The Legacy of the Past. Armed Forces, Human Rights and Internal Security in Contemporary Peru

The objective of this research is to study the set of political strategies that the armed forces developed to confront two simultaneous processes that occurred following the democratic transition initiated in Peru in the year 2000: On one hand, the transitional justice process following the end of Alberto Fujimori's regime, whose main milestone was the establishment of a Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, and the subsequent judicialization of cases of human rights violations committed by military personnel during the internal armed conflict. On the other hand, the growing tendency of recent democratic governments to use the armed forces for internal security tasks, both in controlling public security in the face of growing levels of conflict and social mobilization recorded in Peru, and in combating the armed remnants of Sendero Luminoso allied with drug trafficking in the Apurímac and Ene river valley (VRAE).