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 developed by the armed forces to confront two simultaneous processes that occurred following the transition to democracy that began in Peru in 2000: on the one hand, the transitional justice process following the end of Alberto Fujimori's regime, whose main milestone was the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 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 public security control in the face of rising levels of conflict and social mobilization registered in Peru, and in combating the armed remnants of Sendero Luminoso allied with drug trafficking in the Apurímac and Ene river valley (VRAE).