The Time of Fear. Political Violence in Peru 1980-1996

"El tiempo del miedo. La violencia política en el Perú 1980–1996," by Nelson Manrique, addresses one of the most complete periods in our history: that of a tragedy whose consequences will continue to pass over our life as a nation for a long time. The essays that make up the book were drafted in parallel with the unfolding of events, seeking answers to the generalized violence that was underway. However, they do not exhaust themselves in the analysis of the conjuncture but transcend it, proposing explanations that refer us to the dense web of multiple causes whose roots lie in our colonial formation. Nelson Manrique uses his craft as a historian to trace the roots of the conflicts in Peruvian society that are stirred up behind the outbreak of political violence. For the author, political violence is a symptom of something deeper; it is the manifestation of a profound social crisis that shook Peruvian society in the 1980s — a crisis that itself condensed multiple crises which, as they chained together, exponentially increased their destructiveness. The results, in an initial assessment made by the Ministry of Women and Human Development, would be one and a half to two million people affected by political violence, 30,000 dead, 600,000 displaced, 40,000 orphans, 20,000 widows, 4,000 disappeared, 500,000 persons under 18 with post-traumatic stress, and 435 communities razed, between 1980 and 1996.