The Art of Truth-Telling:

The Peruvian Truth Commission & the Ongoing Search for Justice

 

Featuring the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s photography exhibit "Yuyanapaq"

 

November 8, 2011 from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Mason Hall, Meese Room
Fairfax Campus

 

Featuring

 

Special Guest

Gisela Ortiz, Program Director, Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team and spokesperson of the Relatives of the La Cantuta Massacre Association

 

Panel Discussion

Jelke Boeston, Senior Scholar, United States Institute of Peace

Jo-Marie Burt, Director of Latin American Studies at Mason

Jemima García-Godo, Researcher at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights, Oslo University

 

 

Synopsis

The Latin American Studies Program at George Mason University is honored to host human rights defender Gisela Ortiz, who will speak to the university community about her brother Enrique Ortiz, a university student who was disappeared from his dorm room at the La Cantuta University by the Colina Group, a death squad operating during the Fujimori government, along with eight other students and a university professor, in 1992. Gisela will share the story of her struggle to unearth the truth about what happened to her brother and to bring those responsible to justice, WHICH contributed DECISIVELY to the prosecution of former president Alberto Fujimori for this and other human rights crimes. In recognition of her dedication to the cause of human rights and justice, Peru’s human rights umbrella organization, the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, awarded Ms. Ortiz the National Prize for Human Rights in 1993 and again in 2007. To be followed by a panel discussion by distinguished experts on the legacy of the Peruvian truth commission.

This event will take place against the backdrop of a haunting exhibit of photographs produced by the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was created to investigate the causes and consequences of the political violence that ravaged Peru between 1980 and 2000. The photography exhibit, entitled “Yuyanapaq,” which means “To remember” in Quechua, chronicles the brutal conflict between the Shining Path insurgency and the Peruvian state, which left 69,000 dead in its wake, as well as the valiant efforts of ordinary Peruvians to resist violence and restore democracy to the country. The Yuyanapaq exhibit will be on display in the Mason Hall Atrium from October 31 to December 4, 2011.

Sponsored by Latin American Studies Program and the Human Rights & Global Justice Working Group at the Center for Global Studies.

November 06, 2011