countryside away from the Basque Country, even moving back to his father’s hometown after his parents’ divorce, he ends up studying in Madrid, the center of the

Spanish government. Ultimately, one could argue that Felipe, by nature of his name and his personality, is able to achieve Freud’s goal of overcoming the jealousy he might initially feel towards his father and therefore maintain a very close relationship with him in a way that Juanjo cannot. I would argue that he is aided in this process by the apparent abandonment of his mother, who nurtured Juanjo in a way that appears to not have happened with Felipe. The bond with his mother, then, would not have been as important to Felipe and would not have presented such a strong obstacle in the development of his relationship with his father.

Exposure to etarras

In Ojos que no ven, the discussion of ETA and their activities often occurs in the context of Juanjo and Asun’s participation in the organization. Because of this narrative choice, there is a danger in the way the group in general is presented. I have already

232 mentioned that Juanjo and Asun98 are the only members of ETA who are actually developed throughout the novel and, as a result, they come to stand for all members of

ETA. Juanjo in particular follows fairly closely to the demographic changes in ETA membership after Franco’s regime, according to a study conducted by Reinares99, and I have no general contention concerning the plausibility of his joining the organization.

The aspect of their representation with which I take issue involves the motives of both

Juanjo and Asun for joining ETA in the first place. Lengthy passages in the novel describe their formation of new friendships and the increasing amounts of time spent away from home and with their new social groups. Considered in the light of their immigrant status, their non-Basque heritage, and their inability to speak the language, they appear to have accidentally fallen into ETA through a desperate attempt to make friends. Consequently, it is easy to dismiss their participation in ETA as a misguided means of social belonging, not as a way to assert a desire for Basque nationalism100. Even if that were the case for Juanjo and Asun, it permits the delegitimization of the decision

98 Though Asun is not an ETA militant, Felipe does suggest that she is a member of the political party which supports ETA. This would most likely be Herri Batasuna, which de Pablo notes has had ties to the military wing of ETA since its establishment (The Basque Nation On-Screen 37). Assuming this link, I would argue that she is an ETA member and not just a councilwoman. 99 Reinares finds a number of shifts in the demographic profile of ETA members when comparing statistics from the time period under Franco and the years of the transition to democracy. Of the changes that would apply to Juanjo’s literary situation, Reinares notes that ETA members during the transition (the time period relating to Juanjo’s participation) had fewer traditional Basque markers such as “authoctonous family names,” and a home environment in which one could find a number of Euskara speakers (481-482). He also seems to imply that ETA members during the transition were less concerned with the ideas of “ethnic separatism” that accompanied the type of Basque nationalism proposed by Sabino Arana and included the notion of preserving authentic Basque culture by keeping it separate from non-Basque influences. For an extended discussion of Arana’s notion of Basque nationalism, see Tras la huella de Sabino Arana: Los orígenes totalitarios del nacionalismo vasco (2005) by Antonio Elorza. 100 Per my previous discussion regarding the Oedipal resonance in Felipe’s family dynamic, I would posit that the theory of social belonging does not describe their motivations for joining ETA as well as a consideration of their motivations in light of their relationships with other members of their family and, consequently, the Spanish State. 233 of many other ETA members who joined out of a true belief that the organization’s goals and methods would lead to an autonomous Basque nation.

This very issue is raised during Felipe’s conversation with Juanjo after his first violent outburst. When Juanjo accuses Felipe of being one of “those people” that “no nos deja vivir y nos tiene históricamente oprimidos”, Felipe responds by asking him “¿Qué sabrás tú de estar oprimido y menos históricamente oprimido?” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 37). This is certainly a fair question for Juanjo and highlights the fact that he does not share the traditional cultural history of the other members of the group of which he wants so badly to be a part. Because Juanjo is the only ETA member readers “know”, however, Felipe also appears to dismiss the motivations of the entire group as he questions those of his son. This is only exacerbated by the fact that there is no historical context provided for ETA at any point during the novel. Not only is the organization never actually named, it is “voiceless” during the entire work, forcing readers to make assumptions regarding their history and motivations from the snippets of ideology spouted by Juanjo and Asun during their outbursts.

As the actual ETA structure is largely absent from the novel, and when actions are committed in their name it appears to be at the hands of a group of thugs who have no link to any sort of larger organization. In the few instances where ETA members appear in the novel to commit crimes, like the kidnapping of Felipe’s boss or the attack on Felipe himself, they are completely devoid of identity, both nameless and faceless, and are even usually hooded, which would prevent their identification anyway. Carmelo López-Arias praises the inability to identify the particular ETA members responsible for these attacks and claims that it helps to prevent their romanticization or mythification as freedom

234 fighters or political heroes. He writes that the image presented in Ojos que no ven “no es la ETA que quieren ver quienes buscan justificaciones al asesinato o románticas rebeldías en hampones de baja estofa” (“La valentía de…”). He particularly commends González

Sainz’s development of Juanjo’s character as a representation of the depravity of ETA, saying that “Juan José Díaz García es basura humana desde la primera página que ocupa en Ojos que no ven hasta la última” (“La valentía de…”). He commends the novel for putting forth this kind of description, saying that, in casting Juanjo in this light, “reside la virtud cívica del autor y el valor testimonial de esta novela” (“La valentía de…”). I am not so eager to agree that González Sainz’s particular representation of ETA is an element of the novel which deserves such praise.

Referring back to Majumdar’s comments from the introduction to this project, I would argue that González Sainz here attempts to dismiss ETA by reducing it to a band of thugs, thereby denying its historical past and political aims. In Majumdar’s words, this sort of representation attempts to disassociate ETA “from all political substance” and instead casts it “in a moral light” (“Literary Engagements With Terrorism” 111, emphasis original). Viewing the conflict in Majumdar’s moral light easily reduces judgement to the dichotomy of “good” versus “bad,” which provides an easy justification of a critical opinion. Unfortunately, as Majumdar highlights, “Once again, the complexity of the phenomenon gets denied…The social forces that give rise to terrorism and the psychology that makes terrorism possible are unaddressed” (“Literary Engagements With

Terrorism” 111). Apart from disregarding the fact that human beings are typically not completely good or completely bad, this sort of description completely disregards ETA as an organization which originally stemmed from legitimate political concerns and

235 focuses only on the heinous crimes for which they have been responsible. Coupled with the depiction of Juanjo and Asun as completely despicable people after their integration in to the organization, readers are presented with an image that is misleading in its simplicity and damning in its judgment, in addition to being counterproductive as a contribution to the present discussion regarding ETA in Spain.

The complete dehumanization of both Juanjo and Asun does nothing to examine the social realities of their participation in ETA, which continues to be a threat in Spain to this day. As Zulaika notes in the epilogue to a collection of Atxaga’s essays, “To render those “terrorists” into the embodiment of an evil which must be tabooed and extirpated, is to deny that they are an integral part of the ordinary reality of those societies”

(“Epilogue” 280). In other words, this classification denies the complicated social contexts of which these individuals are a part and also obscures the fact that they play a number of roles in those societies, as children, parents, spouses, friends, etc. Furthermore, and perhaps even more important in light of Majumdar’s comments, their complete dehumanization does nothing to address the political concerns which initially prompted not only the formation of ETA itself, but also the participation of so many people over the years. In spite of the very high level of autonomy currently enjoyed by the Basque

Country, ETA has made it very clear that their ultimate goal is complete political and cultural autonomy from Spain, and that they will not completely rest until that goal is achieved. As they are still considered a part of Spain, obscuring these initial motivations instead of dialoguing with them head-on appears to deny their existence and, therefore, delegitimates the organization. This only serves to further embolden these individuals in

236 their motivation to make their voices heard and does nothing to facilitate any sort of communication that could help to curb this behavior in the future.

ETA and the Spanish State

With such a heavy focus placed on ETA throughout the novel, I posit that the near complete exclusion of the State is one of the most peculiar aspects of the work. There is no mention of many significant political developments during this time period, including

Franco’s death, the transition to democracy, or the debates regarding statutes of Basque autonomy101. The effect of all of these changes on the trajectory of ETA’s development during this time is undeniable when looking at an objective overview of this historical period, but none of the events of the novel are connected in any way to these larger political moments. This serves to exacerbate the seemingly random nature of the crimes committed during the novel, as they are not carried out in the context of any larger goal or issue. The absence of these significant events in the novel is particularly perplexing given the frequency with which Felipe and other members of his family consume news from either the newspaper or the television. In this way, one could argue that the State is present in the novel through these news pieces, but the only information relayed from them to the reader focuses on violence committed by ETA. Although all of these news pieces could have provided an interesting dialogue between the events at the national level and the actions of ETA, this singular focus portrays ETA as nothing more than an organization committed to violence and delegitimizes their political aims by completely

101 For a description of these and other events during this time period, see the introduction to this section. 237 ignoring them. Additionally, it makes an implicit state of political support for the Spanish

State, as it gives the idea that the State was engaged in a defensive battle against a violent enemy. While this was not necessarily untrue, it is certainly a gross oversimplification of a very complicated history.

