Perros y promos is the story of ten soldiers from the Peruvian Army who fought against the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla insurgency from 1980 to 2000. The report by Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2003) indicates that 69,280 people died or disappeared as a result of the conflict: mainly rural, poor and Indigenous people. The report concludes that Shining Path was responsible for over half the killings and the government for more than a third, while the remaining dead were victims of local militias or of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Two-fifths of the fatalities occurred in Ayacucho, the conflict's epicentre. The ten soldiers were mainly conscripts of Indigenous background from the Peruvian Andes and coastal cities, but not from Ayacucho: the Army avoided recruits from Ayacucho because it was the birthplace of the Shining Path, and people from this region were labelled as terrorists. Different reports estimate that the total number of recruits during the conflict varied between 500,000 and more than a million.
The book questions the victim–perpetrator dichotomy and the polarised narratives of the Peruvian conflict: one that characterises the former dictator Alberto Fujimori's regime and its security forces as the heroes of the pacification who saved the country from – and defeated – the terrorism of the Shining Path; the other rooted in the Truth Commission's report and its legacy, supported by human rights advocates, victims’ organisations and progressive sectors which condemn Fujimori's crimes and corruption and put forward other explanations for the defeat of the Shining Path. In this polarised context there is no space for dissident voices that can present an understanding of the war and its dynamics and complexities. Responding to the call of the late anthropologist and former commissioner of the Truth Commission, Carlos Iván Degregori, to humanise the lower-ranking members of the Shining Path, the authors describe the daily life experiences of soldiers, especially of conscripts, to elucidate the actions and crimes of the Peruvian armed forces. As they state in the book's introduction, ‘We must make the effort to understand and humanise the young recruits, the troops, listening to others without prejudging them’ (p. 21).
In addition to an introduction and conclusion, and prologue by historian Charles Walker, the book comprises two sections. In the first, the authors present testimonies from eight young conscripts and two voluntary recruits, who served between 1989 and 1997. The veterans recount the forced recruitment, or leva, the violent three-month training period, also known as the perrada (from dog, or perro), and other incidents that occurred during the two-year period of obligatory military service. The military recruited young people from schools, soccer fields, public transport, nightclubs, peasant communities and other public spaces. The perrada orientation period dehumanised recruits as they were subjected to different types of torture and were indoctrinated with patriotic and hypermasculine attitudes. As these perros became soldiers, they too inflicted these the same torture and violence on newcomers. The only way for them to survive this system was to build companionship among the members of their cohort, called promos, in reference to the year they entered (were promoted to) the Army.
The second part of the book presents the authors’ analytical viewpoint on several topics related to the testimonies, including systemic racism, accountability, sexual violence and reintegration into society. Army recruits were mainly of Indigenous mixed-race mestizo backgrounds, while white sectors often avoided the obligatory military service or joined the Navy or the Air Force. The Army fostered a nation-state doctrine of national integration of young Indigenous males through contempt and cruelty. The barbaric recruitment strategy and military instruction attempted to make the poor, rural and Indigenous young males ‘less Indian, more mestizo, more masculine’ (p. 191). The violence that was inflicted on recruits, and that they in turn committed daily during their lives on the military bases, was often racialised, sexualised, misogynistic and homophobic. The recruits interviewed for this book were prepared to discuss their actions and duties but resisted discussing their crimes, which they explained as ‘excesses’ due to individual error or because they followed orders, and claimed that charges of human rights abuses should be aimed at their commanders and not at them. Conversely, high-ranking officers blamed foot soldiers for the alleged excesses. Soldiers and officers denied systemic human rights violations – including killings, disappearances and sexual violence against girls and women – during the conflict. Ironically, during my own interviews with former rank-and-file members of the Shining Path I heard the same narrative rebranding the group's brutal actions and excesses as ‘mistakes’.
Reintegration into civilian life is another interesting subject included in the analysis. Conscripts refer to their abandonment by the state after two years of obligatory military service. They risked their lives to defend their country against terrorism for no recognition; the state abandoned them once their military service ended. With their similar experiences of recruitment and military service, they built solidarity and affection to support each other after conscription. They suffered physical and psychological effects such as post-traumatic stress disorder; some became evangelicals, and others turned to alcohol to alleviate their pain. Many rebuilt their lives emotionally, socially and economically, supporting each other and building a network to develop veteran organisations and political initiatives to fight for their rights.
Perros y promos contributes to an emerging interest in the study of low-ranking members of the guerrilla movements and the armed forces during the Peruvian conflict to humanise them without apologising for or glossing over their horrifying pasts. I value the authors’ methodological approach, particularly their positionality: Jelke Boesten's interest in gender is combined with Lurgio Gavilán's anthropological and military approach (he is a former Shining Path guerrilla fighter and Peruvian Army soldier). Readers will appreciate Gavilán's interviews with his fellow veterans, in which he contextualises their experiences and memories. Others may learn more through Boesten's persistence in asking the interviewees to reflect on their accountability, particularly regarding human rights violations and sexual violence. The authors’ work deepens our understanding of the Peruvian conflict from the perspective of its lower-ranking protagonists, moving beyond institutional works that stress the heroic narrative of the armed forces or those that simply overlook soldiers as perpetrators. Furthermore, it contributes to debates in Peru and beyond on gender violence, war and masculinities, and military solidarity.
