Realms of Memory Podcast with Dr. Cynthia Milton

Episode 58: Rehabilitating the Memory of the Security Forces in Peru - Realms of Memory

The army in Peru has long been held in high regard as the defender of Peruvian independence and the standard bearer for its large indigenous population. Yet in the investigations that followed the two-decade conflict with the Maoist Shining Path insurgency, Peru’s security forces were found responsible for 36% of the deaths.  Beyond the revelations of massacres, torture, gendered violence, corruption and support for Alberto Fujimori's 1992 coup, Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported that the overwhelming victims of human rights crimes committed by the security forces were indigenous peoples. From facing criminal prosecution and imprisonment in the early 2000s, how have the security forces rehabilitated their image, won the support of the Peruvian people, and captured the highest offices in the land? 

Find out from historian Cynthia Milton, author of Conflicted Memory: Military Cultural Interventions and the Human Rights Era in Peru.