Ashaninkas
The 1980s and 1990s represent for Peru two decades of terror, anguish and endless pain. The internal conflict unleashed by the bloodthirsty Maoist revolutionary group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) provokes a harsh and extremely violent reaction from the Peruvian government. Caught between two fires, the civilian population suffers in the flesh the consequences of blind and relentless violence. Thousands of summary executions, forced disappearances, sexual violations and cases of torture are the sad balance of this "dirty war". While the bulk of the fighting, and abuse, takes place in the mountain areas (the Sierra), even in the forests of the center of the country, innocent civilians are not spared untold suffering. The history of the populations of the Selva Central is much less known and mediatized, but just as sad and impactful. The Ashaninka and Machiguenga tribes were persecuted by the Shining Path for not wanting to join the revolutionary movement. Entire communities were forced to leave their village due to threats and fear of reprisals. They will only be able to return to their homes in the new century.
Unión Alto Sanibeni is a small Ashaninka village lost in the Selva Central of Peru, whose experience during the internal Peruvian conflict is paradigmatic of the vicissitudes of the indigenous populations of the forest.
Unión Alto Sanibeni is a small Ashaninka village lost in the Selva Central of Peru, whose experience during the internal Peruvian conflict is paradigmatic of the vicissitudes of the indigenous populations of the forest. Attacked several times by the Sendero Luminoso in the early 1990s, it always refused to join the armed group, but many inhabitants were killed or deported, until the survivors left the village and only returned little by little towards 1998. I had the opportunity to visit this village for a day in 2016, chatting with its few inhabitants, listening to the stories of the horror they lived and photographing their simple life, which still is heavily marked by the omnipresent fear that that horror would return. The scars on the body are now healed, but the psychological ones remain open and continue to cause incurable pain