-
SEVEN. El Comandante Tigre: THE PEASANT PATROLS AND WAR
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
SEVEN El Comandante Tigre THE PEASANT PATROLS AND WAR Mitchell, before we begin, my daughter and son aren’t baptized and I want to be your compadre.1 I was startled by this request as I entered the house of El Comandante Tigre, Commander Tiger, the head of San Pedro’s militia. Do you agree to it or not? Allinchu o manachu? Will you be their godfather? When can we do it? I hesitated briefly, then responded, “I’ll do it, Allinmi.” Inwardly, I was troubled. People I had known for many years told me that he had killed twenty-three San Pedrinos in order to burglarize their homes and avenge personal disputes, even shooting one young man in the back as they patrolled together. I had already visited isolated archeological ruins where another youngster had been dragged from a truck and murdered by men in ski masks, the site marked by a lone metal cross. “El Tigre killed him! El Tigre and the militia!” several people had told me, killing him, they claimed, just because the kid had bad-mouthed El Tigre and the mayor. Whatever the truth of the allegations, they unsettled me. How could I become compadre to a possible murderer? I had met El Tigre only a few days before. I returned to San Pedro in 1996, two years after the last violent incident in the town, although guerrilla remnants were still active a day’s journey away in Ayacucho’s tropical forest. Wanting officials to know me, I had introduced myself to the military command, the police, and the mayor. A week and a half later, I spoke to the peasant militia during its regular Sunday meeting in the municipality. I had not been to San Pedro for sixteen years, so they were mostly strangers. I addressed them first in Quechua, but I had seldom spoken the language since 1980, so I shifted to Spanish. Surprised at my knowledge of Quechua and San Pedro customs, the men were pleased that I had come to learn how San Pedro had fared during the war. 148 VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL MARGIN Afterwards, I chatted briefly with El Comandante Tigre, who, like other militia leaders, went by an assumed name. He invited me to visit him at his home. I accepted with a mix of apprehension and impelling curiosity to hear an account of the militia different from the ones I had been getting. I was surprised when I arrived at his house a few days later not only by his request to stand as godparent to his children but also by his congenial manner. We sat in the front room, functionally similar to the American family room, but with adobe walls, hard-packed earth floor, and crude handmade wooden benches and tables instead of plush couches. It was simple but clean and pleasant. Attired in rubber-tire sandals and old clothes instead of the nattier clothing he had worn on Sunday, El Tigre struck a humble appearance, but had deep-set, expressive eyes and spoke excellent rural Spanish. Hands are seldom idle in San Pedro, and he fashioned retablos throughout the interview. His wife, busy preparing the meal we later ate together, joined us whenever she could. Their young daughter and son played nearby, murmuring in the background. At more than ten thousand feet above sea level, I was cold and wore a jacket. Because the house was located close to the highway at the edge of town, the noisy trucks climbing the final, steep ascent into the plaza frequently interrupted our conversation. El Tigre said I could record the interview, and I set my tape recorder near him on the floor as he began to speak. As he spoke, I became convinced that he saw me as a respected outsider, a gringo doctor and professor, and that he wanted to impress me in order to clear his name. He had done nothing wrong, he emphasized over and over, but was an unsung hero who had helped halt a guerrilla insurgency . His job was to defend the community against Shining Path assaults and to prevent people from aiding the guerrillas, either because they favored the insurgency or because they were coerced. As head of the militia, El Tigre told me, he also fought cocaine traffickers and rustlers. Terrorists and drug traffickers are the same thing, he said. They help each other, a view at variance with those of Peruvian anthropologist Ponciano del...