The Uses and Abuses of the Memory of María Elena Moyano

This article analyzes the various narratives circulating in the public sphere about the life and death of María Elena Moyano and how the State attempted to claim ownership of Moyano's memory, deploying it as a legitimizing element of its policies, which was key in its attempt to win the hearts and minds of Peruvian citizens in the war against Sendero Luminoso. Former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and his allies frequently invoked her memory to remind Peruvians of Sendero's brutality and to legitimize the State's counterinsurgency policy. In all this packaging and marketing of Moyano's memory, her left-wing political activism and her eloquent critiques—of both State violence and the neoliberal economic policies of the Fujimori government—were erased and silenced.