1As became clear in 2003, the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR, created in 2001) was driven by the desire to elucidate the 1980 to 2000 internal conflict between the military and paramilitary forces, and the subversive Shining Path organization. Through various artistic, social and/or political commitments, its objective has been to illustrate and respond to references of ‘reconciliation’ made in the Commission’s Final Report. The concept of reconciliation consist of three main axes: a political dimension and an attempt to reconcile State, society and political parties; a social dimension which discusses links between institutions and public spaces within civil society and society as a whole, with specific emphasis placed on marginalized ethnic groups; and an interpersonal dimension relating to those members of communities and institutions who clashed. In this respect I recall the various means by which citizens’ groups fought to keep the memory of the injustices of this violent past alive in the face of forgetting and even denial: dissemination of historical facts through scientific publications and cultural events such as exhibitions and conferences; songs and powerful music; violent and testimonial literature; the preservation of the remnants of cities such as Ayacucho, scarred in these years of terror, and the construction of remembrance sites to commemorate the victims and their families.

2To illustrate this latter architectural aspect I focus on the centerpiece of the memorial landscape dedicated to this dark period, El ojo que Llora, a memorial erected in Lima to commemorate the victims. I will initially address characteristics of the site and the monument through, among others, the considerations of the artist that will help us to understand its national interest. Next I will see to what extent the socio-political polemics and controversies hinder or even prevent the constitution of a collective memory.

Characteristics of the site and artistic considerations

3The El Ojo que Llora monument was inaugurated on 28 August 2005 in Lima’s Campo de Marte park, on land measuring 27,600 m² which was granted by the municipality of Jesús María, a district of Lima. It commemorated the second anniversary of the CVR’s submission of the final report and its creation was made possible by donations from the German and Dutch Embassies, contributions from the Toledo government, and anonymous donors. This is the first phase of the development project titled Alameda de la Memoria (Promenade of Memory), designed by architect Luis Longhi. The second phase had neither been supported or validated since the change of Jesús María's municipal administration. It included a visit to the “Yuyanapaq” museum, the establishment of Quipu and the Campo de Marte, dedicated to Mother Nature. The project was motivated by the government’s claim of the “duty to remember” and was jointly launched by Salomon Lerner, ex-president of the CVR, Dutch artist Lika Mutal, and Aprodeh, the Association for Human Rights. A maze of 11 circles formed of nearly 32,000 stones, the monument depicts the name, age and year of death or disappearance of a victim of conflict. In the centre, Lika Mutal has placed a stone; on it is an eye from which water flows, symbolizing tears flowing in the memory of nearly 70,000 Peruvian citizens who lost their lives in this war. The victims are represented as equal citizens of the same nation who fell in a collective tragedy. The memorial represents all victims regardless of their political leanings, and the objective is to take a step towards the reconciliation of all Peruvians.

4The 27,000 names on the stones were written by volunteers following the publication of the preliminary list certified by the CVR. Although these victims were identified, their engagement in the conflict has not been specified on the stones and they are thus depoliticized. Since all the stones were soldered onto the same tile to represent a collective tragedy, the memorial seems to support a globalized vision of violence. The work is indeed a symbol of national grief, and in this sense it supports the message of peace the human rights associations are trying to spread. The fact that no mention is made of the political affiliation of victims amounts to considering them as a whole, as if those who died in the same intra-national conflict transcend memory in a national tragedy. Yet for some, this constitutes an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. Repeatedly ransacked, reduced by some journalists and politicians to a “memorial in honour of Guerillas”, El Ojo que Llora symbolizes an unmanageable policy of national memory.

