World Vision, with the help of a grant from the ODA Disasters and Refugees Unit, has been supporting the process of return for the communities of Uchuraccay, Ccarhuace, Purus, Cunya, Iquicha and Cuyuchaca, in Huanta Province of the Department of Ayacucho. The project, run in partnership with a local NGO, is currently assisting 485 families to resettle upon their land by providing them with agricultural inputs to enable them to plant for the next harvest and by providing them with emergency food aid until then. It is also training the community leaders in leadership and management, and selected members of the communities in preventative health care and in improving sanitary conditions.
Introduction
For thirteen years now the government of Peru has been involved in a bloody struggle against the guerrillas of the Sendero Luminoso. Recent advances made by the army against the guerrillas, starting with the capture of Abimael Guzman in 1992, have opened up the possibility of return for the displaced.
Ayacucho, the birthplace of Sendero, has taken on a symbolic value in the battle between the government and the guerrillas, and is the most violent Department, boasting the highest numbers of victims in the country - 38% of the total. In terms of actual attacks, it ranks second only to Lima. Due to the activity of Sendero Luminoso and the high levels of violence, most of the communities living in the Andean highlands of Huanta Province, in the Department of Ayacucho, moved away to the nearby Huamanga Province, or further afield, to places like Huancayo, Junin and Lima.
There the displaced communities experienced conditions of extreme poverty, often having great difficulty finding work, and relying on a minimum level of support provided mainly by local NGOs and churches (it is estimated that this assistance does not touch even 10% of the total internally displaced population).
The effects of displacement on the affected population
The effects of this massive internal migration upon the displaced population have been great. The family based rural economy upon which the communities depended has been shattered. The social organisation within the few communities which chose to remain on their land has been dismantled and replaced by the militarised Self Defence Committees which are not geared up to continue productive activities but rather to protect the communities. Those who became displaced were effectively forced from a subsistence economy into a free and competitive market system for which they were ill equipped. The very elements which gave them their basic cultural identity and knitted them into a community - their culture, their language, their links with the land - effectively became substantial obstacles to their survival. Ill equipped for the urban labour market, the men find work as street vendors, carriers and labourers, while the women wash clothes or work as cleaners or street vendors. The average family income, often involving more than one member of the family working for over 10 hours a day, fluctuates between US$1 and US$2 per day.
The option of return
Over the past two years, however, the incidence of attacks in Ayacucho has diminished and the security conditions have improved. The military and the Self Defencse Committees have successfully been able to force Sendero out of the area. There are various significant indicators that show that the security situation has significantly improved; the process of demilitarisation of the region has now started; tourism has begun to recover; and there has been a growth in the trade sector and in the production of building materials in the region. The Catholic Church has now also been able to start a basic health programme in the Province, in cooperation with the Peruvian government.
There continue to be, however, four basic conditions which need to be met before major obstacles to the wholescale return of the displaced to their lands are completely overcome.
First of all, the process of pacifying the countryside needs to be completed; fear was, after all, the main reason that the people left the land in the first place. While the demilitarisation of the Department has begun and the last recorded Sendero attack in the area was in June 1992, the communities do not feel safe yet and fully expect to be continuing the Self Defencse Patrols for another two or three years.
Secondly, a process of democratisation needs to take place within the communities themselves. In the areas where the war was strongest, the complete withdrawal of civilian authority left the area entirely in the hands of the military. The Self Defence Committees are neither democratic or organised with any productive activities in mind. They now need to give way to civilian type community organisation structures.
Thirdly, there needs to be a large government investment programme in the rural areas of the highlands which would make economic activity a viable alternative, given the massive disruption of the rural economic over the past 13 years. The provision of credit, appropriate technology and training are also important necessities for the development of the returnee communities. This would inevitably mean a shift away from the current government neo-liberal economic policy which is very much geared towards the city to the detriment of agriculture.
Finally, there is also a need to create minimum conditions for the marketing of production, which would making it worthwhile for the farmers to grow a surplus. While they want to return to their lands, they do not want merely to return to subsistence agriculture but to develop their communities through closer links with the cities and trade: 'if we had machines we could weave and export...to the USA dozens of items, and thus have some additional income for the community' (Adrian Naupa, President of the Self Defence Committee from the community of Purus). Given the high costs of transport, the low prices and the lack of resources available to the communities, any surplus production (more than that which meets the immediate needs of the community for food, seeds for the next sowing season and some excess to swop for basic goods) is considered a waste.
The government response
In 1993, a few days prior to the arrival of an ICVA mission to Peru to look into the question of the internally displaced, and in the midst of a period of massive media coverage of the theme, the government announced an initiative to help the process of return for the displaced in Ayacucho. The government initiative aimed to assist a total of 165,300 displaced across the country, 46% of which were to be found in Ayacucho.
