ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Peruvian experience in implementing transitional justice since 2000, adopting a lessons-learned approach in order to highlight those aspects most relevant for the transitional justice mechanisms designed by the Colombian Government. It focuses on the work of the truth commission, the challenges of retributive justice, and the implementation of victim reparation programmes in Peru. The Peruvian transition is characterized as a dual transition: a transition from armed conflict to a post-conflict phase in the mid-1990s, and a political transition from an authoritarian, although formally democratic, regime that could be described as an illiberal democracy to a democracy. The end of the armed conflict in Peru is commonly associated with the capture of Abimael Guzman, the leader of the Maoist Communist Party faction Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) in September 1992, after 12 years of violence. Seen from outside, enjoying a partly booming and stable economy, Peru's political scene seems similarly stable.
