Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness

34 years ago the journalists Willy Retto, Jorge Luis Mendívil, Felix Gavilán, Octavio Infante, Pedro Sánchez, Jorge Sedano, Eduardo De la Piniella, Amador García and the guide Juan Argumedo left. A hike to Huaychao, in the heights of Huanta, became his last trip in search of the truth. Five of the children of those who lost their lives on January 26, 1983, narrate this process of mourning and searching for justice and truth.,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Martyrs of Uchuraccay: the children and the process of forgiveness,Still spattered with dirt particles, the old Rolleiflex camera rests exactly under the bust of Willy Retto, in a corner of the room. Óscar and Alicia Retto take the machine and try to evoke the circumstances in which the news of their finding came to them. Grandfather and granddaughter realize that it was three or five years after the massacre happened. A mayor of Huanta had managed to contact them to hand them a briefcase with the dusty equipment. The machine belonged to Willy Retto, the journalist who recorded the historical series of thirteen photographs, the evening of Wednesday, January 26, 1983, minutes before the attack that killed his life and the entire delegation of journalists who had undertaken a trudge to the heights of Huanta, in search of the truth. ALSO YOU CAN SEE: Testimonies of the nights of terror in Uchuraccay. The story became world-wide. The cruelty of the internal armed conflict had reached journalists Willy Retto, Jorge Luis Mendívil, Félix Gavilán, Octavio Infante, Pedro Sánchez, Jorge Sedano, Eduardo De la Piniella and Amador García. Accompanied by the local guide Juan Argumedo, the group was on foot to Huaychao to learn the details of a murder of terrorists attributed to the peasants. Upon reaching Uchuraccay, the local villagers, in the midst of terror, confused the journalists with terrorists and killed them, one by one. It's been 34 years. Most journalists left families in orphanhood. How is the process of mourning in children ?, how, the process of forgiveness? Reconciliation journey Alicia was still in the womb of her mother when her father Willy Retto was killed. The memory of her childhood is marked by the scenes she saw in those last photographs. “When I saw the images, I was afraid. For me, that meant death, something dark, a bad zone”, she recalls. Alicia Retto is a broadcaster for ATV News. “Journalism, for me, is to continue what my father could not continue to do”, she reflects. It took 25 years since she was born for the day to come. Accompanied by her grandfather, she decided to take the trip to the heights of Uchuraccay and find a part of her personal history. “We went with my grandfather together —she recalls—. We stayed at the Hotel Santa Rosa, in the same room where my dad had stayed. We left at the same hour, at five in the morning, in a car that took us to the place. We did the same trip, except we drove”. Along the way, Oscar was going over the story. The first emotional blow came when he stepped on this cold town. “I felt the smell of death, not only by my father; but also by many people who I believe have suffered in that place. I felt on my skin everything that had happened in Ayacucho, so many people who have died victims of terrorism”, he says. It was the only time. Alicia remembers clearly the route. The pit where they located the body of his father. The old town. The remains of the communal house. “It was very strong. I came to perceive pain, suffering, tears, agony, sadness”. Alicia had mixed feelings towards the peasants: “I felt that these people had also suffered a lot, because of so much violence. He also felt their responsibility, especially for the silence kept for so long. This time I went, I forgave. That journey served to close my circle of my pain”. Absence that teaches Pamela De la Piniella, a 35-year-old woman, reviews some newspaper clippings. In one of these pages we can see the last article written by her father, Eduardo De la Piniella, in the Diary of Marka. She also studied communications, practiced journalism, and now works in a post-production company. “When I worked in the press, at Univision, I realized how dangerous journalism can be and also how great it can be to help someone; that I understood from the job that my father carried out”, she says. While still studying at the university, Pamela traveled to Uchuraccay. She says that she still felt a grudge because the crime against his father, whom she lost when he was only a year and a half old. “I have not grown up with a father figure. His absence was more in the sense of not having had him. It is not normal to grow up without a father”, she says. With that trip, however, the mourning for Pamela did not close. Another important event occurred in her life that would open the doors to reconciliation. “It's a difficult process to accept —Pamela expresses herself as one who reflects aloud—. When I became a mom, I realized how important a parent can be to a daughter. It was after this stage that I decided to forgive. It was after having my own daughter, in 2012. I mean forgiveness that comes from the bottom of your heart. I hope they have repented of what they did at some point”. The value of academia “If there was a fact that