LUCANAMARCA

It is a day that the inhabitants of Santiago de Lucanmarca will never forget. On 3^rd April 1983, 69 members of this remote farming community in the Peruvian Andes were slaughtered by militants from the Maoist guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Among the dead were many women and children. Sendero Luminoso had gone to the village to garner support for their cause. When one of their locally appointed leaders was killed, the guerillas took their revenge. 20 years after the bloody massacre, a Commission for Truth and Reconciliation is appointed to investigate the atrocities that were perpetrated on the indigenous Peruvian peasants in Lucanamarca and the surrounding area. They visit the village to exhume corpses and speak to survivors. Meanwhile the leaders of Sendero Luminoso are put on trial in the capital Lima. As old wounds are reopened, it is clear that the people of Lucanamarca still bear strong feelings about the bloodbath. Old suspicions and enmities are reawakened. The bodies of the victims will be buried again in the village’s new cemetery, but will they ever have justice?