On August 28 Peruvians will commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the publication of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Report estimated there were around 70,000 victims, of which nearly seventy five per cent were speakers of indigenous languages. It clearly indicated that the Shining Path began the violence and was the principal perpetrator. But it also highlighted the human rights abuses carried out by the military and the responsibility of each of the incumbent governments in the escalation of the violence. Even though the commission collected more than 16,000 testimonies, carried out public audiences with victims in the areas that had been most affected, as well as forensic investigations the reception of the report in 2003 in the capital city of Lima was muted and many criticized the Commission for what was perceived as a not forceful enough condemnation of the terrorists.

Alberto Fujimori’s supporters remain the Report’s biggest critics, as they still consider him the hero who put an end to the terrorism. This is in spite of him having been found guilty of human rights abuses and wide spread corruption during his decade-long rule. Although Fujimori and several of the perpetrators of crimes are serving long prison sentences, others have been acquitted and many judicial processes are still ongoing. One of the high profile cases in the courts in that of Los cabitos where hundreds of people were tortured and exterminated in the 1980s, but there is a low rate of conviction for grave human rights abuses.

Initially the recommendations for reparations were taken on board but implementation has been painfully slow and resources have not been forthcoming. Institutional reform to address the underlying causes of the violence: poverty and inequality have not been carried out and some 15,000 disappeared still remain unaccounted for. In the past couple of years there have been concerted efforts from the relatives of the disappeared and civil society to actively search for the remains of the victims, but much remains to be done.

During the presidential election campaign of 2011 there was much discussion of the role that Ollanta Humala could be play, even if he is himself a perpetrator as has been alleged, because he promised to work for reconciliation. But little has been achieved and the critics of the Report who come from both sides of the spectrum from the Senderistas to the right, all agree that the best possible solution would be to provide blanket amnesties.

The greatest success of the Commission was to present an exhaustive report which is still available online for consultation. The full archive of its activities is held at the Ombudsman’s office in Lima and the photography exhibit Yuyanapaq put together in 2003 to coincide with the report is now housed at the Museo de la Nación in Lima. In 2005, a sculpture, el ojo que llora (‘the eye that weeps’), was installed in one of Lima’s biggest parks to memorialise the victims. With nearly 40,000 names inscribed in the stones that form part of the sculpture, its detractors contend it also celebrates perpetrators so Fujimoristas have taken to throwing orange paint at it.

Like most of the memorials so far, the Lugar de memoria financed by the German government, which is on the verge of being completed, seems to reinforce the innate centralism of Peru. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the most expensive district in Lima, on what used to be a trash recycling plant, it seems to symbolise the still unattained goals of the Final Report to redress what Salomón Lerner the Chairman of the Committee, described as the indolence, incompetence and indifference towards the victims of murder, disappearance and torture.