In addition to the lack of discussion of significant events at the State level, police and counterterrorism forces are also excluded in large part from the novel. This is not to say that all of the crimes in the novel go unsolved, as local police are acknowledged in their rescue of Felipe’s boss a year after he was kidnapped and the jail guards at the prison where Juanjo is held clearly represent the fact that his case was prosecuted, as well. The two most outrageous crimes, then, are solved through the cooperation of State forces. There are a number of moments, however, when the lack of police intervention in everyday situations is highlighted, including the brutal attack on Felipe and the open support of ETA in the bar he used to frequent. Both of these examples give the impression that police forces were either unwilling or incapable of prosecuting and controling both the intimidation and the physical violence that accompanied strong ETA support during this time. As was seen in the introduction to this section, and as I will further discuss below, this was certainly not the case. Both local police forces and counterterrorism forces at the State level were very active in searching out and detaining members suspected of participation in ETA during this time and have come under great fire for some of their tactics.

The scarcity of the State is even more questionable considering their controversial counterterrorism practices during this time period, including the torture of suspected ETA members and the possible 10-day retention period following their arrest, in addition to the

238 early years of support of the GAL102. None of this is even mentioned during the novel and ETA is the only violent party of the conflict. As will be seen in the following chapter, the historical trend in Spanish film dealing with ETA has been to avoid strong criticism of the State, but considering that Yoyes, the film I will exmine next, was released in the year 2000, there is certainly a historical precedent which would have permitted this sort of discussion. Attributing all of the violence in Ojos que no ven to ETA, then, not only provides an inaccurate representation of the distribution of violence during the 1970s and

1980s, but also conveniently precludes any discussion of State culpability during a very controversial period of the fight against ETA. This appears to be a political statement, as if the author wants to express that, no matter what the State might have been doing during this time, the actions of ETA were so violent that the State was justified in implementing those policies.

Given the comments made by González Sainz in a number of interviews, it would appear that the depiction of the Basque Conflict in Ojos que no ven stems from his own personal opinion of the situation. Of the consequences of radical nationalism, he commented in an interview with Alejandro Luque that

Los nacionalistas caen rendidos o se meten por interés en una máquina

salchichera de sublimaciones, en un dispositivo que usurpa y tritura las

cosas más teóricamente hermosas (Patria, Dios, Tierra, Pueblo,

Libertad…) haciendo de ellas un revoltillo ideológico que se vende

poniéndole una mayúscula dogmática a la que rendir sacrificios y al que

subliman la racionalidad y concreción de las cosas reales, dejándose

102 These practices are described in more detail in the introduction to this section. 239 fascinar por discursos más o menos astutos que, a base de repetir y

simplificar, consiguen que tengan éxito engañifas tan burdas que si bien

las miramos es para echarse a reír. Esas máquinas pueden hacer que una

persona no sólo empuñe un arma, sino que aniquile la estructura de su vida

en función de odios, rencillas, enemigos fáciles que tienen la culpa de todo

(“Donde hay fronteras…”).

This type of message can be seen in Asun’s and Juanjo’s outbursts, particularly in the repetition of simple, powerful phrases such as “nuestro pueblo.” In fact, in response to

Asun’s verbal attack, Felipe makes a comment very similar to that of the above quote:

“Nuestro pueblo, nuestra cultura, nuestra identidad y nuestra lengua, nosotros, nosotros y ellos, ¡cuántas veces no se lo habría oído repetir a ella y a su hijo y a tantas gentes a cuento de lo que fuera!” (González Sainz, Ojos que no ven 64). As mentioned above, however, these terms are never further contextualized within Basque culture, or any culture for that matter. This means that, while these phrases are very significant within the concept of Basque nationalism held by ETA, in the novel they come off as empty catch phrases without any deeper meaning.

González Sainz also makes clear his opinion of ETA members who commit violent crimes. In response to a question regarding the motives of those who take up arms in the name of a nationalist cause; he opines that “Pues que no es normal, es decir, cabal, emocional e intelectualmente cabal. Hay que estar muy ciego y ser muy fanático, muy dogmático y sobre todo muy estúpido para matar a una persona o colaborar a que ello sea posible de los muchos modos que hay de colaborar” (“Donde hay fronteras…”). It is impossible to miss the irony here, as González Sainz clearly criticizes the violence of

240 ETA members but fails to include the deaths attributed to the Spanish State in his opinion, even though that violence was also committed in the name of nationalism—in this case, protecting the Spanish nation. Furthermore, according to both González Sainz’s quote and the representation of ETA in his novel, it would appear that the violence committed by the organization is a spontaneous explosion of pure evil. He does not even hint at the immense complexity of the situation, and instead boils over one hundred years of political and ideological conflicts down to a simple assessment that those who commit these crimes are blind, fanatical, and stupid. His quote echoes the warning issued by

Zizek in his discussion of subjective and objective violence103, as González Sainz openly criticizes those who commit acts of objective violence while failing to acknowledge the

State’s long-running role in the conflict. While I would never advocate for an approbation of the death and destruction caused by ETA over the years simply because they were acting in the name of a larger goal, I absolutely support a vision of the conflict which, at the very least, recognizes its complexity and the wrongs committed by both sides.

103 Zizek poses the following question: “Is there not something suspicious, indeed symptomatic, about this focus on subjective violence—that violence which is enacted by social agents, evil individuals, disciplined repressive apparatuses, fanatical crowds? Doesn’t it desperately try to distract our attention from the true locus of trouble, by obliterating from view other forms of violence and thus actively participating in them?” (Violence 10-11). 241 Conclusion

Ojos que no ven is a beautifully written work that has as its focus the conflict with

ETA. Considering the relatively low number of novels with deal with this topic104, I believe that the contributions it makes to the developing collective memory surrounding the conflict take even more weight and therefore warrant its study. Through a dialogue with Lakoff’s family-as-nation metaphor, I argue that the tensions present within Felipe’s family are representative of the issues plaguing the national Spanish “family,” particularly in the division over the condemnation or support of ETA. I consider the complete dehumanization of both Juanjo and Asun to be a necessary step in breaking the affective, familial bonds that would typically prevent the condemnation of their actions by Felipe. I argue, however, that the focus on only Juanjo and Asun as representative of

ETA members provides a limited view of the organization and that the work in general does not develop the cultural and historical complexities of the Basque Conflict.

Additionally, I believe that the novel focuses entirely on the violence committed by ETA while excluding a discussion of the controversial State policies and procedures during this same time period. Consequently, I caution that the novel falls into the superficial dichotomy of presenting the conflict as one between “good” and “bad” actors and therefore provides an easy denouncement of ETA and a justification of the counterterrorism measures employed by the State to combat it.

104 For more information regarding this genre, including a list of sample titles, see the introduction to this section. 242

Chapter 4: Feminization and Humanization in Helena Taberna’s Yoyes (2000)

Taberna’s filmic representation of the real-life character of Yoyes is complex; it does not hide nor apologize for her past, but instead focuses most of its effort on humanizing her post-ETA through an emphasis on her traditional roles as wife and mother. While she is presented a rational, intelligent political figure during her time in

ETA, the adaptation of more traditional female roles can be seen as a rehabilitating force in her life which helps her transition from terrorist back to citizen. The humanization of

Yoyes, once a member of ETA, is directly opposite to the complete dehumanization of

Juanjo and Asun in Ojos que no ven, who are also ETA members, and I will note the strategies behind this representation and also its repercussions. I also examine the representation of the larger conflict between ETA and the Spanish government and find that the film achieves an important criticism of the transitional government’s political dealings, particularly in their support of the GAL. I argue, though, that while Taberna hints at the role of the Spanish State in committing both objective and subjective violence, the film does not go far enough in denouncing their role in both the creation of the historical context from which ETA emerged nor their violent, reactionary policies

243 during the Franco era. ETA, meanwhile, may assume the appearance of a group of wild, violent men with only a few politically minded leaders to try and control them, which obscures the true sociopolitical context behind their creation and the political goals of the organization.

Yoyes is the fictional retelling of the real-life story of María Dolores González

Katarain, known as “Yoyes”, who was the first woman to ascend the ranks of ETA leadership in the 1970s before leaving the group. María Pilar Rodríguez summarizes the importance of the film in the following statement: “Yoyes offers the first effort to portray the life and death of a female activist from a feminist perspective. It questions the sexist environment of the organization and presents a lucid approach to the private and public life of one of the most interesting figures of our history” (M. Rodríguez 157). The film largely centers on her return to Europe after having left the organization and her desire to return to her hometown as a regular citizen, along with the challenges that presents, though it employs a number of flashbacks which also help depict her time spent in ETA.

Her return is seen as a traitorous act by members of ETA and she is ultimately killed by a member of the group as she walks with her young child through a festival in her hometown.