To the government, the problem of the displaced had assumed a highly political dimension: the continued displacement of the population continued to highlight the fact that Sendero was still holding sway in the countryside. To facilitate the return of the displaced to their communities would therefore serve two purposes: firstly, the occupation of the lands by the population would tie in with the strategy of physically consolidating the hold of the government on the land reclaimed from Sendero; and secondly, it was a propaganda statement in that it visibly demonstrated that Sendero as a military force was defeated and things were beginning to return to normal. The political dimension of the government response is therefore very obvious and is reflected in the fact that, in spite of the existence of numerous organised groups of displaced, they had no participation in the elaboration of the response. The focus of the programme is on the Ayacucho Province where a large percentage of the displaced wanted to return to their lands, at the expense of areas of high concentration of the displaced, like Lima and Ica, where the vast majority of displaced wanted to stay and be properly integrated into the cities.
The dilemma for the displaced
Given the availability, or the expectation of government assistance, many families are now willing to take the risk and return to their lands: 'The President of the Republic announced that the option to return to the countryside was now legal. For us it was the incentive to become enthusiastic about returning because we would find some type of help.' (Adrian Naupa) In the towns they have not been able to find employment and they suffer the contempt of the city folk who look down on them as campesinos, lacking education, culture and Spanish.
The assistance they hoped for was to enable them to restart their agricultural activities, repair their houses, rebuild their villages and help see them through until they were able to harvest for themselves. Their attitude is summed up by the Vice President of the community of Cunya, Teofilo Rimachi Nunez, when he said 'we will die more comfortably and for free back in our community'. Back in the highlands of Ayacucho, they at least have the possibility of improving their situations, although they will face an extremely precarious existence especially at the start; they have little in terms of personal possessions and will have a long wait until they are able to reap the benefits of their own harvests.
Nevertheless, they feel this is where they belong: 'We thought about returning because we are country folk who live off the produce of our lands, which sustains the whole family, and we manage a bit more with our animals: by selling them, we educate our children. With the wool from the same animals we make our clothes. All this we left behind when we abandoned our village in 1983 without harvesting our crops; our houses were burnt, they took our animals and we left in only our clothes, fleeing for our lives, and we have been in many places with nothing, in Ayacucho, Huanta, la Selva and San Jose de Sentillana... This is why we are getting ready to return, because you suffer in other places, because as campesinos from the farms we cannot provide for ourselves as the work is different, for those who have studied.' (Adrian Naupa)
Other sectors of the displaced have, however, decided to stay in cities and desire to be properly integrated into their new environment. As far as they are concerned, there are no guarantees of security if they return to their communities - the threat of violence from Sendero and the military are still very real. These communities are still very aware that the government promises of help have yet to materialise; the government response through its Repopulation Project offers very limited resources which are insufficient to promote the type of sustainable development which it claims as its objective. Meanwhile in the cities, the displaced have been able to start to organise themselves, and feel that they have a greater opportunity for survival given the access to the improved health and educational opportunities available to them and, importantly, to their children in the cities.
The roles for the actors involved
In view of the extreme scarcity of government resources, there has been increasing coordination and participation amongst various international organistions (such as UNHCR, UN-DHA and ICVA) and also amongst religious groups, with a view to responding to the urgent needs of all of these displaced communities. The Peruvian government has now also made official requests to the UN for an allocation of resources for displaced peoples.
What, given the nature of the problem, is the best way to proceed? The Regional Forum for the Displaced held its Second Regional Workshop on Repopulation on 1 October 1994 in Ayacucho and came up with the following recommendations:
1. The organisations of the displaced themselves must continue the process of organising themselves in order to make themselves heard more. They should articulate themselves at the various levels of government in order to carry their demands to the various levels of authority; and they should work alongside the NGOs in the design and execution of projects, as well as discussing with the various financial institutions in order to press for the availability of credit. Finally, there needs to be links maintained between those communities who stay and those who return.
2. The NGOs should share information and coordinate their responses so as to avoid any duplication of effort and to maximise the effectiveness of the responses. They should work more with the organisations of the displaced, strengthening their leaders and designing appropriate projects in coordination with these organisations. The NGOs should play their part in disseminating information about the plight of the displaced at local, national and international levels.
3. The Church should act as a mediator between the organisations of the displaced and the government, and put pressure on the government to fulfil the promises it has made. It should also seek to fulfil its pastoral role, building solidarity with the displaced and the victims of violence, especially in the rural zones.
4. The government should start to back the decisions of the displaced communities themselves, rather than promote one particular alternative. The government needs to recognise the organisations of the displaced which have emerged and include them in its policy making and planning processes. Likewise, there is a need to decentralise decision making with regards to the policy on the displaced. The provision of training and credit, especially for those returning, is crucial, as well as the construction of adequate road systems and the guarantee of security. Meanwhile, providing employment is a major priority for the benefit of those who stay.
Those who choose to return face not only continued insecurity but also a
lack of financial resources, technical assistance and agricultural inputs,
all necessary if they are to have a chance of success. Those who stay have
to face continued marginalisation from public institutions and local
government, living with the handicap of illiteracy, lack of Spanish and
work skills of limited use in the urban setting. Neither group has an easy
road ahead.
David Westwood is Latin America Project Officer for World Vision
UK.
July 1997