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  • State of Fear: The Truth about Terrorism
  • Charles D. Kenney
State of Fear: The Truth about Terrorism. Directed by Pamela Yates. New York: New Day Films, 2009. 94 Minutes. DVD. $300.00 purchase; $75.00 rental.

The duality of this film's title conveys the essence of the armed conflict in Peru that began in 1980. The armed movement known as the Shining Path created a state of fear [End Page 590] that reached into every home in every village, neighborhood, and region of Peru, paralyzing its adversaries and giving it freedom of action. But the title may be read another way, for the Peruvian state itself became greatly feared as it reacted to the insurgent threat. This is a complex story, in which the insurgents ultimately proved more destructive of human life than the armed forces they sought to destroy and in which the most massive human rights abuses took place under what were in other respects the most democratic governments of the period, while the most authoritarian and corrupt government practices developed after the Shining Path had been strategically defeated. State of Fear tells this story more effectively than anything I have seen. Building on the work of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the film masterfully weaves diverse testimonies into a fabric whose guiding thread is articulated by Carlos Iván Degregori, a highly respected anthropologist and member of the commission.

Most importantly, State of Fear allows the viewer to discover the painful complexities at the heart of this story through the faces and voices of the protagonists themselves. In testimonies that challenge us to recognize their humanity, we hear from an Ayacucho university student who became a Shining Path militant, a Lima lawyer who only slowly came to an awareness of what was going on in her country, an Ayacucho farmer whose family members were murdered by the Shining Path, a Marine who dropped captured Shining Path militants to their deaths from a helicopter, a rural school teacher whose family was massacred by the military, a human-rights leader who courageously stood with the families of the disappeared and documented the destruction of the rule of law, a photographer whose lens brought images of war from Ayacucho to Lima and the world, an Ashaninka tribal leader who witnessed the violence unleashed as pro-Shining Path and pro-government Ashaninkas fought each other, an Ashaninka man who was kidnapped and became a child soldier for the Shining Path before they killed his brother, a Lima university student who was arbitrarily arrested and thrown into prison with the Shining Path but was then converted to their cause, a police officer whose painstaking detective work led to the capture of the Shining Path's leaders, an army general who denounced government-sponsored death squads, a journalist who alerted Peru to the dangers posed by President Alberto Fujimori's intelligence advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, and a university student randomly arrested and then raped and tortured until she signed a confession.

Originally released in 2005, fourteen minutes of extra footage were added in 2008, in which we hear from former President Fujimori during the trial that led to his conviction for crimes against humanity and from others involved in the trial. In the 1980s it was said that the question was not whether the Shining Path would win, but how many Peruvians would survive to tell the story of its defeat. State of Fear brings to life the voices of Peruvians who survived, and demands that we remember these and the tens of thousands who did not. [End Page 591]

Charles D. Kenney
University of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma
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