The road to creating Yoyes was not an easy one, as Roldán Larreta details, and, ironically enough, during the years of its production, the process fell quite in line with the actions of ETA, the very group it examines. As Roldán Larreta explains, “El primer impulso positivo que recibió Yoyes llegó en mayo de 1996 cuando la realizadora Navarra solicitó ayudas para el guión tanto al Ministerio de Cultura como a las instituciones europeas. Si bien el Ministerio decidió no involucrarse, el European Script Fund apoyó el

244 proyecto con una ayuda de 500.000 pesetas” (“Yoyes” 136). The money, not enough to even begin to cover the costs of actually realizing the film, was more of a symbolic victory for Taberna and her project. Roldán Larreta adds that “que una prestigiosa institución europea alabara un guión destacando su estructura narrativa y su fuerza dramática hasta implicarse económicamente en él supuso un paso decisivo para que

Yoyes, como película, empezara a tomar cuerpo” (136). The divisive topic choice and tense political climate at that time, however, only made it more difficult to find a producer willing to take on the project. After being briefly considered by producers like

Imanol Uribe, among others, Enrique Cerezo finally agreed to sign on nearly a year after

Taberna had received the initial financial support from the European Script Fund (Roldán

Larreta, 137). In discussing the situation with Enrique Cerezo, Roldán Larreta comments that “No deja de ser paradójico que mientras dos productores vascos [Uribe and Elias

Querejeta] rechazan un proyecto capaz de sacudir la sensibilidad de un ciudadano del

País Vasco atento a su historia, un productor madrileño, en cambio, tenga la sensibilidad suficiente para apreciar su enorme potencial cinematográfico” (137). This irony only deepens for Roldán Larreta when he considers the background of Cerezo and describes him as a producer who, “dicho sea de paso, no pertenece ni mucho menos, ni en su ideología ni en su línea de producción, al núcleo de la progresía oficial del cine español”

(137). Regardless of Cerezo’s profesional trajectory, however, he agreed to work on the film, a project which was most certainly considered risky.

Securing the collaboration of Cerezo did not signify the end of troubles for the filming process, however. As Roldán Larreta notes, Taberna was insistent upon creating a film set in the fall, which delayed filming to the point that Cerezo had begun working on

245 another film (ironically enough with Uribe, who had declined to work on Yoyes) (Roldán

Larreta, “Yoyes” 137-38). Moreover, Roldán Larreta notes, “Se extendió el falso rumor de que la película, que había concurrido a las ayudas del Gobierno Vasco, finalmente no se iba a realizar”, and the Basque Government ultimately opted to pull their funding from the movie project (138). By September of 1998, it appeared that the film was completely doomed, but then on the17th of that month, ETA declared an indefinite ceasefire and the entire atmosphere changed. Roldán Larreta states that “El viento de paz y esperanza que recorrió todo el País Vasco en esos momentos benefició decididamente a Yoyes” and adds that the Basque Government reconsidered their financial support to the film; Taberna was finally able to begin filming in 1999 (138). The ceasefire brought a respite from the political tension that, though brief and fragile in nature, was enough to permit the discussion of ETA in film.

Given the sensitive nature of the film’s focus, Taberna fought to keep the film’s progress under wraps. This did not go unnoticed by the press, who “resaltaron el secretismo con que la realizadora acometió la realización de su primer largometraje”, but

Roldán Larreta explains that “La pretensión de Taberna era proteger todo lo posible su proyecto de los más que probables intentos de manipulación que un tema tan incómodo como el de Yoyes podía suscitar” (“Yoyes” 139). In spite of a number of negative or critical reviews even before the film was finished, Taberna completed the film and it was shown to executives from Columbia films and then in Palma de Mallorca at a convention for film exhibitors (Roldán Larreta 142). Just as the ceasefire of ETA had helped to make possible the creation of the film, however, their breaking of that ceasefire the day after the exhibition of the film in Palma de Mallorca in November of 1999 threatened the

246 success of the film as newly heightened tensions swept the country (Roldán Larreta 142).

As Roldán Larreta details, “Del mismo modo que el anuncio de la tregua había sido decisivo para que después de muchos problemas Yoyes se hubiese llevado a cabo, la nueva espiral de violencia y terror iniciada por ETA se cernió amenazadora sobre la película recién realizada. La prueba más palpable es que una semana antes del estreno

(marzo de 2000) no había exhibidores en el País Vasco para el largometraje” (143).

Taberna worked hard to promote her film by focusing on the importance of the emotional side of the movie instead of the controversial political aspects and her efforts appear to have paid off. Roldán Larreta reports that “Yoyes se colocaba, a fecha de agosto del 2000, entre las 10 películas españolas más taquilleras estrenadas en el 2000, ocupando un 8º puesto con 127’8 millones de pesetas”, a feat which is even more impressive when one considers “el momento político tan desafortunado en que Yoyes llegó al público” (143).

In spite of newly dashed hopes for a lasting peace with ETA and a subject matter which was once again controversial, Taberna was able to make the case to sell the film to an impressive number of viewers.

Reviews of Yoyes began to circulate even before the film premiered in theaters.

Roldán Larreta recalls particularly harsh criticism from Daniel Múgica, including his assertion that Spain was not prepared for films dealing with ETA and, right before the premiere, that “Cuando se hace algo en un tema tan serio como el de ETA hay que posicionarse a favor o en contra. No vale la ambigüedad y el guión de Yoyes es tremendemente ambiguo” (Roldán Larreta, “Yoyes” 140, qtd. in Roldán Larreta 141).

The review provided by El Mundo was not much more encouraging, posing the following question to readers: “¿Estaría usted dispuesto a pasar por taquilla para ver…la vida y

247 súbita muerte de un tiro de Yoyes, quizás la etarra más conocida en la historia sangrienta de ETA?” (qtd. in Roldán Larreta 141). Regardless of the reviews and other political issues with its participation in various film festivals, Yoyes has been recognized by a number of important cinematic prizes since its debut. As Roldán Larreta reports:

Entre la cosecha de premios destacar que Yoyes logró el Premio del

Público a la Mejor Película en la Muestra de Cine de Mujer en Pamploma

(2000), cuatro premios en el Festival Español de Tolouse (2000), los dos

únicos galardones del Festival Iberoamericano de Puerto Rico (2000) en el

que se exhibieron más de 60 películas, el Premio del Público en la Semana

de Cine Vasco de Vitoria-Gasteiz (2001), el Premio del Público en el

Festival de Cine de Gramado (Brasil) (2001) y tres premios en el Festival

Viña del Mar (2001), entre ellos el de Mejor Dirección y el Premio del

Público (156).

Many of the prizes came from film festivals based outside of Spain, where it could be argued that there wouldn’t have been such a personal connection to the movie and, therefore, that the judging could perhaps be more objective. If this is the case, though, the number of prizes won at festivals within Spain becomes even more impressive, as the film would have had to overcome a number of issues regarding the sensitive nature of its focus. The judging panels in Spain could also be considered brave for recognizing the merit of the film in spite of the tense political situation of the period.

In its relationship to Yoyes’s real life, the film is considered to follow her life very closely. As María Pilar Rodríguez explains, “among the many ways of approaching

Yoyes’s life, Taberna consciously chooses to be faithful to the sociopolitical background

248 which informed her life and death” (161). Santiago de Pablo agrees that the film is an accurate depiction of the events of Yoyes’s life during this period of time, affirming that

“The feature film Yoyes follows this life story very closely, from her move to France in

1973 until her murder in 1986” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 297). The largest and most obvious change from Yoyes’s life to its filmic representation is that of her child; though her child in real life is a son, in the film she is the mother of a young daughter,

Zuriñe. The potential implications of this change will be discussed below.

Yoyes as a Female Terrorist

Aside from being a movie about terrorism, which is already an inherently risky proposal in Spain given the tension surrounding ETA’s activities, Yoyes is a movie about a female member of ETA, which is one of the most important aspects of the film. This is an even more unique characteristic when one considers the general role of women in movies about Basque political violence105. As Santiago de Pablo explains, “In general, in movies about Basque political violence, there is a strong female presence, but this has mainly to do with the requirements of a commercially produced motion picture. A film generally needs female characters to sustain viewer interest and dramatic tension, and to increase its box office appeal” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 298). Elsewhere, in discussing the scarcity of strong female leads in this type of film, de Pablo argues that

105 De Pablo notes that there are few movies dealing with ETA which feature women in prominent, well- developed roles, giving films like Comando Txikia (1977), Operación Ogro (1979), and El lobo (2004) as examples (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar…” 23-24). He does highlight other films that break this trend, though, including Sombras en una batalla (1993) and El viaje de Arián (2000) (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar…” 27). 249 “en bastantes ocasiones las protagonistas femeninas son sólo una excusa para introducir el inevitable toque erótico-comercial al filme, a veces con escasa coherencia narrativa”

(“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 23). This is certainly not the case in Yoyes, where the female character is not only the lead, but a strong lead, and where there is very little material that could be considered under the category of the “toque erótico-comercial”. In fact, the only full-body nudity in the film is that of Yoyes’s partner, Joxean; Yoyes herself is never seen fully nude and any allusions to lovemaking are just that—allusions.

Sex in this film is an outcome of a loving, committed relationship and is not gratuitous or risky.

