The defenseless among the defenseless

Just three legal advocates are working the Ayacucho cases, which include more than 49,000 victims of torture, kidnapping and assassination, or their relatives

Por:Max Cabello

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DOCUMENTS. The clothing of those who were disappeared or killed in acts of political violence says just as much as the paperwork in legal cases pursued by family members. Here, Celsa Taco fights for her son, who disappeared on Sept. 19, 1983.

Max Cabello

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CASELOAD. In Ayacucho, each public defender and victims’ advocate has an average workload of 100 cases, plus an additional 10 cases per month. Here, public defender and advocate Alexander Quispe.

Max Cabello

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TESTIMONY. A Quechua-speaking woman receives assistance at the public defender’s office in Ayacucho. Next to that, a replica at ANFASEP of a torture chamber used by the military during the civil war in Peru.

Max Cabello

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WOMEN. ANFASEP helps cases progress that many would rather forget. Several of the group’s members have died without having obtained justice. A reminder board in the association’s office.

Max Cabello

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MAPS. A hand-drawn map of Putis, a village in the Andes, where in 1984 the army committed one of the worst massacres of the civil war. Next to it are shell casings at one of 4,000 burial sites registered in the civil war to date in Peru.

Max Cabello

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THE STRUGGLE. Adelina García Mendoza is president of the Asociación Nacional de Familiares de Secuestrados, Detenidos y Desaparecidos del Perú (National Association of Family Members of the Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared in Peru, or ANFASEP). The documents included in her case file are signed by several lawyers, some of whom have been assassinated.

Max Cabello

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SYMBOL. A shield hangs in a courtroom at the Superior Court of Justice in Ayacucho. Next to that, a public defender from the city review one of the many files he must manage.

Max Cabello

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DEFENDER. Attorney Richard Almonacid Zamudio is one of three legal advocates working on human rights cases in Ayacucho. Next to him is a tattered shirt belonging to one of the disappeared, in ANFASEP’s Historical Memory Museum.

Max Cabello

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SUPPORT. Before working as a public defender and advocate, lawyer Cris Bautista Quispe was an assistant prosecutor. Since 2014, she has represented victims in Ayacucho. Next to that, the clothing of a disappeared person in ANFASEP’s Historical Memory Museum.

Max Cabello