helps me summarize the step towards forgiveness, for me, it is the encounter with the academy”. Carlos Infante holds a PhD in Sociology and teaches at the communications faculty of the University of Huamanga. He lost his father, journalist Octavio Infante, at age 11. He remembers him as a determined man. He took the first press to Huamanga. “The news of his death arrived on Saturday night, January 30, 1983, in the midst of deep anguish”, ”, he recalls. “My aunt Lydia Argumedo, my father's political sister who had a farm a few miles from Uchuraccay, came home and knocked on the door so desperately that she almost threw it down. As soon as I opened it, she entered without seeing me and went directly to my mother: They killed him, they killed him, Octavio is dead!” “My mourning did not begin until much later. They did not let me see his ill-fated body. They said that he was totally destroyed, like all his colleagues. That fact served to feed my hopes of seeing him alive. I suppose that in the depths of my unconscious that illusion was still intact. My dreams were recurrent, I always saw him coming home”, Carlos reflects from Huamanga. I ask him what sentiment he keeps towards the Uchuraccay peasants. “34 years after the events occurred —he replies—, I must say with absolute certainty that I do not retain any ounce of hate or resentment. The death of my father represented a tragic terrible fact that caused a deep pain to my family, only comparable to the pain of thousands of people who suffered the horror of a fratricidal war”. Infante claims to be aware that his father's death was neither an error nor a confusion. It assumes that it is the result “of that maelstrom of blood facts that were part of the internal armed conflict” and of the implementation of “a strategy developed by military, which sought to cover up the greatest genocide of peasants, trying to stop the arrival of more journalists at the emergency zone”. Carlos Infante published the book Canto Grande and the two hills. He argues that it was through the investigation that he was able to know the whole context of the violence that covered the country. It was precisely in the field of research that he found the path to forgiveness. The truth awaits Juan Carlos Sedano Velásquez, son of Jorge Sedano, was 10 years old and to this day he keeps intact the letter written by his father, in a veneer of the newspaper La República. “The photographic criterion you have is excellent, considering the young age you are. Try to read many books of photography”, is part of the text that still is possible to read in the yellow paper. Juan Carlos has followed the path of photography. As a child, he used to play in the dark room that was his father's laboratory. Today he has his own photographic studio, in Callao. “I also went to Uchuraccay —he says—. When I got to the mausoleum area I shattered; I was shocked and broken. It was a part of that story that I needed to know”. Juan Carlos does not hold a grudge against the farmers. In the Sedano Velásquez family there has been no change in the conviction that it was the members of the Armed Forces who murdered the journalists in Uchuraccay. “They (the farmers) are not to blame.Those who were responsible must comply their judgement”, he said. Lidia Gavilán is 39 years old and now runs a personal project linked to fashion design. This week she visited the Place of Memory. She has visited the space reserved for the martyrs of Uchuraccay. And she has returned to observe the last images in the life of his father, the journalist Félix Gavilán. “From my childhood, the memories I keep are blood, dead —she says—. As I lived in Ayacucho, the whole city smelled of blood. I remember my mother in a sea of tears. Sometimes she hod herself to cry,she did not want to be seen by her children. I do not have many memories of my dad. Only those photos”. She has never visited Uchuraccay. She says she's not ready. Over time, she assures that there is neither hatred nor animosity against the community in her heart. “God forgives. I do not have to forgive anyone. What traumatic experiences they will have also lived. I do not know”, she reflects. What is required is that those who know what has happened get out and tell the truth. “I feel that there are those who hide something and, perhaps, they are going to take it to their grave. But I also think that they must tell what happened. It’s outrageous that they have been silent until now. If those who killed the journalists already died, their children should know what happened. There are things you can not hide all your life. To be at peace, you must tell the truth”, she complains. The voice of Lidia Gavilán is, in a way, the same voice and the reflection of Juan Carlos Sedano, Carlos Infante, Pamela de la Piniella and Alicia Retto. They have begun the process of forgiveness; but they do not renounce the claim so that the whole truth is known. At the Retto house, Alicia questions the scope of the Truth Commission report. She says it while looking at the old Rolleiflex camera that belonged to his father. And she adds that it was her grandmother who made the decision. It was her who said that the machine had to stay that way, covered with that same earth from the heights of Uchuraccay.

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