Given the history of the participation of women in ETA, this characteristic is not necessarily shocking, though it is not an excuse, particularly in the case of using female characters to lend “el inevitable toque erótico-comercial” to the film. De Pablo states that

“Desde el punto de vista estadístico, la presencia de mujeres, como víctimas y agentes de la violencia etarra, ha sido muy inferior a la de los varones” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar”

19)106. A popular opinion stemming from this kind of information is represented in the words of Fernando Reinares, who has expressed that “Any discussion of ETA militants is necessarily a discussion of young single men” (qtd. in The Basque Nation On-Screen

299). The very historical reality of Yoyes, and other women who have participated in

ETA throughout its existence, disproves this sort of opinion and, for its attention to this

106 De Pablo continues to explain that women “comenzaron a ingresar en la organización en la segunda mitad de la década de 1960, coincidiendo con el inicio de la práctica de la violencia por parte de ETA, aunque inicialmente permanecieron en un segundo plano, sin participar directamente en acciones terroristas ni ocupar cargos de responsabilidad” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 20). He concludes elsewhere that “The reality of the matter in the case of ETA is that women were only a minor presence representing no more than 6.4 percent of the organization’s membership throughout its entire history (although there has been a steady increase over time)” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 299). 250 long-neglected aspect of ETA, Yoyes is innovative and valuable. Rodríguez additionally argues that “Yoyes offers a new way of understanding a female subjectivity by placing the protagonist in an environment that, previous to this film, had been occupied exclusively by male members of the organization. Her physical presence, her actions, and her words suggests a new filmic way of approaching a terrorist subject from the perspective of gender” (161). It is precisely through the lens of gender that I will examine the representation of Yoyes in this film.

As soon as Yoyes begins to spend time in the bookstore in the French Basque

Country where Hélène works, viewers are made aware of the difference in appearance between the two women. Yoyes normally dresses in drab, non-form-fitting clothing which tends to have a masculine look, including flannel shirts or plain white and black clothing. Furthermore, her hair is never styled and tends to either hang around her face or be pulled back in a low ponytail, and she never appears to wear a stitch of makeup.

During one scene in particular, Yoyes is studying at the bookstore while Hélène prepares herself to go on a date with an attractive athlete. The two women are shown side-by-side in a close-up shot, which emphasizes the difference between Yoyes’s plain look and

Hélène’s more fashionable appearance. In this same scene, as she is applying her makeup, Hélène implores Yoyes to love herself more by sprucing herself up and going on dates. Yoyes insists that loving herself has nothing to do with it; she states plainly that

Hélène is beautiful and she is not, and concludes with a very matter-of-fact statement:

“Yo soy lo que quiero ser y estoy aquí porque lo he elegido” (Yoyes). Of this moment,

Rodríguez states that “In her conversations with her French friend we see Yoyes’s resistance to yield to the conventional signs of femininity, such as makeup or dress, but

251 this is due more to her own conviction than to any type of obligation” (163). Rodríguez here implies that it is not Yoyes’s participation in ETA which necessarily influences her lack of femininity, but rather a personal decision made by Yoyes herself to focus more on the struggle of ETA than her own personal beauty or femininity. If the traditional role for women in ETA was that of the mother or whore, I would argue that Yoyes is making a conscious decision here to downplay her femininity in order to try and take attention away from that aspect of her being and allow the other ETA members to see her as just a person and not a woman, with all of the connotations that implies.

In addition to her physical appearance, it is clear from the beginning of the film that Yoyes will not play a traditional female role in ETA. In the flashbacks which recount her early days in the organization, she arrives to her new apartment in France and overhears a conversation between two male members of the organization regarding what

Kizkur considers the unfair distribution of females in the apartments—that there are two females for one male in Yoyes’s apartment, but four males and no females in his own.

Yoyes puts an end to the conversation and asks Kizkur, “Qué, Kizkur? ¿Quieres que me vaya contigo? Qué pasa, que quieres follar? ¿Para eso te has metido en esto? ¿O es que quieres que te planche las camisas y te haga las comiditas?” before kicking him out of the apartment (Yoyes). According to Fernando Reinares’s study of the evolution of ETA membership, “Who Are the Terrorists? Analyzing Changes in Sociological Profile among

Members of ETA,” Yoyes’s concern was not far off from the reality faced by many women in ETA107. By specifically rejecting two of the traditionally feminine roles which

107 Reinares writes that, barring some exceptions, “women who have joined ETA tend to admit not only that they were typically relegated to functions of merely supporting male militants…They also 252 Kizkur apparently hopes she will fill, those of caretaker and sexual object, she makes it clear that she has her own ideas about her role in the organization.

Referring to the set of narratives described by Sjoberg and Gentry, Yoyes recognizes that being viewed as fulfilling either the whore or the mother role would necessarily exclude the possibility of being viewed as an equal. Attributing her desire for

ETA membership to a need to mother or sleep with the male ETA members instead of a need to facilitate political change would completely undermine her value as a colleague and strip her of her agency within the organization. She also recognizes that she has to actively work to change the view that her male counterparts hold of her in order to have any chance in shaping the future of the organization. Confronting Kizkur face-to-face is one step in this process, as Yoyes not only calls him out on the stereotypes that he holds of her, but also shows without any doubt that she will not permit it to continue. Rodríguez also notes the importance of the physical location of both Yoyes and Kizkur in this scene:

“Yoyes, standing up, appeals to Kizkur, who is seated, from above, while Kizkur seems to sink lower and lower inside the chair as he listens to her words” (162). In this scenario

Yoyes appears to further invert the traditional gender roles by asserting herself physically over Kizkur’s sinking body, making herself appear larger and more in power. Viewers also see a smirk on the face of Kizkur’s male counterpart as he notices that Kizkur is being put in his place by a woman. Not only does Yoyes challenge the expectations of her own behavior, then, she also calls into question Kizkur’s masculinity through her speech and her body position, an act which is not lost on Kizkur’s friend.

acknowledge the difficulties placed in their way so as to prevent them from rising to command or leadership positions within the terrorist organization” (“Who Are the Terrorists?” 467). 25 3 Even though Yoyes attempts to remove the issue of her gender from the equation of her political worth, she comes up against sexism in a number of cases during her years in ETA. In addition to the scene with Kizkur, there is a scene in which Yoyes takes target practice with a few other members of the organization. She is not a great shot despite the efforts of the instructor to give her advice, but one of the other men who is also practicing exclaims that “para ser tía está de puta madre” (Yoyes). For de Pablo, this sort of reaction helps to explain “la visión que los varones tienen sobre la torpeza de las mujeres en las acciones terroristas” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 30). No one stands up for Yoyes or tries to make any kind of defense of women in this situation; Yoyes glares at the man and then brushes off the instructor who attempts to lead her away from the group. Later in the film, Yoyes is reading at the bookstore where Hélène works when her flatmate, Zaldu, comes to the store after having been at the bars drinking with friends. Yoyes immediately chastises him for disobeying the rules about acknowledging each other in public, but tells him to stay until he sobers up and then leave. As she turns her back, he wraps his arms around her and attempts to make a move on her. She slaps him and he rushes out the door, but she is visibly, and understandably, upset by the incident.

Rodríguez registers this event as evidence of the threat of Yoyes’s femininity to some of the male members of the organization and states that “Zaldu, her greatest antagonist, cannot resolve his conflicting feelings of sexual and professional admiration for his companion, or his irritation at finding himself with a woman who raises her discordant voice and refuses to be submissive” (163). Sjoberg and Gentry posit that men sexualize politically violent women in order to remove the threat that they pose to the patriarchy, and that this objectification dehumanizes women to the point of removing

254 their agency, and therefore their power (45). When Yoyes makes it clear that she will not be assigned Sjoberg and Gentry’s aforementioned whore narrative, she effectively reclaims the power that Zaldu had attempted to take from her via her sexualization. While this is frustrating on an immediate level, in that Zaldu is unable to receive any sexual satisfaction from her, it also represents a more serious long-term threat because if she is unable to be treated as a sexual object, she cannot necessarily be stopped from challenging the male-dominated system of power that many of the ETA members had hoped to maintain.

As a result of these types of events, or possibly as an attempt to stave them off to begin with, Yoyes often times appears to reassert her dedication to the cause and her willingness to do just as much as the men to accomplish their goals. De Pablo comments that

la protagonista de Yoyes parece asumir este rol de mujer dura, tanto en la

secuencia en que intenta infructuosamente aprender a manejar las armas

igual que los hombres, como cuando aspira a no limitarse a la acción

política en ETA (pues afirma estar “preparada para cualquier tipo de

acción, como los demás compañeros”) o anima a los etarras a “darles

caña” a los contraterroristas que han llevado a cabo el asesinato de un

activista: “Si quieren guerra, la tendrán” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 27).

Sjoberg and Gentry indicate that this sort of attitude is necessary in order for women to be able to participate in roles which are considered traditionally male, such as that of political terrorist. They write that “when women are allowed into men’s roles, more is required of them than is required of the men that usually fulfill those roles” (10). They

255 suggest that this is due to the fact that, “While it is assumed that men are qualified and legitimate political actors until their masculinity is questioned…women are assumed to be excludable until they probe that they belong in the masculine public sphere” (10).

Yoyes certainly wastes no time in proving her worth in the organization, and she makes it clear from the moment she arrives in France that she is tough and ready for whatever is asked of her. When Argi meets her at the port, he begins to describe the current state of

ETA and then stops himself and suggests that Yoyes sleep after her journey; she immediately rejects that notion and implies that she is not only not tired, but prepared for whatever he might require of her. Though Argi never asks her to participate in any armed action, Yoyes makes it clear when they talk that she is willing to do whatever is necessary for the organization. The very fact that she is so adamant about reminding someone as supportive as Argi of her willingness and capability to perform any task within the organization suggests that she is very conscious of the fact that she has to go the extra mile in proving her equality to the other men.

