As the end of my fellowship with EPAF is fast approaching, I feel like somehow I have gone a full circle (or at least half of one!). Lima is a different city now than the city waiting for me when I arrived almost 6 months ago, and which I have learned to love. It is now often sunny, something I never thought was possible, and some days are actually warm. And there is something in the air, some latent energy that reminds me of the Canadian sprintime I love so dearly.
Ciro Castillo’s body was finally found at the end of last week, after more than 200 days of frantic searching. I have written about Ciro’s disappearance before, so I won’t repeat the details. The search for Ciro has been a constant backdrop to the months I have spent here, and I think that it is the fact that he has finally been found, more than the few weeks left before my departure, that makes me feel like a cycle is somehow ending.
Today, the EPAF office was bombarded by television and radio channels requesting interviews with its executive director, José Pablo Baraybar, hoping to get his views on the events leading up to Ciro’s death. This media circus has made me realize, once more, the contrast between this one very high-profile disappeared and Peru’s 15,000 disappeared. In the months I have spent at EPAF, very rarely has a news channel resquested an interview to talk about the disappeared.
Peru’s disappeared are, for all intents and purposes, still invisible in a country so focused on its potential and future.
Posted By Catherine Binet
Posted Oct 24th, 2011