The mayor of Cerro de Pasco, Peru, was assassinated on Nov. 8, 1983, and the anguish in his wife’s face was apparent.
“I think she really illustrates the horror and the emotion everyone was going through,” said University freshman Andrea Valderrama, a political science major.
Valderrama was viewing photos currently hanging in the EMU’s Adell McMillan Gallery and said the images are intense and reminiscent of World War II concentration camps.
“Just how they’re shot, you can see their faces and their emotions, and how they really feel,” she said.
The widow’s photo is a part of Yuyanapaq, a photo exhibit on Peruvian political violence.
The exhibit, named for the word that means “to remember” in the Peruvian indigenous language of Quechua, has been shown around Europe and Latin America. It is showing at the University to coincide with “Violence and Reconciliation in Latin America,” a three-day international conference that will start with University of North Carolina professor Arturo Escobar’s keynote address in the EMU Ballroom this evening.
“Latin America has been sort of put in the background with the current war in Iraq and the supposed war on terror,” said Pedro Garcia-Caro, a visiting Spanish professor at the University. “Latin American violence is actually very relevant for American foreign policy.”
The conference will consist of five panel discussions and three lectures. In addition to Escobar, Arturo Arias, who teaches Latin American studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and Greg Grandin, a New York University professor and the author of “The Blood of Guatemala,” will speak.
Sponsors include University President Dave Frohnmayer’s office, the Latin American Studies Program, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, the Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace and the College of Arts and Sciences.
“I think trying to revisit the way in which Latin American countries have dealt with several wars and state repression, and military and police repression,” Garcia-Caro said, “is as relevant today for students of contemporary and current affairs, as well as historians.”

Schedule of events

Thursday: 7 p.m. in the EMU Ballroom. Welcoming remarks by Linda Brady, senior vice president and provost. Keynote address given by Arturo Escobar, Wayne Morse Center chair of law and politics, “Left Turn? Right Turn? Where is Latin America Going?”
All panel discussions to be held in the EMU Fir Room.
Friday
? 9 to11 a.m. Panel discussion “Whose truth? Reassessing Truth Commissions’ Reports.” Panel members: Leonardo García-Pabón, Elizabeth Lira, Brian Loveman, Edelberto Torres Rivas and Kimberly Theidon.
? 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Panel discussion “Battling for Memory: Alternative and Non-official Accounts of Violence.” Panel members: Robert Haskett, Gabriela Martínez, Pedro García-Caro and Cynthia Milton.
? 3 to 5 p.m. Panel discussion “Political Prisoners: Literature, Testimony and Survival.” Panel members: Amalia Gladhart, Juan Armando Epple, Hiber Conteris and Carlos Aguirre.
? 5:30 p.m. Keynote address given by Greg Grandin, “2008 Bartolomé de las Casas Lecture in Latin American Studies”.
Saturday
? 10 a.m. to noon. Panel discussion “Memory in Film and Documentary.” Panel members: Lise Nelson, Steve Stern, Michael Lazzara and Susana Kaiser.
? 2 to 4 p.m. Panel discussion “Gender, Violence and Human Rights in Present-Day Latin America.” Panel members: Analisa Taylor, Deborah Weissman, Michele McKinley and Lynn Stephen.
? 4:30 p.m. Keynote address given by Arturo Arias, “The Ghosts of the Past, Human Dignity and the Collective Need for Reparation.”

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