Time Politics in Transitional Justice: Experiences of Change and Continuity of Peruvian Self-Defense Patrols in the VRAEM Region

In this paper, I will examine how self-defense patrols in the valley of the rivers Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro (VRAEM), a (post-)conflict region in Peru, experience the process of dealing with the past by looking through the lens of ‘time politics’ in transitional justice. Transitional justice is characterized by the idea of a transition that draws clear lines between past and future and uses the present as a delimited time to make the transition from violent conflict to peace and democracy (Meister 2011). In this conception of time, the violent past is viewed as an exception, implying the notion of violence as a coincidental mistake (Del Pino 2013). However, outbreaks of violence are mostly rooted in larger historical processes that are not easily delimited in time, and that are not all exceptional or coincidental. The attempt to differentiate the time of violence from the present can result in disregarding ongoing structural violence (Bevernage 2014). The danger exists that the moment of transition will be seized as an opportunity to ‘clean up’ only the recent past without addressing the fundamental historical causes of conflict. Survivors who keep on confronting the injustices of the past might be accused of being ‘stuck in the past’ and not wanting to move on. In the VRAEM, self-defense patrols played a key-role in the defeat of the Shining Path during the civil war in the 1980s. This struggle got interwoven with the war against drug trafficking that is still going on today, making the VRAEM a militarized region dominated by illicit economy. Transitional justice mechanisms such as the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the reparation plan seem to have reduced the agency of the self-defense patrols during the civil war to either perpetration of human rights violations on the one hand or homogenized experiences of violence accounted in the language of trauma and suffering on the other hand. These narratives contrast sharply with how the ex-commanders of the self-defense patrols themselves perceive their role in the conflict as being the real heroes of the ‘pacification’. While transitional justice mechanisms actively try to deal with the past by separating the time of conflict from the post-conflict time and pursuing closure, the self-defense patrols do not necessarily consider the conflict to be entirely over. They still cherish their warrior identity and express to be ready to use their weapons again when they consider it necessary. How is change in the process of dealing with the past perceived on a micro-level in a context where there seem to be significant continuities between the violent past and the present? How do the self-defense patrols relate their past experiences of violence to present and future processes of change?