The Eye that Cries Memorial in Lima

The Eye that Cries commemorates all victims of Peru’s two-decade-long internal conflict, regardless of political affiliation. In 2006, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held in the Miguel Castro-Castro Prison v. Peru case that the names of 42 murdered Shining Path members, widely considered to be perpetrators in the conflict, be included in the memorial as victims. This abrupt shift from ‘perpetrator’ to ‘victim’ ignited a fierce memory debate within the country leading the monument to come under immense contestation and repeated vandalization. This case study explores the salience of memory debates in transitional contexts.