The full horror of Peru's dark years is emerging into...

The full horror of Peru's dark years is emerging into the light in a Latin American version of a truth and reconciliation commission. Thousands of Peruvian peasants attended hearings to reveal harrowing memories of rape, torture and killings in the 1980s and 1990s at the hands of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing death squads and a repressive military under former President Fujimori. Breaking the silence surrounding the atrocities, thousands have come before the Government's commission in dozens of towns and villages.
The commission was formed in June 2001 to investigate political violence that shook the country from 1980, when Shining Path guerrillas declared war on the Peruvian Government and the military responded with an all-out purge that did not spare civilians. Many poor Andean villages were caught between guerrillas, who killed anyone who did not collaborate with them, and the military, who acted similarly against anyone suspected of helping the rebels.
Alberto Fujimori, the now-disgraced former President, had a "no prisoners" policy and gave his armed forces free rein. One of the aims of the commission is to collect evidence to back up charges against the former President, who fled to Japan in 2000.
"Telling what I witnessed has allowed me to start healing the wounds," said Mary Quispe, 27, who appeared at a hearing held this week in the central Andean village of Huasahuasi. She remembers vividly a night in May, 11 years ago, when a gang of hooded, armed Shining Path rebels stormed her village and herded everyone into the village square to witness the execution of five people tagged as government "informers".
"I begged them not to kill them but I just received a rifle butt in my face and passed out," she told the hearing. Among those executed in Huasahuasi was an Australian nun, Sister Irene McCormack, who was accused by the rebels of helping the state and countering their Marxist revolution by giving food to the poor.