This decade of growing violence has spun around the direction of the country to an "axis of war." In order to reverse this trend, institutions and individuals have to understand the new dynamics and urgencies. Trying to carry out rural development work with a business-as-usual attitude will end in frustration. This paper tries to pull together a few conclusions that might assist Peruvians in this task.
* Peru's 400 centers are no different from the rest of the country and the foreign counterparts playing a role in the country. The outburst of violence since 1980 has bewildered and shocked national elites. It has bled those unfortunate to be caught in the crossfire and paralyzed institutions that should lead the way out of the malaise.
* Centers are not shock troops to be thrown into middle of the fray. Nor can they simply remain passive observers in the conflict. We should not overestimate their capacity to influence events and results.
* Drawing on the Sur-Andino experience over the past two decades with elements from elsewhere in Peru, there are several key points that we should encourage in the shaping of a strategy of rural development efforts in the face of political violence.
First, participants in rural development should aim to develop a regional approach, without losing sight of the national and international horizons. This regional approach should also have the capacity to reach down into the microcosm of the individual in all its variety and nuances in Andean grassroots communities. It should lead towards the construction of superior levels of organizations, aiding them in formulating their experiences and expectations and making them comprehensible to outside groups and institutions. Isolated grassroots organizations will not be able to resist the onslaught of violence.
Second, a logical outgrowth of a regional strategy is the need for coordination, communication and pooling of information and experience. This also means being able to interlock projects and programs so there is feedback and little duplication of efforts. The coordination may be institutionalized or informal.
Third, retaining a reserve for moral, ethical and intellectual criticism and self-criticism is imperative. This also implies the capacity to give moral and political sanctions. This reserve space guarantees the foresight, reaction and flexibility to respond to new conditions. It also means a constant questioning of why the institutions and organizations are there, what they have to offer and what they aim to achieve.
Fourth, a willingness to move and work in different terrains gives centers the chance to "take refuge" in other lines of activities when political violence restricts overt action. Center and their local partners should work on practical and theoretical levels, latching on to technical, spiritual, political and cultural facets. It means that centers and their local partners should learn from engaging in dialogue and constructive work with local, regional and national governments, with political parties and interest groups. However, this effort should not compromise their operational and institutional independence or commitment to giving an increasing voice and power to grassroots organizations.
Several experiences have shown that it is precisely in the "non-priority areas" that new lessons can be drawn about popular practices of resistance. These collateral issues also give grassroots legitimacy to development programs because they address many of the most sensitive problems facing grassroots organizations.
A crucial pressure point is the relationship between grassroots organizations and support organizations, on one side, and government on the other. Should the social emergency program compromise GSOs' independence due to the need to make relief aid available to popular organizations? Should GSOs' enthusiasm for regional governments (frequently in the hands of Izquierda Unida) jeopardize independence for future roles?
Fifth, organization should take priority over other more measurable targets. Proposals to use popular organizations as "cannon fodder" against subversives (civil defense committees) or other political adventures should be viewed with skepticism. The government can easily replace a fallen power pylon or a burned tractor. Grassroots organizations grow and mature over decades of sacrifice and effort, building up reserves of experience and leadership. This does not rule out the possibility that grassroots organizations chose to oppose the dynamics of violence. This means ceding a larger leadership role to grassroots organizations.
Not all these elements may be present in each zone or region, given the diversity and complexity of Peruvian reality. However, each has their peculiar features that can be linked together in a local strategy. Each has a key which can pull together organizations, as the land issue did in Puno or the rondas campesinas in Cajamarca.
* Centers, coordinating groups and national representations should continue fighting against the temptation to militarize the country. This can only be accomplished by broadening the scope of activities which centers usually considered theirs. Coordination should try to avoid turning into a time-consuming, bureaucratic affair. Frequently, subregional coordinating, if there are enough centers operating in the area, may be more helpful.
This painstaking work of coordination takes time, energy and resources. Most institutions do not have the personnel or capacity to confront this effort. Diverting staffers to coordinating tasks weakens their programs. Regional research centers may be more appropriate for this task.
Donor agencies should provide funding to open up these spaces. They should break out of their own institutional isolation and move towards pooling funding, resources and regional approaches to maximize their use. In times of scarcity, these resources should be seen as seed money for high-risk ventures in social survival.
Although Gianotten and De Wit (1990, 249) are referring to rural development per se, their comments are pertinent to violence: "If the center's actions are not linked with tasks of investigation, and vice versa, the center becomes an assistentialist instance, despite the discourse... All innovation has a cost. The task of centers is diminishing the cost of innovations for the popular sector." In this case, the savings will be in lives and the viability of democratic institutions.
* The search for conflict-free zones where GSOs may operate without the bogeyman of violence is in vain. GSOs and other development agencies must start from the assumption that guerrillas or other components of the violence formula will also seek virgin territory. Shifting programs to areas where violence has not taken deep roots may be a simple ruse for continuing with the routines and repertoires of methodology and technological packets. GSOs may end up repeating the same mistakes that they have made over the previous two decades. A self-critical examination of programs and lines of action should lead to a realignment of GSOs' practices. They and other members of civilian society should try to build bulwarks against violence, starting with their own practices.
There is more potential for consensus on the regional level than on the national stage. This means setting up channels for dialogue and understanding, engaging local partners and outside groups in debate and continual searches for bearings in periods of crisis. Development work should be a prophylactics against the dynamics of violence.
* GSOs which are not in the direct firing line should make a thorough evaluation of their programs and projects, their methods of working with local partners and their goals. There is a dormant period of two to five years for Sendero to erupt into its virulent phase. Observers may not detect Sendero's presence because it is merely sounding out the territory, testing the ground for potential conflicts and recruits. It is all too easy to dismiss early signs (bombings, clandestine visits to schools) as rogue columns, copycat dissidents or outside interference.
* Programs that have high capital investment needs, high operating costs and long maturity periods should be examined with care. Their costs and visible infrastructure mean that they become power symbols and targets of political envy and sabotage.
Aseptically technical programs are going to be vulnerable because they have the most superficial roots scattered among communities and beneficiaries. They rarely have the political bearings to steer through troubled situations. From the section on Allpachaka experimental station and its extension to other centers of abstract research, it should be clear that programs that cannot show practical and immediate relevance can come under attack, even in the more secure conditions of Lima. The investment required to put up research installations and living quarters for qualified staff end up looking like enclaves of prosperity.
* One key to confronting the challenge of political violence is promoting the local "beneficiaries" (passive recipients of programs and services) to full status as partners in rural development. This may mean readjusting the methods and goals of programs, blurring technical purity and goal-oriented approaches. It means devoting more efforts and energy towards the slow, painful task of generating lasting organizations and deep leadership.
"Projects with consolidated counterparts have more of a chance of continuing because the local communities can assume the leadership of the projects," says a development expert.
* New priorities for aid and social organization emerge in situations of upheaval. The 10 years of expanding violence has set off a process of migration that will have as traumatic effects as the mitimaes of the Incas, the reducciones of the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo and the urban-bound migration of 1960-80. This displacement of whole communities takes place in the adverse conditions of economic crisis, chronic underemployment and political repression. In fact, it seems that this is a deliberated strategy objective employed by Sendero. It aims to heighten the burden on the outmoded social structure and break down the makeshift safety net of the underprivileged.
The economic adjustment program of the Fujimori government is already stretching relief resources and grassroots support organizations to the maximum.
These new shifts in population mean that new fluxes of needy will be demanding emergency services.
* A fresh look should be given to handouts and charity work, despite the serious criticism aimed as asistencialismo over the past three decades. Frequently, donations of medicine, foodstuffs and agricultural inputs or tools are one of the few means of maintaining contacts with former participants of networks in emergency zones. Donations are the means of showing that someone still cares and of keeping whatever organizations existed in place. It maintains the personal commitment and trust which lies at the heart of effective development work. We have to find new, creative means to use these donations as levers for reversing the tide of violence, and not just preconditions for subservience.
An Ayacucho director says, "Direct assistance is messy. You've got to get your hands dirty, giving comfort and getting involved, making local people participate. We don't want to make professional beggars." There are several kinds of unconventional formulas that should be sought out in situations of political risk. These groups do not offer all the paraphernalia of GSOs but offer unique access to marginalized groups. These groups give high yield on allocated funds and involve local organizations. They are the types of groups which do not go knocking on the doors of donor agencies for funding. Both centers and donor agencies would be well-served by seeking them out. Donor agencies must actively seek them out through a profound knowledge of provincial networks.
* There is a need for the continual study of political violence, its historical context, its social and political dynamics and other facets. For instance, the military have blind spots in their perspective, including poor use and pooling of intelligence. The issue of violence is too important to leave it in the military's hands.
There are several groups now studying it and coordinating their work: human rights groups and research centers like the Instituto de Defensa Legal, Democracia y Socialismo-Instituto de Política Popular, DESCO, Instituto Bartoleme de las Casas (Lima) and CEAPAZ. The ANC has set up a permanent commission of political violence and development. InterCentros has a task force.
The study of violence over the past decade has relied on a few specialists, tagged Senderologists and violentologists who have done the ground-breaking work. Journalists, anthropologists and historians, combined with human rights advocates have been the disciplines following the problem. Carlos Ivan Degregori, Raúl González, Nelson Manrique and Gustavo Gorriti have all made contributions. These investigators do so at personal risk because publishing their findings may provoke reprisals. The fact has also kept many individuals in provinces and shantytowns from contributing publicly because they could also be targets for reprisals and jeopardize their capacity to continue working.
The phase of individualist studies has ended. The problem is too complex and intertwined for individuals to have an effective impact. Just as counterinsurgency is too important to leave exclusively in the hands of the military, the issue of political violence is too vital to the country to leave in the hands of "Shining Pathologists and violentologists." These studies need to mesh with team efforts, coordinated among organizations so they do not duplicate efforts. It would also provide instances where front-line participants could add their experience without risk.
However, there is a serious danger of intellectualizing the problem, taking such a distant, cool perspective that it is hard to convert conclusions and recommendations into concrete action. This is where rural development centers and others can make a major contribution by drawing on their first-hand experience with grassroots organization to draw on peasant defense and resistance experiences through established partnerships of trust and to lower the discussion to a more pragmatic level.
There is a gaping hole in the response to what grassroots organizations are going through. Most proposals for pacification, counterinsurgency policy and other points tend to get lost in national issues and legal reform. They do not provide guidelines and explanations for those who are closest to the fighting.
* GSOs and other development efforts will not advance towards achieving their goals unless there exists a medium-term horizon of stability and governance. The current situation of extreme economic upheaval and government instability imposes new priorities. GSO staffs have to grabble with the problem of matching funding with rising expenditures. They have to adjust their programs to shifting realities. They have to deal with their own role and institutional relationships. The crisis throws the carefully laid survival strategies of grassroots organizations into the trashbin.
The key variables in this situation are market and the Peruvian state. (Gianotten and De Wit 1990, 250) International assistance through governments, donor agencies and multinational organizations can play a role in helping Peru find a level keel.
A serious question is how Peru can respond to the macroeconomic demands of the crisis and still address the problems of Andean development. If a line of tension underlying the violence has been the rural-urban interface, then an attempt to force an urban-exterior logic on the entire country could have a deteriorating effect on the Andes.
This macro policy issue also touches on other components in the violence equation, like the police, the armed forces and law enforcement system. Only a medium-term effort to join civilian institutions and security forces in establishing mutually acceptable policies of pacification will provide a more viable framework for development work.
This does not mean that GSOs do not have a role at this juncture. In fact, there are many new challenges facing them, aiding their local partners.
* It corresponds to donor agencies to keep these niches of civilian society viable. It may be a temptation to shut down shop for a while until the political and economic panorama clears up (fewer hassles in headquarters to justify expenditures on projects that are behind schedule and the moral qualms of placing staff members and local partners in risky situations). Unfortunately, when those donor agencies return to Peru, they may find that the enclaves (centers and grassroots organizations) are no longer viable.
However, this should not mean a perennial blank check for rural development centers or the prerequisite of accountability for projects and programs. Poorly conceived and executed projects should be sanctioned with their modification or suspension. There remains the problem of setting up a clear, mutually acceptable, flexible criteria of efficiency and profitability for judging the performance and merits of promotional development under these trying circumstances.
* Peru's centers represent one of the independent spaces generated within Peruvian society in the past three decades. They have a degree of accountability to their donor agencies and grassroots associates. They have the opportunity to link theory and praxis in concrete situations. Their hands-on experience with grassroots organizations is an invaluable asset for the future.
