Llegará la hora en que tendré que
desembocar en los océanos,
que mezclar mis aguas limpias con sus aguas turbias,
que tendré que silenciar mi canto luminoso,
que tendré que acallar
mis gritos furiosos al alba de todos los días,
que clarear mis ojos con el mar.

El día llegará, y en los mares inmensos
no veré más mis campos fértiles,
no veré mis árboles verdes,
mi viento cercano, mi cielo claro,
mi lago oscuro, mi sol,
mis nubes, ni veré nada,
nada, únicamente el cielo azul,
inmenso, y todo se disolverá en
una llanura de agua,
en donde un canto o un poema más
sólo serán ríos pequeños que bajan,
ríos caudalosos que bajan a juntarse
en mis nuevas aguas luminosas,
en mis nuevas aguas apagadas.
 

_____

The time will come when I will have to
flow into the oceans,
to blend my clean waters with their muddy waters
I will have to silence my shining song,
I will have to quiet
my furious cries at the dawn of every day,
to light up my eyes with the sea.

The day will come, and in the immense seas
I will no longer see my fertile lands.
I will not see my green trees,
my close wind, my clear sky,
my dark lake, my sun,
my clouds, I will not see anything,
nothing, only the blue, vast sky,
and all will dissolve into
a prairie of water,
where another song or another poem
will only be tiny rivers that descend,
mighty rivers that go down to join
my new, shining waters,
my new, soothed waters.

From "El Río," Javier Heraud (January 1942- May 1963)

Barrios Altos, Lima.

On November 3, 1991, "Grupo Colina," a death squad dispatched by Peru's Army Intelligence Secretariat to carry out extra-judicial executions, went in a couple stolen vans to a building in the Barrios Altos neighborhood, in an area on the southern banks of the Rimac River. The address was 840 Jiron Huanta.

The squad members killed 15 people, including an eight-year-old boy, who were holding a pollada, a fundraiser where people sell chicken and beer to their neighbors. The civilians who died had no connection to the Shining Path, as was suspected. In 2009, the highest officials of the Fujimori government and the military, including President Fujimori himself, were convicted of ordering the killings in a domestic court.

In addition, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) handed down an important decision in 2001, in which it ruled that a government cannot pass self-amnesty laws for serious human rights violations. These include torture; summary, arbitrary, and extrajudicial execution; and forced disappearance.

As a result of the IACHR decision, the four survivors of the massacre and 15 relatives of the victims received $3.3 million in reparations. Their struggle for accountability for the crimes continues.

A 1994 United States government document summarizes the events and implications of the Barrios Altos crimes in this declassified report.

Yo soy el río que canta al mediodía
y a los hombres, que canta ante sus tumbas,
el que vuelve su rostro
ante los cauces sagrados.

Yo soy el río anochecido.
Ya bajo por las hondas quebradas,
por los ignotos pueblos olvidados,
por las ciudades atestadas de público
en las vitrinas.

Yo soy el río
ya voy por las praderas, hay árboles a mi alrededor
cubiertos de palomas, los árboles cantan con el río,
los árboles cantan con mi corazón de pájaro,
los ríos cantan con mis brazos.
 

____
 

I am the river that sings to the south
and to men, that sings in front of their tombs,
that turns its face away from the bloody riverbeds.

I am the nightfallen river
Now I go down through the deep ravines,
through the unknown, forgotten pueblos,
through the cities packed with people
in shop windows.

I am the river
I go now through the prairies,
there are trees around me,
covered in doves, the trees sing with the river,
the trees sing with my bird's heart,
the rivers sing with my branches.

From "El Río," Javier Heraud (January 1942- May 1963)