Human Rights and Terrorism. The Peruvian Experience

Although the Peruvian experience with Sendero Luminoso has shown that an inadequate state response, based fundamentally on indiscriminate repression and the violation of rights and freedoms, can end up helping terrorism to achieve its objectives, the manner in which terrorism must be combated is still a matter of dispute, since during the years of the Fujimori regime a distorted official version was constructed and disseminated, which remains entrenched in authorities and the general population. The restrictions on human rights recently approved by the government of the United States are bad signals for countries in the region, and some sectors are using this new regional scenario to push for policies that were thought to have been overcome, even in matters not directly related to the fight against terrorism. However, there was also some consensus that the situation is not only a challenge but an opportunity. We thus face the need and opportunity to demonstrate that the exercise of freedoms and rights is not at odds with the pursuit of effectiveness in combating terrorism. That is why it is essential that there be a movement that, while defending freedoms and rights, also has an active commitment to the fight against terrorism. (Excerpt from introduction).