You may ask the signifcance of the calendar in the picture. It was produced by ANFASEP - Asociacion Nacional de Familiares de Secuesyrados, Detenidos y Desaparecidos del Peru. The loose translation of this being The National Association of Families affected by Kidnappings, Detentions and Disappearances in Peru!
I quote from the calendar, "The department of Ayacucho is one of the regions that was most affected by the internal armed conflict between the guerrilla organisation Shining Path and the Peruvian Armed Forces. During the two decades of the conflict, 1980 - 2000, about 70,000 people were killed and many thousands disappeared or were displaced." Remember, those figures are only for one region!
In 2005 ANFASEP created the "Museum of Memory" which presents the history of the internal armed conflict in Ayacucho and the cases of the disappeared relatives of ANFASEP relatives. The calendar is one way of offering financial support for the organisation.
This calendar tells of the stories of the women who suffered during these terrible times - not so long ago. Each month is frightening in the actual detail. The lady on the left in the picture for the month of March is Leonilda Ore de Lopez, 67, and she says, "We found my son on the roadside. They had cut his throat and thrown his head somewhere else. I recognised him by his clothes and I said to him: 'My son, what happened to you? I want to die at your side too'. Having said that I wanted to jump into an abyss in order to die together with my son."
The month of October - Teodora Pariona Ventura, 80, says, "Where haven't I gone to? In search of my two sons I went to the Prosecutor's Office, to the military barracks, to the police station. Almost everyone asked me: 'Are you looking for your terrorist sons?' And they started shooting in the air. I returned to my home crying. My sons remain disappeared."
The stories are all about the women - the men were the ones who were murdered or just disappeared.
