The Corner of the Living: Ayacucho on the Eve of the Shining Path Insurgency

SIX: To Turn the Corner: After Shining Path

c h a p t e r s i x To Turn the Corner After Shining Path In revolutions, as well as counterrevolutions and civil wars, there comes a crucial point when people suddenly realize that they have irrevocably broken with the world they have known and accepted all their lives.—Barrington Moore1 A lejandra Ccente sat on a small wooden stump from a hilltop overlooking the village square. Sucking on her lemon-flavored candy, the Huaychaina became distracted by the photograph in Julián’s hands: an image of the village’s original ronderos , taken by Caretas photographer Oscar Medrano during his 1983 visit to Huaychao. Most of the ronderos in the photograph had died defending their community during the civil war. The gregarious widow let out a nervous giggle and asked, “How is it that you have that picture?” She snatched the image from Julián’s hands and examined it. “Maybe now we’ll interview each other,” she teased. “How did you guys get this picture?” We explained that the archive director at Caretas magazine had graciously donated this and other images to the community since many people from Huaychao had never seen them. As she looked over the black and white photograph, mama Alejandra’s mood suddenly turned somber: “How do you expect me to look at all this without crying?”2 Up to this point, Ihavefocusedonthecausesandmanifestationsofthe political violence in Ayacucho. This chapter takes the narrative in a new direction, examining the effect that the armed conflict had on the region’s indigenous peasantry.3 Regardless of which side they supported, peasant men and women had to deal with the ramifications of their decisions. Those who originally sided with the rebels faced a daily threat of attacks by state counterinsurgency forces. In Chuschi and Quispillaccta, these se- 198 • to turn the corner curity forces carried out mass kidnappings and executions of indigenous peasants. In Huaychao, it was the guerrillas who massacred men, women, and children in retaliation for the community’s counterinsurgency efforts. Huaychainos claimed that the guerrillas attacked their hamlet nine times in as many years, killing between sixty and eighty villagers.4 In both communities , villagers joined the thousands of Andean peasants who fled the emergency zone, seeking refuge in the jungle or in urban centers such as Lima. This mass displacement completely restructured sending and receiving communities alike.5 ThePeruvianinsurrectiondidmorethanalterAyacucho’sdemographic landscape, however. It also impacted local beliefs, values, and practices. As we have seen, peasants supported or resisted the Shining Path insurgency for a variety of reasons, but one constant for highlanders on both sides of the conflict was an effort to preserve, or return to, the local status quo. In many cases, however, civil war conditions dictated that indigenous peasants set aside previous practices and priorities. As a result, many of the values and structures that peasants had begun fighting for in the first place were altered—some of them permanently. While the political violence affected peasants’ lives in a number of ways, this chapter will explore its impact on indigenous Ayacuchans’ practices and attitudes regarding (1) authority and justice, (2) gender, and (3) the state and civil society. We begin with authority and justice. Not for the Faint of Heart: Authority and Justice Shining Path, and later the rondas campesinas, introduced a militarized administration of justice in peasant communities.6 After receiving initial support, Shining Path militants in Chuschi eventually exceeded the limits of what peasants considered “appropriate” administration of justice. Having weeded out villagers’ local enemies, PCP-SL guerrillas continued to execute comunero men, women, and children in their popular trials. The arrival of the state’s security forces in Chuschi and other guerrilla strongholds introduced peasants to an equally brutal and indiscriminate form of violence that they had never before experienced. As with Shining Path, the rondas campesinas militarized Ayacuchan communities in unintended ways.7 Since firearms were illegal in Peru, peasants originally relied on knives, rocks, slings, spears, and other makeshift weapons to defend themselves against rebel incursions. As the war to turn the corner • 199 dragged on, however, comandos (militia leaders) began demanding firearms . Hugo Huillca, the controversial comando of the jungle DECAS, contended : “[It’s] one thing to talk about dialogue, to talk about making laws, to talk about peace . . . and it’s another thing to be there in the thick of the action. For us [who live along] the Apurímac River...