Ayacucho: an uneasy calm - includes related article on the cost of the civil war to Peru - Ayacucho, Peru after the defeat of the Shining Path guerrillas

Festive traditions are reviving in the Peruvian highlands where the Shining Path guerrillas once held sway. But 20 years of civil war have left lasting wounds

Ayacucho, capital of the Peruvian department of the same name, still lives on edge nearly 20 years after the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas first went into action there. Relief over the guerrillas' defeat is matched by the tension of an "armed peace" maintained by the continued presence of underground elements of this terrorist organization in nearby districts and provinces.

Also known as Huamanga, the name given to the city by the Spaniards when they founded it on 29 January 1539, Ayacucho sits 2,752 metres up in a lush valley in the western cordillera of the Andes. Its 100,000 inhabitants share a double heritage, speaking the Quechua language and living in accordance with Indian traditions, irrespective of social class. The local elite has managed to preserve this tradition of cultural duality, avoiding the social discrimination which has marred it elsewhere in Peru.

Ayacucho is the cradle of the Wari culture which produced a remarkable pre-Inca empire and displays its mixed heritage with a rich musical tradition blending the sounds of Andean huayno dance music with a distinct romantic element of Spanish origin. At no time is the city more vibrant than during HolyWeek, when Christian and Indian religious devotion reaches its apogee in Ayacucho's 37 churches, (officially there are 33, to match the age of Christ at his death).

The festival was cancelled for several years for fear of bombs and ambushes and because the curfew ruled out after-dark processions, but it bounced back in 1993, after the capture of the Shining Path's leader, Carlos Abimael Guzman, on September 12, 1992.

Major historical landmarks are dotted around the city, and include the Pampa de Quinua, site of the Battle of Ayacucho which clinched Latin America's independence from Spain. The battlefield is now shaking off its military associations to stress cultural activities, including the Encuentro de Teatro, which hosts theatre groups from all over the world.

But the restored festive spirit and the return to an almost normal daily life cannot hide the wounds left by years of terror and violence. New social problems have cropped up as some of the city's youth have joined the dozen of gangs which attack, rob and kill. They're mostly made up of young men who have had close brushes with the guerrillas, to whom in many cases they have lost a family member.

There is also the problem of the destitute refugees from guerrilla violence who have invaded the city, where they now prefer to stay rather than risk returning to the uncertainty of their rural homes. The department of Ayacucho was by far the worst hit by the Shining Path's terror. More than 10,000 of its inhabitants were killed, 3,000 more disappeared and 170,000 were forced from their homes - in all, a third of the total population.

The cradle of many cultures and a city of contrasts, with colonial churches, narrow old streets, sunlit mornings, cloudy afternoons and nights of revelry and huayno dancing, Ayacucho is gradually recovering. But it needs time to rebuild a social fabric rooted in solidarity, a traditional feature of Andean communities.

Although the years of curfew - when nobody ventured out after eight at night and shops and restaurants tightly bolted their doors - are a thing of the past, there is still a state of emergency in Huamanga province and in four of the 11 other provinces which make up the department. This means some constitutional rights are suspended and the army has free rein to search public buildings and private houses.

Strolling through the quiet streets of Ayacucho under a cloudless sky, you would think nothing could prevent the return of peace. But until the inhabitants can once again exercise their basic rights and steps are taken to reduce poverty and marginalization, there will be no true and lasting peace.

RELATED ARTICLE: The cost of the "dirty war"

Carlos Abimael Guzman was a philosophy professor at the University of Ayacucho when he founded the Shining Path breakaway faction of the Peruvian communist party and launched his "enduring people's war". He began it in May 1980 with a symbolic act - a commando burned ballot boxes in Chuschi, a remote village in the area, two days before elections were to be held.

The country had just emerged from 12 years of army rule, poverty was spiralling out of control and anarchy reigned. At first the well-organized guerrillas were welcomed by the population, especially as they handed out plots of land. But things started going wrong when the rebels began executing "traitor" peasants and leaders of community groups and installed a ruthless and bloody tyranny based on fuzzy futurist reasoning.

The guerrillas and their "enemies", the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a rebel group founded in 1983 and destroyed by its 1996 seizure of hostages at the Japanese embassy in Lima, were both defeated in the "dirty war".

But the toll was enormous - more than 26,000 dead, 4,000 missing and 50,000 children orphaned. The government has put its cost at more than $25 billion - the equivalent of Peru's foreign debt, on which interest charges alone absorb a third of the foreign exchange earned by exports of fish, copper, zinc and silver.

President Alberto Fujimori, elected in 1990 and re-elected five years later, began an extensive structural adjustment and privatization programme. He also curbed civil liberties after what the rest of the world calls his 1992 "civilian coup d'etat", when he dissolved parliament, suspended constitutional rights and sacked more than 500 magistrates.

Hyperinflation was beaten - falling from 2,700 per cent in 1989 to just 7 per cent last year - and economic growth set a Latin American record in 1994 with a figure of 13 per cent. Growth slowed last year to two per cent, mainly because of torrential rains set off by the El Nino weather phenomenon and the effects of the Asian economic crisis. According to the World Bank, 54 per cent of Peru's 25 million people live below the poverty line and under-employment affects half the active population.

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