Yoyes’s dedication to ETA is never doubted during the film, but it is evident that she begins to disagree with the strategy employed by the group as their violence becomes more indiscriminate and their dedication to the political goals of the group appears to waver. Ultimately she leaves the group due to this discordance, but both Rodríguez and de Pablo have noted that this should not be taken as a sign of weakness or as an inevitable event due to her being a woman. Rodríguez explains that “On the one hand we see a protagonist who from the start is willing to participate in violent action as much as in political duties and in strategic organization. But it is also true that she progressively distances herself from the most violent branch of ETA to stress, on the other hand, the

256 need for negotiation,” and cautions that “This should not be seen as a typically female tendency, since many ex-members of the organization have followed the same trajectory”

(163). De Pablo echoes this point and proposes that “Puede pensarse que esta opción por la libertad—que para los miembros de ETA no sería otra cosa que debilidad—, podría darse más a menudo en los personajes femeninos que en los masculinos” before also advising that “lo cierto es que este tipo de dilemas se dan en las películas (y, por lo que sabemos, también en la realidad) tanto entre hombres como entre mujeres, aunque en el cine esta actitud tienda a ser más frecuente entre las mujeres” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 26-27). If Yoyes had entered ETA for any reason other than a strong belief in the political goals of the organization and in the efficacy of targeted violence in achieving those goals, she would not necessarily have fought so long for the path she thought was best for the organization. She only left the group when it became apparent that the organization was headed in a direction with which she did not agree because of its negative moral impact. It is Yoyes’s strength of conviction, then, that allows her to leave

ETA when she no longer agrees with their tactics, and not a sign of weakness.

It is interesting to note, however, that although de Pablo defends Yoyes’s abandonment of ETA against an immediate association with weakness due to her femininity, he also manages to link it to her position as a mother. While not necessarily stating that this makes them weaker members of organizations like ETA, de Pablo appears to argue that, due to their potential for motherhood, women may be more likely to leave the organization. In fact, the sentence following the previous quote about women’s capability for thinking for themselves and making decisions postulates that “it appears that this independence of mind is firmly based on the fact that they are women,

257 and on the consequent prioritization of their personal futures (including, fundamentally, the future of their children) over the future of a hypothetical collective identity” (The

Basque Nation On-Screen 302). Elsewhere, he also claims that “es mucho más frecuente encontrarse con mujeres que, estando o habiendo estado en ETA, saben entresacar del fondo de ellas mismas lo que les queda de humanidad, algo que muchas veces se vincula al amor y a la maternidad y por tanto a una cualidad propiamente femenina” (“Sólo sabemos hacer llorar” 27). Again, de Pablo does not necessarily make this a negative quality, but if women are seen first as potential mothers and secondly as useful, dedicated members of organizations like ETA, this is one more idea against which they will have to fight to prove themselves as worthy and equal.

I would argue that Yoyes’s decision to leave ETA is represented in the film as the ultimate rejection of Sjoberg and Gentry’s aforementioned mother, monster, and whore narratives. According to Sjoberg and Gentry, all of these narratives are imposed upon women’s decisions to participate in violent political action in order to take away the possibility of their honest, rational belief in its necessity or efficacy. Taberna’s representation of Yoyes’s career with ETA makes it very clear from the beginning of the film that she joined ETA due to a strong belief in their political message and not because she was involved romantically or in any other way with the male members of the organization. From the start, then, her membership in ETA is the result of a rational, calculated decision, even if that goes against the traditional role of the woman as “pure, innocent, and non-violent” (Sjoberg and Gentry 15). Yoyes is a clear example of the fact that, as Sjoberg and Gentry assert, “Women, like men, sometimes see violence as the best means to their political ends” (4). Just as Yoyes made a rational decision to join ETA

258 based on the fact that she believed their selected use of violence fit in with their long- term political goal, she makes a second rational decision to leave when this is no longer the case. In this way, Taberna’s emphasis on Yoyes’s motivations for both entering and leaving the organization help to make an undeniable push for her recognition as a legitimate political actor and not a lovesick or deranged woman.

Despite the potential negative implications of de Pablo’s above thoughts regarding women and motherhood, it is impossible to deny the fundamental importance of Yoyes’s motherhood in the film, for her roles as wife and mother ultimately soften her and make her relatable to viewers. This stands in stark contrast to the consideration of motherhood in Ojos que no ven, where Asun is dehumanized partly as a result of her apparent rejection of motherhood and abandonment of her family. Once readers are unable to find any remaining shred of sympathy for Asun due to her rejection of both traditional roles of wife and mother, she quite literally disappears from the novel. Yoyes, on the other hand, only becomes a stronger character throughout the work as readers are able to see her deepening involvement with and commitment to her family. The ultimate effect of this family relationship in Yoyes is summarized by Rodríguez: “it must not be forgotten that the film shows the young woman in relation to her parents and siblings, with her lover and her daughter. The film lends the historical figure a familiar air instead of distancing of ‘mythifying’ the protagonist according to one or another watchword”

(164). The changes in Yoyes are even more evident given the structure of the movie; by dividing the scenes into a series of flashbacks that depict her time in ETA, the differences in her as a wife and mother become more stark. First, Yoyes is different physically— gone are the flannel shirts, low ponytails, and cigarettes. In the present day, she has cut

259 her hair, she wears dresses, and she no longer smokes. Additionally, she seems to have developed a more open personality. She is still pensive, but also is shown in a number of scenes smiling and laughing with her young daughter and husband.

The fact that she is the mother of a young daughter in the film, instead of the son she had in real life, is also an important detail. As de Pablo notes, “it is especially significant that, while the real-life Yoyes had a son, her character in the film has a daughter. This is one of the few aspects of the real history that was changed, and it is something that emphasizes still further the femininity of the protagonist by allowing the portrayal of a strong mother-daughter relationship” (The Basque Nation On-Screen 301).

Here we find another contrast between Yoyes and Asun in Ojos que no ven, in that Asun was the mother of not one, but two sons. As Yoyes’s daughter serves to further feminize her in this case, one could argue that the birth of Asun’s second son confirms the loss of her femininity and the beginning stages of her transition to a member of ETA. If being a mother emphasizes Yoyes’s femininity and brings her back into a “safe108” role after her time as a terrorist, I would argue that being the mother of a daughter serves to further emphasize this change because she is ensuring that the next female generation is raised in a traditional home. I do not wish to indicate that this is how it necessarily should be, that a young girl should be raised by a mother who has embraced the traditionally feminine behaviors assigned to her. Instead, I want to posit that this perspective makes Yoyes a much less threatening figure to viewers who hold this idea of the way in which a woman should behave.

108 By “safe” here, I mean a role which does not challenge the commonly held ideas regarding appropriate behaviors for women. This is contrasted with her role as a female terrorist, which goes directly against those ideas. 260 Changing Yoyes’s child from a son to a daughter in the film does not necessarily make her death any more sad, for leaving behind a son is just as terrible as leaving behind a daughter. However, the close relationship between a mother and her daughter is emphasized during the film in a way that is designed to pull at the heartstrings of the viewer. Yoyes spends a significant amount of time with Zuriñe while they are in France, especially while Joxean is working at the university, and it is clearly very difficult for her to say goodbye when Joxean takes Zuriñe to live with Yoyes’s family in Spain. Their emotional separation and the obvious emotional toll that their absence takes on Yoyes makes their reunion even more joyful, and their first days as a reunited family are spent mainly in domestic bliss, with family activities, a visit from Hélène, and a traditional festival in town. It is during a walk through this festival with Zuriñe and Hélène that

Yoyes is killed by an ETA member. Hélène is a short distance away at a shopping stall when Yoyes is killed, but the camera focuses very tightly on Yoyes’s hand as it lets go of

Zuriñe. This moment represents a version of the real-life events of that day, as Yoyes’s son was said to be playing with toys near her and not holding her hand as her filmic daughter does, but the change is impactful. As viewers see Yoyes literally slipping away from Zuriñe, leaving her motherless just days after being reunited, it reinforces the image of Yoyes as a mother and leaves as a last impression the idea that Yoyes died in this role and not as a terrorist.

Yoyes’s role as wife and mother helps to accomplish one of the most important tasks in this film: her humanization. Instead of portraying Yoyes in the typical role of the cold, calculated killer that is often seen in films discussing terrorists, she is depicted as a full human being, one with aspirations, loves, and challenges. Aretxaga aptly signals the

261 multiple roles held simultaneously by Yoyes, noting that “Yoyes was treated as a hero and as a traitor, but she was a mother at the same time” (“The Death of Yoyes” 161).

