There are few permanent fixtures in Peruvian politics, least of all the presidency. The recent election—which took two months to confirm its second round candidates after numerous controversies—has been dominating the headlines after having an unprecedented 36 candidates enter the race this year to elect the country’s ninth president since 2016. Yet while the presidency remains a revolving door, one thing has remained constant in Peruvian society—state violence against the marginalized sectors of Peru Profundo.
In peripheral zones of the country, “democracy” is seen as nothing more than elite doublespeak as the state’s politics of impunity denies justice for so many. A recent massacre in a long stigmatized region of the Peruvian periphery demonstrates how the devaluation of life occurs behind the institutionalization of impunity with regards to anti-poor and indigenous violence that is so deeply embedded within the nation-state.
In peripheral zones of the country, “democracy” is seen as nothing more than elite doublespeak as the state’s politics of impunity denies justice for so many.
On April 25 in Colcabamaba in the department of Huancavelica, a truck full of young men aged 18-31, were killed by a military patrol on the Pucacolpa highway connecting the city of Huanta in Ayacucho with Colcabamba. According to the military report, a patrol in the area had been alerted to narco activity in the region. Upon seeing the vehicle the patrol stated that it ordered it to stop before hearing gun fire. At that point, according to the report, 8 military officials returned fire with automatic weapons. When the smoke settled, 5 young men were dead. Three others survived, including 20-year-old Ricardo Quispe, who managed to jump from the car and hide in the brush for three hours.
As of May 3, the preliminary investigation commissioned by the government has yet to recover the alleged gun used by the young men. More so, despite the claims by the military that the victims were transporting drugs, investigators found only traces of marijuana in the vehicle they had rented for their soccer games. Ricardo Quispe’s brave testimony has been a counterpoint to the military’s increasingly racialized and classist narrative. Initially confessing to being a drug trafficker, Quispe has since recanted his confession, revealing that military officials threatened to shoot him if he didn’t confess. Quispe also revealed that the military officials were masked and wearing civilian clothes when they approached the car, causing them to fear for their lives as the highway is often frequented by bandits.
Looking for Justice in a Militarized Area
The incident took place in the valley of the rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro, an area commonly known as VRAEM. That this latest massacre took place in this region adds to the tolerance—if not outright normalization—by large sectors of Peruvian society to the extraordinary forms of violence perpetrated against communities such as Colcabamba. Most of Peru’s cocaine production occurs in the VRAEM, mainly under the control of remnants of the Shining Path, as well as the military, according to several locals.
While much of the coca leaf grown here is shipped around the region for cultural use and food consumption, some locals are forcibly recruited to work in clandestine cocaine labs deep in the jungle. This has earned the VRAEM a violent reputation. The area lives in the collective Peruvian imaginary as a zone of exception, a peripheral space believed to be overrun by narcotrackers where the specter of the Maoist insurgent group, the Shining Path, is always present. As such, the VRAEM has faced numerous curfews and martial law declarations for over a generation.
They are condemning the terruqueo—the racialized condemnation of poor Indigenous peoples as terrorists or potential terrorists to justify extrajudicial violence—espoused by the military and the press.
It is beneath this shadow that the families of the victims are now demanding justice for their children. They are condemning the terruqueo—the racialized condemnation of poor Indigenous peoples as terrorists or potential terrorists to justify extrajudicial violence—espoused by the military and the press. The term terruco is used to “denounce real or supposed members of armed groups and discredit people with progressive or leftist politics, as well as organizations and people committed to the defense of human rights and Indigenous people simply for being so,” states the Peruvian historian Carlos Aguirre. While the term is no longer widely used, the practice of condemning advocates and sectors of society persists in systematic and indirect ways. In this case, the government’s attempt to cast the victims of the massacre as drug traffickers is an example of how terruqueo serves as a psychological conditioning to dehumanize the lives of people in the VRAEM and other peripheries. Commenting on the various prosecutorial delays in the case, the renowned prosecutor José Domingo Pérez told Wayka, “It seems like the life of someone in Huancavelica is worth less than the life of someone from Lima.”