Disputes and controversies over the maze-memorial

5In any civil war the proximity of the protagonists blurs the boundaries between perpetrators and victims, and all attempt to disqualify the other in order to idealize their own participation. This is of course part of the larger problem of the “otherness of the enemy”. In Peru, military victory over the Shining Path contributes to distinctions among the soldiers. Official hegemonic memory meets the popular memory of subaltern groups, revealing a harmful dichotomy between “repressive” and “emancipatory” memory. This explains why the monument has been attacked by supporters of former presidents Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and Alan García (2006-2011), who view it as the last sanctuary for “terrorists”. The prioritization of war victims addresses the issue of conflict to a triumphant State over the Shining Path, giving it the role of liberator and saviour. It is interesting to see how maintaining the fear of a return to conflict is accompanied by the development of a “salvatory” memory, as noted by the anthropologist Carlos Iván Degregori. Whatever the price to pay, victory over “terrorism” is seen as a salvation and Fujimori has become a heroic figure. Seen in this perspective, his “assessors”, which include members of the armed forces and police, enjoy social legitimacy and thus embody a supreme form of patriotism.

6To illustrate this we must first consider the vote of amnesty laws which provided impunity for police and military personnel involved in extrajudicial executions under Fujimori and Alan García. Not only are violent acts committed by State forces legitimized in this way; accusations are stiffled about the responsibilites of the two Heads of State and their involvement in human rights violations.

7Controversies were endlessly fuelled from 2006. In November 2006 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José (Costa Rica) passed its sentence on the case of the 1992 extrajudicial executions of leading figures of Shining Path in the Miguel Castro Castro prison which occurred after prisoner rebellion. It ordered that the names of forty-two prisoners executed by the armed forces of the Peruvian State appear on the monument’s stones. On this occasion Lika Mutal was opposed, while the associations defending human rights sat on the fence. The victims’ families are the most divided on the subject. Keeping aloof from individual sensitivities, the Court recognizes senior members of the Shining Path as possible victims of this war and raises the issue of the otherness of the enemy and the suggested hierarchy between the victims themselves. Is it possible for the names of the main instigators of this internal conflict and those of the “real” victims, who have nothing to do with it, to coexist in a single memorial? While the inscription of names of Shining Path guerrillas has been made public, the artist’s work clearly depicts a demarcation between legal and moral order that is suggested on the memorial. Reparations made to victims is part of legal affairs, whereas the artistic tribute belongs to the moral domain. It is indeed difficult to define standards of morality and subjectivity in the case of internal armed conflict.

8It is in this context that on 23 September 2007 supporters of former President Fujimori ransacked the monument. Fujomori had recently been extradited from Chile at the request of the Peruvian courts for being complicit in crimes against humanity during the war against the Shining Path. The central sculpture was stained with orange paint, the colour of Fujimor’s party Cambio 90. The stones were shattered and trampled, and the maze partly destroyed. The accusation of being a “tribute to terrorists” was inscribed on the monument. Supporters of Peru’s former president are calling on human rights associations to create an organization for conflict victims, in a similar vein to how the country’s social structure renders each individual subordinate to another.

9Meanwhile, the Fujimori process (2007-2009) aroused passions. On 7 April 2009 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of human rights violations and war crimes. His daughter Keiko was announced as a candidate for the 2010 presidential election, which makes one wonder if it is at all possible to envisage a new social pact.

10On 8 May 2009 Alan García unveiled an obelisk in tribute to the “defenders of the fatherland” in the courtyard of the Presidential Palace. A few days later, on 11 May, Vice President Luis Giampietri obtained Congressional approval to build a monument dedicated solely to police and military victims of armed conflict, appropriately in the Campo de Marte. In short, a kind of pantheon of state authorities would address El Ojo que Llora, resulting in an escalationof public monumentality. It is significant, then, that El Ojo que Llora is situated near the headquarters of the Peruvian air forces.

11Following a request by Javier Torres, president of the Association Caminos de la Memoria, the monument was assessed in 2003 and declared part of Peru’s cultural heritage. Controversies and polemics are still alive and demonstrate the complexity of constructing memorial sites to commemorate civil war waged in the Peruvian capital. While El Ojo que Llora promotes the idea of a single conflict without victorious heroes, the recently installed obelisk at the Presidential Palace commemorates those who died for the country by establishing the idea of an anti-subversive struggle and a triumphant Peruvian nation. It should finally be noted that this memorial standoff and the dissemination of artistic expressions of these years of terror once again highlight the eternal issue of Peruvian identity as profoundly homogenous.