Peru town buries massacre victims

ACCOMARCA, Peru — The scene of one of the worst massacres of Peru’s internal conflict in the final decades of the 20th century, the town of Accomarca is closing a chapter that’s been open for more than 35 years.

On Friday, families of some of those killed buried the remains of their loved ones, including some of the 69 people killed by soldiers in 1985 in this mountainous town in Peru’s south.

Peru’s internal conflict from 1980 to 2000 saw the army fight the Shining Path rebel group. In total, almost 70,000 people died. Some who survived remember what people went through.

Justa Chuchon, 48, still has fresh memories of what she saw and recalls surviving four incidents in which she could have been killed.

“Finally, our friends and neighbors will find rest,” said Chuchon, who was 10 years old the first time she thought she was going to be killed. In 1983, soldiers stormed her house in Accomarca and one of them pushed his rifle against her chest. She said the soldier kicked her and her brothers and ordered them to pick up and bury the bodies of 11 people. The soldiers accused them of being Shining Path rebels.

A total of 80 caskets, including those of people killed as late as 2000, were buried in a graveyard on what used to be a military base where soldiers tortured locals they thought were Shining Path rebels, according to subsequent investigations.

The Shining Path established clandestine bases in rural towns like Accomarca, where the group killed the local authorities and forced farmers to feed its members. In response, the army accused the farmers of having become “terrorists” and killed some of them.

The worst for Accomarca came on Aug. 14, 1985, when soldiers started shooting at its houses. They gathered 69 people, including elders, women and children. The soldiers raped the women, then placed those gathered into three houses. They shot up and dynamited the houses, and set them on fire, as people watched in terror, including Chuchon.

That day Chuchon escaped death because she was with her grandmother. Her parents had gone to another town to play in a rural fair, because her father was a harpist.