demonstrations – that also became of public and notorious knowledge – of repudiation
to the attack against the monument, which culminated in a public demonstration in
the Campo de Marte, in Lima, on Thursday 09.27.2007, which offered an act of
amends to the memorial “The Eye that Cries”. All the victims, - those of the terrorism
of Sendero Luminos, as well as those of the State’s terrorism, - must be venerated by
the memory of their surviving loved ones and the entire social means.
113. The forms to express the duty to remember – in the exercise of the right to
remember76 - vary, - the monument “The Eye that Cries” is one of them, - but they
are all emanations of the human spirit, of the ties of solidarity between the living and
the dead, which acts of vandalism are not capable of affecting. Acts of vandalism such
as those perpetrated against the monument “The Eye that Cries” are moved by a
blind hate, and perpetrated in vain, since they do not reach the harmful objective they
seek, to erase the memory of the victims. The memory and respect for the dead have
outlived, throughout history, the hate and the vain attempts to erase them.
114. In the history of humanity there are successive examples of this primacy of
spirit over matter, - primacy that seems to generate despair among the vandals, selfconsumed by their own hate. Throughout history monuments, memorials, temples,
and architectural works, works of art and literature, archives, and libraries have been
destroyed.77 Those who have started the war are not satisfied with killing human
beings (labeled “enemies”), including the elderly, women, and defenseless children;
they have destroyed entire families and have also sought to destroy the history of the
victims, their history, their way of thinking, their cultural identity, the specific
expressions of their feelings, their memory.
115. Here they have made a mistake: it is impossible to impose obscurity. The
producers of bodies have not been able to annihilate the spirit of the victims, which
survives in their loved ones, who remember them with nostalgia, and, in short, in all
their social environment. The search for justice also covers the preservation of their
memory, the honor of the victims, of all the victims of terrorism (perpetrated by
clandestine groups as well as by the State itself). The demonstrations of cultural
identity are equally under the shelter and protection of the Law, as illustrated by the
corresponding regulations of numerous contemporary human rights treaties and
treaties for the protection of cultural goods and expressions.78
116. Similarly, good books, the most loyal friends of human beings, have not
escaped the voracity of warriors, murderers, and vandals throughout history. So much
so, that versions of the universal history of the destruction of books have already
.
Cf., recently, F. Gómez Isa (ed.), El Derecho a la Memoria, Gipuzkoa/España,
Giza Eskubideak Derechos Humanos, 2006, pp. 23-615.
76
.
Cf. R. Bevan, The Destruction of Memory - Architecture at War, London,
Reaktion Books, 2006, pp. 7-212. In 1824-1825, when he was still very young, Víctor
Hugo denounced, outraged and in two pamphlets (published years later, in 1831 and
1834), the vandalism in the destruction of monuments and works of architecture in
France; cf. V. Hugo, Pamphlets pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine (éd. 1834),
[Paris/Barcelona], Éd. A. Minotaure, 2006 [reed.], pp. 13-53.
77
.
Regarding the latter, cf. my Concurring Opinion (paras. 21-24) in the
Interpretation of Judgment (of 02.08.2006) in the case of the Moiwana Community
versus Suriname. And cf., in this regard, A.A. Cançado Trindade, "International Law
for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium - General Course on Public International
Law - Part I", 316 Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de la Haye
(2005) pp. 379-396.
78