Neither Heroes nor Enemies. Analysis of Testimonies from Former Peruvian Police Officers and Former Military Personnel Gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the Context of the Internal Armed Conflict

This thesis draws on the testimonies of former police officers and former military personnel compiled by the Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación before publishing the Final Report in 2003. The study of these problematic texts is important in several respects. First, they resist the demand for data by CVR interviewers and transgress, in the speech act, the genre of transitional justice testimony; that is, in these testimonies it is not information about names, dates, and places that predominates, but rather the subjectivity of the witnesses, which in turn provides a new entry point into the discourses of former lower-ranking police officers and military personnel. Second, they break with the Manichaeism applied to state security forces: for the educated civilian sector, especially professional writers (traceable since the 19th century), these forces represent the natural enemy of the peasant, the cause of the nation's ills, abject and violent subjects, etc.; while for the official institutional and military sector they are sacrificed, misunderstood, and marginalized hero-pacifiers.