Quechua People - Examples For Recent Persecution of Quechuas

Examples For Recent Persecution of Quechuas

Up to the present time Quechuas continue to be victims of political conflicts and ethnic persecution. In the Peruvian civil war of the 1980s between the government and Sendero Luminoso about three quarters of the estimated 70,000 death toll were Quechuas, whereas the war parties were without exception whites and mestizos.

The forced sterilization policy under Alberto Fujimori affected almost exclusively Quechua and Aymara women, a total exceeding 200,000. The Bolivian film director Jorge Sanjines dealt with the issue of forced sterilization already in 1969 in his Quechua language feature film Yawar Mallku.

Perceived ethnic discrimination continues to play a role at the parliamentary level. When the newly elected Peruvian members of parliament Hilaria Supa Huamán and María Sumire swore their oath of office in Quechua—for the first time in the history of Peru in an indigenous language—the Peruvian parliamentary president Martha Hildebrandt and the parliamentary officer Carlos Torres Caro refused their acceptance.