Mayor closes museum of memories in battle over story of Peru’s violent past

It was supposed to be a museum of memories: a place of dialogue and reconciliation where Peruvians could commemorate the victims of a brutal internecine conflict which killed tens of thousands of people in the 1980s and 1990s.

Since its controversial inception in 2015, the Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion has received about 60,000 visitors a year.

The official reason for the sudden closure of the Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion, known by its Spanish acronym Lum, was due to the museum's failure to meet municipal safety norms.

He has alleged that the Lum peddles a "false narrative" about the period of violence between 1980 and 2000 in which nearly 70,000 people were killed by both the Shining Path rebels and the armed forces, according to Peru's truth and reconciliation commission.

News of the closure came on the day that Amnesty International was due to launch a hard-hitting report at the Lum criticising the armed forces' disproportionate use of force in recent violent protests.

It is perhaps no coincidence that in the same week, Lima's mayor hosted the second annual meeting of the Foro de Madrid, organised by the thinktank of the far-right Spanish political party Vox.

The group, which claims its mission is to defend democracy in Latin America from the "threat of communism", praised Peru's government for deterring a supposed leftist destabilisation plan in recent months of unrest which claimed more than 67 lives.

"Extremist positions can attempt to take over the narrative because the government has given itself to the public dissemination of extremist fantasies," he added.

In January, Peru's President Dina Boluarte barred Bolivia's former president Evo Morales from entering the country as she accused foreign interests of stirring up deadly protests in support of the jailed former president Pedro Castillo.

"Historical memory is a fundamental value of all democracies," tweeted the European Union in Peru last week, describing the Lum as a place where citizens could "inform themselves and reflect on what Peru suffered, so that it will never be repeated". Germany was the major donor for the museum's construction.

Peru's minister of culture, Leslie Urteaga, admitted other museums also lacked up-to-date safety certificates, although no others had been closed, and said her ministry was working with Miraflores's municipality to reopen the Lum as soon as possible.