Abstract
In April 1983, a group of migrants/refugees from highland Peru, but living in Lima, suspected that Shining Path had infiltrated the Andean village of their origin, a small agricultural community in the Department of Ayacucho. To rid their community from terrorists, these migrants returned to Ayacucho and warned the military there of what had happened. A military incursion in the village followed; houses were ransacked, and 25 men were tortured and taken away to the nearby military base. At least two men were publicly executed. Some of these men were released in the days between April 14 and 24, but the majority disappeared. On April 24, Shining Path entered the community and killed 12 men; the majority of those killed were Lima-based residents who had stayed behind after the military incursion. The military responded immediately, and returned to the village on the same day. In a neighboring community, 36 men were taken away and tortured. The military arrested eight of these men, as well as nine women from the first community. All were tortured; some men were later released, others were executed. The nine women and their youngest children were taken to the Cangallo military base. The women were kept in a small room at the base, together with their children.
I don’t want money, I don’t want cash. I want justice, because why should only I be crying? That the perpetrator may also cry.
Sra Fernanda, victim-survivor of sexual violence at the military base in Cangallo, Ayacucho, testimony 201508 PTRC
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Notes
Case of Raquel Meijia and Castro prison, see Ruth Rubio-Marin and Clara Sandoval, “Engendering the Reparations Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Courth of Human Rights: The Promise of the Cotton Field Judgement,” Human Rights Quarterly 33 (2011): 1062–1091.
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See, especially, the cases of the ICTY and ICTR, as discussed in Inger Skjelsbæk, The Political Psychology of War Rape: Studies from Bosnia-Herzegovina (London: Routledge, 2012) and Henry, “Witness to Rape.”
Pasha Bueno-Hansen, “Finding Each Other’s Hearts: Intercultural Relations and the Drive to Prosecute Sexual Violence during the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 12 (2010): 319–340.
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Rosa-Linda Fregoso and Cynthia Bejarano, eds., Terrorizing Women. Feminicide in the Americas (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010).
Victoria Sanford, “From Genocide to Feminicide: Impunity and Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Guatemala,” Journal of Human Rights 7 (2008): 104–122.
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© 2014 Jelke Boesten
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Boesten, J. (2014). Impunity. In: Sexual Violence during War and Peace. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383457_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383457_5
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