This, for de Pablo, is the crowning achievement of the film: “the best thing about Yoyes is the human portrait of the protagonist, splendidly played by Ana Torrent. Yoyes is presented, not as a one-dimensional terrorist (or even “ex-terrorist”) but rather as a person of flesh and blood with strengths and weaknesses, courage, and lack of remorse” (The

Basque Nation On-Screen 300). Costa-Villaverde summarizes well this point:

Rather than a political reading of the character and her historical context,

the film Yoyes is an exploration of the human side of a young woman who

happened to be involved with terrorist activities. Taberna puts special

emphasis on showing the transformation, evolution and development of

Yoyes as a human being, and the film develops as a tribute to freedom and

to people’s right to change ideas and points of view. Yoyes is presented

neither as a saint nor an evil woman, she is simply portrayed as a human

being having to make choices in life which create a moral dilemma (93).

Yoyes is not portrayed falsely—she had declared that she had no regrets and to make her out to be remorseful would have been a false representation of her personality—, she is portrayed honestly, as a person who made a series of choices that led to a series of consequences in her life, ultimately resulting in her death. Through the structure of the film, her terrorist past is shown as only one aspect of her life, which exists alongside the other parts of her life, including her family, her education, and her desire for a normal life.

262 ETA and the Spanish State, 1970s-1980s

Through her participation in ETA, the character of Yoyes also helps bring to life a very contentious period of the struggle between ETA and the State during the mid-to-late

1970s and even into the early 1980s. Regarding the successes of the film in this area, de

Pablo states the following:

The film accurately reflects the political and social conditions that led to

widespread support for ETA during Franco’s dictatorship, as well as the

internal problems of the organization. In addition, Yoyes explores the

ethical responsibility of communications media that report on terrorism,

faithfully re-creates various ETA attacks, and portrays aspects of the dirty

war in the South of France (The Basque Nation On-Screen 297).

I agree that the elements in de Pablo’s analysis are all present in the film, but they are not all given equal weight and attention and many times Taberna relies on a pre-existing knowledge from the viewer in order to fully comprehend the allusions made in the film.

Futhermore, most of the scenes having to do with the larger conflict between ETA and the Spanish State focus on Zizek’s notion of subjective violence. The objective violence which had been carried out by the State since the abolishment of the fueros, but which had been particularly acute during Franco’s rule109, is neither discussed in any detail nor criticized during the film. This has the effect, at times, of portraying the ongoing conflict

109 Zizek argues that objective violenc “took on a new shape with capitalism,” and I would argue that this was also seen in the Basque Country (12). As the economy developed rapidly in the late nineteenth century, many middle and lower-class Basques were excluded from sharing in the economic prosperity, leading to a great deal of resentment. The economic situation was even worse during the first part of Franco’s dictatorship, with high levels of inflation, scarcity of resources, and stunted overall economic growth. Economic growth improved slowly through neoliberal reform and under a nationalistic concept of Spain which did not permit individual political or cultural expression. For a more detailed analysis of Franco’s economic policies, see, for example, Spain transformed: the late Franco dictatorship, 1959-1975 (2007), edited by Nigel Townson. 263 between ETA and the Spanish State as a series of violent battles unconnected from any larger issue or any historical heritage.

The first of the flashbacks in the film portray the last few years under Franco’s rule, beginning in 1973. As the movie opens, a swarm of guardia civil vehicles surround a building and a man is dragged out of the building by the officers. Yoyes and her accomplices watch from an office across the street that they are vandalizing, and can see the man violently dragged from his home and forced into a waiting car. A few scenes later, just minutes after Yoyes flees her home to travel to France, the same happens to her brother. In this case, the officers are very rough with her brother, and the whole family trails out behind him, obviously worried about his safety and pleading with the officers.

After she establishes herself in France, Yoyes gets word through Argi that her brother has been released and that he is ok, but the incident appears to only further strengthen her dedication to the cause. Though there isn’t much actual discussion of the living conditions under Franco, these two moments lead viewers to perceive a general culture of fear regarding indiscriminate detention and/or brutality during this time period.

This situation in particular would benefit from a much fuller development, as any fair representation of ETA’s early years necessarily should include a discussion of the sociopolitical context from which it formed. The film alludes to the violence experienced at the hands of Franco’s police force but does not go nearly far enough in describing the extent to which this was carried out. Furthermore, the cultural repression which took place under Franco, and which was a supremely influential factor in Basque nationalism, is never mentioned. In only showing these two cases of arrest without justification, the film excludes an entire battery of motivations which led to the formation of ETA and

264 their implementation of violence. It also appears that Franco’s police force is simply responding to ETA’s behavior, when the reality is that ETA formed partly in response to a number of measures implemented by Franco. Extreme repression experienced under

Franco’s regime was an undeniable factor in the formation of the organization, but it was one of the last in a long series of frustrations that are not discussed in the film. Even within scenes that feature discussions between members of ETA, the larger goals of the organization are not concretized or debated; viewers know they are fighting for something, but their end goal gets lost in the shuffle of violent acts. While most Spaniards are aware of ETA’s end goal, the decades of violent acts committed by the group can take over their memory and they might focus more on that than remembering what originally spurred the formation of the organization.

A situation that is more fully contextualized, however, is that regarding the internal tensions regarding the operations of ETA during this time period. From the first conversations between Yoyes and Argi, it is obvious that there is friction between those in the group who advocate for a political focus and others who back the violent fight. The very structure of the group is divided along this line, as there is a political arm and a military arm, and Yoyes rises up through the ranks of the political division through her writing. It appears that this division between the political and military arms can be viewed as a line drawn between those who live for the current moment and who are drawn to action (military arm), and those who are planning for the future of the Basque

Nation as a whole and who want to be prepared for the political leadership it will require

(political arm).

265 The division within the structure of ETA itself is also represented by a division in support of Basque society, as reported by Clark. He cautions that, for a number of reasons, any sort of survey of the Basque population is difficult to carry out and to represent with full accuracy110, but provides a summary of results regarding levels of support of ETA’s actions during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Clark explains that, during the last years of the Franco regime, “popular support for armed struggle to gain

Basque self-governance came from something between one-twentieth and one-tenth of the Basque population” when asked for their preferred method for gaining autonomy

(169). Subsequent surveys have shown levels of support of the use of violent struggle ranging between 3 and 8 percent (Clark 170). Compared to the level of support for

Basque autonomy, which stood at nearly one-third of the Basque subjects surveyed during the last years of Franco’s rule111, the level of support for violent political action appears to be low (Clark 171). Comparing these numbers to the makeup of the ETA cell shown in Yoyes, where it seems that a majority of the members advocate more for military action than they do for political work has two possible effects. First, it highlights the radical nature of ETA through their use of violence in spite of low levels of support from the general Basque population. Additionally, it presents Yoyes’s work with the

110 Clark notes four specific “methodological obstacles” regarding the survey of the Basque population: the question of the validity of responses given by those surveyed considering the tense political climate of the period, a lack of consistency among surveys completed with this population, the murky definition of the term “support” which can skew answers, and the general pattern of refusal of the Basque populations to answer questions about ETA (166-167). Regardless, he draws some preliminary results from surveys that were conducted during this time. 111 Clark explicitly cautions that all of these numbers could have been affected by fear under Franco, that the subjects may have been less likely to be honest regarding their support either for Basque Autonomy or for ETA. He ultimately concludes, however, that these figures are the only existing picture of support during that time period and that they serve at the very least as a baseline (170). I also repeat Clark’s warning about the difficulty in defining “support” when it comes to ETA and recognize that it cannot be simplified into a “yes” or “no” question. I employ the figures here only to show that ETA, even under Franco, did not necessarily represent the desires or beliefs of Basques in general. 266 political arm as a less threatening activity within ETA and makes her appear to be one of the more rational members of an increasingly irrational group as she cautions against the use of indiscriminate violence later in the film.

During Yoyes’s time in ETA, the emphasis of the leadership under Argi is adamant about the importance of the political wing. Argi’s support for the political work of ETA is discussed explicitly when he promotes Yoyes to work with the leadership of this wing: “Para coger una pistola siempre hay gente dispuesta, pero no es eso lo que más falta nos hace ahora; necesitamos más que nunca gente con formación intelectual, gente preparada para marcar el rumbo de este pueblo nuestro” (Yoyes). He also looks to the future, as he predicts that “el día de mañana”, or as soon as ETA wins the war, they will need more politicians and less armed militants (Yoyes). Sometime after Argi’s death,

Koldo assumes his leadership position and appears to maintain his same viewpoint on the necessity of political action. When he meets with Yoyes to discuss her return to Spain and she asks how things are going, he explains that: “Ha entrado mucha gente nueva con ganas de actuar pero sin la preparación política que hemos tenido nosotros. Ahora se actúa más y se piensa menos” (Yoyes). As was the case with Argi, Koldo recognizes the need for someone like Yoyes in the organization and attempts to convince her to re-join

ETA, an offer which she absolutely refuses.

Though the tension between political and armed action can be seen in the perspectives of the leaders of ETA, it boils over in the reactions of the group to an ETA bombing in Madrid which killed 8 innocent civilians and no political targets. It is this event that appears to solidify Yoyes’s resolve to leave the group, as she is infuriated and disgusted by the carelessness of the situation. When she walks into the meeting and asks

267 for an explanation, one of the men claims that “Es una acción militar que ha salido mal” and another one defends the outcome by pointing out that there are always innocent victims in a war (Yoyes). Yoyes does not agree with either defense and exclaims: “Ocho víctimas inocentes y ni un sólo objetivo cumplido … ¿Sabéis cómo lo llamo yo? Una chapuza” (Yoyes). Both of these reactions are significant when one considers that the public opinion of ETA began to sour as the number of innocent victims from attacks like these began to increase. Against the defense of the ETA member, Yoyes’s reaction aligns much more closely with that of the general public.