As soon as the incident became known, the state was quick to condemn the victims, playing into stereotypes that sought to demonize their character. Óscar Arriola, general commander of the Peruvian National Police (PNP) pointed to the driver’s Colombian nationality to substantiate the claim that the occupants were drug traffickers, playing into xenophobia. The eight military officials were released before the investigation had concluded, with many fearing they might conspire to align their stories.
Terruqueo and the Institutionalization of Impunity
The conflict between the state and the Shining Path left a legacy of stigmatizing those at the margins of Peruvian society. Peru’s deeply embedded terruqueo has evolved into a culture of impunity for the violence perpetrated against vulnerable communities. In places like Colcabamba, this impunity long denies—if it ever allows—any sort of justice for poor and Indigenous communities.
In this context, the legacy of former president Alberto Fujimori is still debated today. Fujimori, who died months after being given humanitarian parole in 2024, is widely credited with defeating the Shining Path, although many experts along with many parts of the country argue popular resistance also played a huge role. During his reign, Fujimori suspended many constitutional freedoms, supported the widespread use of extrajudicial proceedings and authorized the use of torture. Fujimori’s post-party politics or Fujimorismo, remains a prominent fixture of the state. Initially, referring to a populist, anti-elitist, multiculturalist politics that sought to bring in the historically marginalized sectors of society, it was later defined by the autocratic mechanisms used by Fujimori to remain in power. Its echoes can also be found in recent legislation that expands militarization, normalization of terruqueo, and the criminalization of protests.
Several recently approved laws codify the systemic targeting of Indigenous, campesino and under-resourced communities at the margins of Peruvian society.
In April 2025, then President Dina Boluarte signed a law requiring organizations receiving foreign funding in the country to receive prior authorization by the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI) despite the concerns of human rights organizations, NGOs and the National Association of Journalists. The law gives the government absolute control over all civil society activities, and many see it as a way to control independent media and NGOs working on issues about human rights. Behind the guise of preventing “intervention in internal politics,” the state looks to serve as the gatekeeper for any legal actions or even counternarratives produced in civil society. “If we want to investigate human rights violations or corruption cases, the government will need to give us permission,” Fabiola Torres, director of the media outlet Salud con Lupa told the LatAm Journalism review in 2025.
Several recently approved laws codify the systemic targeting of Indigenous, campesino and under-resourced communities at the margins of Peruvian society.
Furthermore, in August 2025, Boluarte signed an Amnesty Law which undoes decades of legal proceedings, advocacy and international campaigns to hold the perpetrators of state violence during the armed conflict with the Shining Path accountable. Under the pretext of “humanitarian amnesty,” the law grants any military or state official over 70 years old convicted for crimes committed between 1980-2000 amnesty. It also prevents further convictions, effectively closing the over 600 open investigations for various human rights violations.
“The Amnesty Law actively undermines the guarantee of non-repetition, as perpetrators of serious human rights violations can commit atrocities without facing consequences,” wrote Anusha Anand for the Rule of Law Initiative at the American Bar Association. “By removing accountability, the law may embolden future offenders and signal impunity for state violence.”
The Amnesty law essentially scales out the 2020 Police Protection Act Law, which removed an existing decree that required law enforcement’s use of force to be proportionate to the threat. That law also diminished the power of judges presiding over cases involving police, limiting pretrial detention and binding them to rule in favor of the police. Many experts see this law as impeding justice for the widespread killings of protestors and bystanders during the popular rebellions that spread across the peripheral provinces in between December 2022 and January 2023.
In passing these laws, Peru has codified legislation of impunity for the state and its agents. The political language that defined Fujimorismo—anti-elitism, anti-corruption and counter-terrorism—has been transformed into a culture of impunity turned against the most vulnerable communities. The normalization of state violence and recent legislation conveys a political language of who is deserving and undeserving of justice. According to the state, the police and military officials who are absolved of any accountability for “serving their country” deserve to be heard above the cries of hundreds of families clamoring for their loved ones.
George Ygarza is a translator, popular educator, and postdoctoral researcher at Binghamton University. He is also a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine.