Director's Statement
It was January of 1983, four months after my arrival to the United States, when eight journalists were murdered under suspicious circumstances in the Andes of Peru. Five of them were friends of mine. All of them worked for opposition newspapers.
The group became an unwilling part of their own story. They were investigating rumors of extrajudicial killings
by the military
in the high Andes of Ayacucho, in the south east of Peru, in the midst of a warfare against the Shining Path, a Maoist group.
In the mid 70's, and through the early 80's, I was a reporter for a National Television Network. The media was under the direct control of a military government, and I clearly remember how difficult it was then to work as a journalist. Our work was constantly censored.
After the 1980 election of Fernando Belaunde
, young journalists of my generation expected some changes. Then, we hoped for the restoration of freedom of the press, thus an improvement in the quality of the news and its coverage. However, not much was changed.
Belaunde returned the media outlets to its former owners, and those who favored the new leader benefited. Then, I felt compelled to leave Peru.
Months later, when I heard the news about the murder of my friends, I was shattered. The events that followed hit me even harder.
A government investigative commission
into the killings concluded that the peasants of Uchuraccay, supposedly confused them with terrorists.
Nevertheless, a few months later, a camera with a roll of film was found in a bag hidden in a cave. It had some photos that Willy Retto, one of the journalists killed in Uchuraccay, had taken while they were talking to the villagers. These pictures
showed that there had been some kind of dialogue and not a lynching as the investigative commission report claimed.
In the years that followed, three villagers were sentenced to six years in prison for the crime. Most of the witnesses were killed and the survivors escaped to other cities in the valleys. None of them have been willing to talk publicly about that fateful day in Uchuraccay.
To this day, the families of the eight journalists believe that the military was involved in the killings and there was a cover-up to entangle the case and avoid bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre.
After almost 25 years, this unresolved case is still a nightmare for relatives of the the victims and an obsession for journalists like myself.
In the past few years I have been taking film and documentary courses in NYU, to be able to work on many stories worth telling about Peru. Although, it never crossed my mind that I would be chasing that hurtful story, the killings of my friends.
On January 26th 2003, I was attending a gathering when I realized it was the 23rd anniversary of the killings. I then told the story to some friends. I brought up the story of a brave journalist, Willy Retto, who apparently took pictures right before he got killed in the Andes. Somebody suggested then that I should do a documentary about him but I dismissed the idea.
However, one night, several weeks later, I was sleeping and dreamt about attending a premiere of some film. In my dream I noticed that people were congratulating me for a documentary that I had made. Then, I noticed somebody next to me. There was Willy Retto smiling at me, thanking me for the documentary I had made about the Uchuraccay case.
At that point I abruptly woke up. What impressed me the most was the fact that he was wearing the same clothes he had on when he was killed, and that his presence was in black and white, while the rest of the dream was in color.
It was around 4 in the morning and I sat in front of the computer and started pouring down all these ideas about the making of this documentary and its structure.Ever since that day, my life has been an emotional rollercoaster. My feelings emerged, and every time I find new elements of the killings I have to take a step back and struggle with the inescapable depression that hits me.
At about the time I decided to work on this project, my mother passed away. Here added pain to my already deem outlook of life. The project drained my finances. Investigation expenses, traveling to Peru and interviewing lots of journalists I knew, and others I had not met until then, put a lot of emotional and fiscal pressure on me.
Still a supernatural force drives me to keep going with the investigation, regardless the obstacles.
Thus far, it has been a wonderful experience to find out that every person I approached about the documentary has had a tremendously positive reaction and often provides me with material and loads of information.
So far the general comment I have heard is: "Its about time somebody do something about the `Martyrs of Uchuraccay.`
"
Most of the members of our team are journalists who, one time or another knew and worked with the victims. All of us are putting together a serious effort in this project. It is after all an act of friendship to tell their story.
In Memory of: Eduardo de la Piniella, Pedro Sánchez and Felix Gavilen, Diario de Marka; Jorge Luis Mendivil and Willy Retto, El Observador; Jorge Sedano, La República; Amador García, Magazine Oiga; and Octavio Infante, Noticias of Ayacucho, and their guide, Juan Argumedo
Luis Morales, a Correspondent for Diario de Marka, was killed ten years later on the streets of Ayacucho. He was the only journalist who had interviewed the villagers of Uchuraccay in Quechua our native language. His interviews apparently gave new light to different versions from the locals such as, "they were told, to kill anybody who come by land, because only good people come in helicopter." Also a claim that the eight journalists were carrying a red flag and the villagers thought they were terrorists, a theory that was later dismissed by a special investigator.