Yoyes continues to indicate that her opinion of their actions has changed with this most recent event: “por primera vez estoy de acuerdo con lo que dicen los periódicos de

Madrid. Esto es una masacre” (Yoyes). When asked by Koldo what she proposes to do, she has two very clear ideas: “Uno: propongo redactar un comunicado de autocrítica … y dos: propongo avanzar en el planteamiento político de Argi y abrir un debate sobre la conveniencia de la lucha armada a largo plazo” (Yoyes). The next steps are clearly not up for debate, however, as the majority opinion is to ride out the backlash until people forget about it. Realizing the impotence of the political campaign against the domination of military-minded action, Yoyes says before storming out: “Me dan ganas de vomitar”

(Yoyes). This passionate reaction is crucial in reinforcing the rational structure behind her work with ETA. While she initially supported acts of targeted violence because they supported the attainment of long-term goals, she will not support indiscriminate violence which causes civilian deaths without first reflecting on its efficacy. Furthermore, she is willing to stand up to those elements within her own organization that wish to push on with the campaign of violence. In terms of making Yoyes a character with which

268 audiences can relate, the significance of her participation in the political arm cannot be underestimated. If she had been a vocal advocate for the campaign of violence which terrorized Spain during this time period and for many years later, Taberna would have had a much harder time telling her story in a way that Spanish audiences would agree to hear. Viewers may not support Yoyes generally for her work with ETA, but this moment represents one action that they can potentially praise, for at least she is advocating for the temperance of hot-headed plans.

In addition to representing the internal struggles of ETA during the late 1970s,

Yoyes also makes an important contribution in its discussion of GAL (Grupos

Antiterroristas de Liberación)112 during this time period. According to Carmona, the mere mention of GAL in the film is particularly significant because, in Yoyes, they appear “por vez primera en el cine español” (139). Considering the political context of this era,

Carmona’s summary is particularly helpful for anyone who is not familiar with the political actors of this time and who would not be able to recognize such figures in the film: “Esta banda se presenta en el film conectada con el Gobierno del PSOE, ya que uno de los personajes que los recibe en su despacho parece simbolizar al secretario de estado de seguridad de la época, Rafael Vera (quien acabaría encarcelado junto al ministro del interior José Barrionuevo)” (139). Though it appears that Taberna attempts here to set up a criticism of the leadership of this time period, the denunciation loses some of its strength for any viewer unable to put together the pieces of information that help to create this more complete picture. It is an unfortunate consequence, as this moment could have

112 See introduction to this chapter for a discussion of GAL. 269 served as a very direct criticism of the PSOE government, but instead seems to pass without much comment.

Though it is known that GAL was working to bring down members of ETA during this time period, they only carry out one actual attack in the film113. Carmona explains that, in this scene, “aparecía el grupo de mercenarios GAL cometiendo sus primeros atentados en el suelo francés (concretamente en el bar Hendayais)” (139). As it occurs, viewers are not necessarily sure of what exactly is happening— after a car passes through a Spanish checkpoint and arrives in front of the bar, a man goes out to meet it and simply says “Table 4,” spurring a barrage of bullets from a group of men who emerge from the vehicle and open fire inside the bar. It is clear the attack occurs inside a bar which is apparently supposed to be Basque, as evidenced by the fact that la pelota vasca is being played in the background, everyone is speaking Basque, and there is a flag in the background that says Askatasuna, but viewers may be unaware at first of the reason for the attack or the parties behind it. The ambush is better contextualized in the scene which immediately follows, where members of ETA discuss their concerns regarding the fact that the GAL has information about every detail of their lives and that no where seems to be safe. It is also here that their suspicion of Yoyes grows, as various members of the group suspect that, as an ex-ETA member, she had given information to the

Spanish government that facilitated the attack. In addition to having lost fellow members of their organization, it is clear that these members of ETA are not able to hide as they had before and that they, as well as the people in their lives, are in clear danger, even in exile.

113 The scene in which Koldo and other members of ETA are arrested is probably due to GAL activity, too, though it is never discussed and no one is killed during the confrontation. 270 Both the reaction to the GAL attack and the handling of Yoyes’s return to Spain highlight the hypocrisy of the Spanish State during this time period and serve as a strong criticism of their policies. This is another fundamental contribution of the film, as

Carmona indicates that Spanish filmmakers have traditionally avoided painting members of the government or royal family in a culpable light when discussing the conflict with

ETA (30). When asked directly about the GAL attack in a press conference, a government official explains that they cannot divulge any information regarding culpability, but assures the reporter that the State is committed to fighting all brands of terrorism, including that of the extreme right, which would include the GAL. Viewers will be well aware of the lies contained in this declaration, as investigations eventually traced the structure of the GAL all the way up through the highest Spanish government officials. His denial in the film serves as a painful reminder that the Spanish government was not only involved in a dirty war against ETA, but that they flatly denied it even as their activities were ongoing.

Furthermore, viewers see the political negotiations leading to Yoyes’s return home to Spain, where the government indicates that they are making the choice to look the other way and not conduct any investigation which could lead to her persecution once she is again on Spanish soil. While the State does avoid investigating her past, they turn

Yoyes into a political pawn and decide to use her return in order to promote their political rehabilitation process, even though she is not a participant. Soon after her return, Yoyes’s photo is splashed on the front cover of the newspaper with a story detailing her return home to Spain. Drawing attention to her return in this way attracts the ire of ETA members, who believe the news story and see her return as an act of treason, prompting

271 them to vote to eliminate her. In showing the behind-the-scenes events leading up to

Yoyes’s death, Taberna makes a bold statement: a member of ETA may have fired the bullet that killed Yoyes, but the representation of the role of the State makes it clear that they are partially responsible for her death, as well.

Conclusion

Yoyes is a film which makes a significant contribution to the discussion and legacy of ETA in Spain, not only for its willingness to discuss the organization, but also for its focus on a female member of ETA and a representation which humanizes—not demonizes—her. It gives to Yoyes the agency which is so often denied female political actors through the use of the mother, monster, and whore narratives, and depicts her as a strong, intelligent woman capable of participating ETA alongside men. It also provides a strong criticism of the crimes of other actors during the post-Franco era, particularly the

GAL program and the shady political deals of the State. I would argue, however, that the representation of this conflict during Franco’s regime is underdeveloped and does not provide enough contextualization of the oppression of the Basque Country before and during that time. This could have the effect of delegitimizing ETA’s cause by making it seem like Franco’s actions were committed in reaction to ETA when the reverse was clearly true. Regardless of the end result, though, I agree with Rodríguez’s view that

Yoyes “contribute[s] to our present through an investigation of past events which have not yet been resolved” (157). I would only add that many of these unresolved past events

272 have also been untouched for years by the Spanish film industry, and that, by addressing many of them for the first time, Taberna breaks a long-existing silence.

273

Conclusion

It is undeniable that both Peru and Spain suffered greatly during the respective conflicts with Sendero Luminoso (1980-1992) and ETA (1959-2011). The works that I have examined in this dissertation all depict, at some point, the most violent periods of these conflicts—either as the main focus, as in Paloma de papel and Ojos que no ven, or through the use of flasbhacks, as in Abril rojo and Yoyes. I have argued that the particular ideological and political messages of each of these works can be revealed through an examination of their use of both humanizing and dehumanizing discourses in their depiction of the main actors in each conflict—including the State, the subversive organizations, and the general public. Furthermore, I have asserted that each of these works serves as what Olick would term a “mnemonic product,” or a product such as a book or film that contributes to the general development of a collective memory regarding an event or time period. For this reason, it is imperative that we examine the kind of contribution that each of these novels and films are making to this collective memory because they all provide different accounts of the conflicts.

One of the most obvious ways in which these works differ is through their focus on the three main groups in each conflict: the State, the insurgent group, and the citizens

274 of each nation affected by the conflict. While Abril rojo (2006) focuses much more on the perspective of the Armed Forces, for example, works like Paloma de papel (2003) and

Ojos que no ven (2010) hardly discuss the State at all and, instead, center their plots largely—or almost entirely, in the case of Ojos que no ven—around the figure of the insurgent. Yoyes (2000) features all three of the aforementioned groups to varying degrees and is unique in that it focuses primarily on the life of Yoyes after she has left

ETA, providing a representation of ETA itself, as well as the Spanish State, mostly through the use of flashbacks. While these differences may seem innocuous on the surface, I would argue that they could have a great influence on the way in which the conflict is perceived by the audience—especially in terms of the actual commission of violence. For instance, in works such as Paloma de papel and Ojos que no ven, the vast majority of the violent acts are committed by members of one of the subversive organizations and the State is nearly invisible. Although it is possible to conclude that the

State did not do enough to stop the violence perpetrated by these organizations, I instead posit that it gives the impression that both Sendero Luminoso and ETA were the only parties responsible for violence in their respective political conflicts. This, of course, is far from the truth, as atrocities are well-documented on both sides, and I caution that this sort of representation is simplistic and even misleading in its apparent assignation of blame.

Apart from the narrative focus on one or more participants in these political conflicts, I argue that these specific actors are represented through the use of humanizing and dehumanizing discourses. Humanizing discourses are those that lend elements of humanness, as described by Haslam, to a character or group, and I assert that they

275 facilitate both a recognition of the humanity of the fictional character and also a possible sense of empathy on the part of the audience. Per Landsberg’s argument, the humanization of these characters holds great potential for real-life effects, particularly in enabling an audience member to think critically about situations that typically would be unpleasant, such as a violent confrontation between the State and these insurgent groups.

These discourses can take a number of forms, including the simple recognition of characteristics of humanness in a character, a contextualization of the sociopolitical circumstances which led to the development of the conflict in the first place, or, as I argue using Butler’s ideas on gender, the representation of female insurgents as performing “correctly” their gender roles.

These humanizing discourses are seen to varying degrees in a few of the works analyzed in this project. Both works from Peru, Abril rojo and Paloma de papel, share an interesting characteristic in that they both employ humanizing discourses in the depiction of Sendero Luminoso members. While this is not executed to the same degree in both works, I would argue that the separation of these works from the time periods that they depict has permitted a critical distance that permits this more complex representation of the insurgent figure. I demonstrate that the lone member of Sendero Luminoso presented to viewers in Abril rojo is humanized through the representation of his emotions and his rational discussion of the subject of terrorism. Additionally, I examine Fabrizio Aguilar’s desire to humanize the figure of the senderista in Paloma de papel. While I agree that he does provide glimpses of a rational explanation of their motivations and lends maternal qualities to the female members of the organizations, I find that this humanization is incomplete, as the members of Sendero Luminoso are depicted, not only in the

276 commission of various acts of violence, but as almost the sole party responsible for violence in the conflict. Of the group, I assert that Yoyes is the work that most successfully humanizes an insurgent figure and that this is accomplished both through a rejection of Sjoberg and Gentry’s mother and whore narratives and through the representation of Yoyes as a mother and wife in the years after she has left ETA.

This stands in stark contrast, of course, to the dehumanization of these same actors in other moments. By bestowing upon these participants characteristics such as amorality, lack of self-restraint, irrationality, and coarseness, these narratives can delegitimize the political situations behind each conflict and reduce these actors to little more than animals. Whereas the aforementioned humanizing discourses can facilitate empathy, these dehumanizing discourses remove any possibility of empathy and, therefore, justify the aggression towards an individual or group who is considered less- than-human and, consequently, free from the moral constraints that would typically prohibit this behavior. As Haslam indicates, these discourses can have dangerous real- world implications, as many times they accompany actual cases of violence. These dehumanizing discourses can take a number of forms, and I highlight in this project the general stripping of qualities of humanness, the use of Edward Said’s notion of orientalism, and a focus on Zizek’s notion of subjective violence at the expense of a contextualization of the objective violence present in each conflict.

Each of the works examined in this project contain some version of these dehumanizing discourses. I argue that there is a heavy focus on subjective violence in

Paloma de papel, in addition to the presence of a number of dehumanizing qualities in the representation of the senderistas. I also highlight the presence of an orientalist

277 perspective regarding the campesino population in Abril rojo and demonstrate the link between this sort of viewpoint and the justification of violence presented by the State forces in the novel. The work that by far presents the most dehumanized image of the subversive figure, however, is Ojos que no ven. I assert that González Sainz presents an animalistic image of ETA members which strips them of all humanity and completely delegitimizes the original motivations behind their actions. Furthermore, I show that this dehumanization begins after regular citizens join the organization, which presents the damning image that ETA itself is a dehumanizing organization that converts regular people into violent monsters. Whereas the works from Peru share the fact that they humanize, to some degree, the insurgents associated with Sendero Luminoso, the works from Spain are complete opposites in their depiction of ETA members. As I have mentioned, Yoyes is the work that most fully humanizes the insurgent actor, but Ojos que no ven is the work which most completely dehumanizes this same figure.

Apart from the individual uses of humanizing and dehumanizing discourses, each of these novels and films put forth a different overall message regarding their view of the conflict they represent. Interestingly enough, both works from Peru, Abril rojo and

Paloma de papel, appear to call for a revision of the representation of the insurgent figure, even if Paloma de papel, in particular, is not necessarily successful in doing so itself. Abril rojo certainly seems to be the work most willing to challenge the actions of the State and criticize not only their acts of violence, but also their system full of corruption, as Paloma de papel almost refuses to make a strong statement in that area.

Perhaps even more significant, however, is that both of these works also highlight a continuing issue with the representation of the indigenous population. In each of these

278 cases, the depiction of the indigenous people, or the lack thereof, commits an additional act of violence against them, albeit at a symbolic level, through an orientalist presentation that belies the reality of their experience during the conflict. Neither work truly allows the indigenous subject to speak for themselves, at least not regarding the political situation of that era, nor do they even begin to portray the devastation brought upon that community during the conflicto interno.

While the works from Peru are similar in their attempt to humanize the insurgent figure and the representation they provide of the indigenous community, the works from

Spain are nearly polar opposites in their depiction of the conflict with ETA. Ojos que no ven appears to be an all-out condemnation of ETA and its members that leaves no room for any sort of humanization of either Asun or Juanjo. The fact that Felipe is only able to find peace after he rids himself of bothof the ETA-affiliated members of his family seems to indicate that the novel only finds the possibility of national peace after Spain has completely disassociated from, as well as gotten rid of, ETA. Yoyes, on the other hand, provides a much more complex representation of the conflict that does not necessarily wish to place blame on one party or another, but instead highlight the errors committed on both side, as well as the suffering endured by both sides, of the conflict with ETA. It certainly stops short of accepting ETA, however, and proposes the reacceptance of ETA members only after they have rejoined the national family through the renunciation of ties to the organization and the establishment of a non-ETA family. The film ultimately provides a more hopeful and realistic ending, though, in that it does allow for the reintegration of former ETA members in a way that Ojos que no ven absolutely makes imposible.

279 Each of the conclusions put forth by the novels and films examined here are significant in the present day, as both countries struggle not only with the development of a collective memory surrounding past events, but also with the very real continuation of tensions with both of these organizations. Although each conflict has been officially declared over, either through the capture of Guzmán and the restoration of democracy after Fujimori’s government in Peru, or the cease fire declared in Spain by ETA, this does not mean that these organizations have disbanded and no longer pose a threat to either one of these nations. ETA, in particular, has broken multiple cease fires and peace agreements in the past, and tensions remain high as the nation waits to see if this agreement holds114. While Sendero Luminoso does not currently pose a threat to the stability of Peru, it does still have a core group of followers who carry out intermittent acts of violence and who are suspected to be involved in the trafficking of cocaine. As recently as two weeks prior to the writing of this conclusion, 24 members of Sendero

Luminoso were arrested and a common grave of Sendero victims was discovered in the

Junín region115.

Ultimately, I would argue that the tensions still remaining today in Spain and Peru are evidence that the original issues that motivated the very creation of these organizations have not been addressed to their satisfaction. This, of course, does not mean that each government should simply give in to demands set by either Sendero

114 ETA certainly still appears with regularity in Spanish news outlets, though most of the stories discuss their continued efforts for Basque autonomy and the stages of the peace process between ETA and the State. This does not mean that the organization is not still active, however, as there continue to be arrests and counterterrorism operations linked to ETA. 115 News of the arrests of suspected Sendero Luminoso members was reported in a number of news outlets, including Peruvian news outlets and the BBC. News of the discovery of the common grave was reported in Peruvian news outlets, including El Comercio. A search for “Sendero Luminoso” in the news category of Google returns dozens of articles referencing the organization just from the month of April 2014 alone, showing how present they remain in the news today. 280 Luminoso or ETA, but it is worth remembering that both of these organizations, though they employed violent methods, sought real political and social change from the outset. It is this contradiction that fuels my criticism of the lack of historical and sociopolitical context in many of the works I have examined within this project. I don’t believe that it is the obligation of the author or director to directly address these issues, but given many of their comments regarding either their explicit desire to humanize these subversive actors, or at the very least to paint a more complex picture of the conflict itself, I find it puzzling that this sort of information is not included. While literature and film may not be the correct media to directly enact the kinds of social or political change necessary to finally put a true end to these conflicts, they certainly could help to facilitate the discussion by providing a fuller, more contexutalized version of the conflict that does not only focus on the violent acts committed by either side.

Regardless of the merits or flaws of any of the works analyzed here, they leave no doubt regarding the damaged caused by both conflicts—both in terms of infrastructure and, even more importantly, the astounding human toll. In demonstrating, unequivocally, the havoc that each conflict has inflicted upon the people of each nation, I would argue that the greatest contribution of this group of works is the denunciation of the atrocities committed during these periods. Notwithstanding the individual perspectives concerning who is to blame for the initiation of either conflict or the violence perpetrated during them, the denunciation of violence in general is strong and obvious in each of the films and novels examined here.

281

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