Forensic Anthropology in Peru

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Forensic Anthropology in Peru dates back to the 1990s. The first official forensic anthropologist in Peru—in this case, the first official female forensic anthropologist in Peru—is Licentiate Aidee Chávez Rodríguez from the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Public Ministry. In 1997, when I entered the Institute of Legal Medicine to complete my pre-professional internship in Forensic Anthropology, Licentiate Chávez Rodríguez was still officially the only forensic anthropologist in Peru. Later, in the year 2000, Non-Commissioned Officer and expert witness Danny Humpire became the first forensic anthropologist of the Forensic Anthropology Section in the Department of Forensic Medicine of the National Directorate of Criminalistics. Subsequently, other anthropologists, archaeologists, and odontologists would arrive, mainly at the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Public Ministry, the institution responsible for scientifically supporting the preliminary investigations of prosecutors. Some entered through positions of trust and others, as was my case and already in my capacity as a professional, through public competition.

In the year 2002, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru (CVR) had convened a group of bachelor's degree holders in archaeology, who called themselves the Peruvian Team of Forensic Anthropology (EPAF) and who had participated as expert witnesses in the case of the MRTA terrorist group annihilated by the Chavín de Huántar Command during the rescue of hostages at the Japanese Embassy in Lima. In this context, a group of sixty people, including graduates and students, mainly of Anthropology, at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the National University of San Marcos, took the initiative to form the San Marcos Forensic Anthropology Workshop. This was despite failing to secure the support of the Anthropology Students' Center (CEAN), which at that time was heavily politicized. Precisely, the Forensic Anthropology Workshop emerged as a response to the assertions of certain members of the CVR that Forensic Anthropology did not exist in Peru, and in the face of the expressed intention of Anthropology professors to split the profession into two majors: Social Anthropology and Forensic Anthropology, as they did not want to lose teaching positions.

Fortunately, the initiative coincided with the elections at the Academic Directorate of the School of Anthropology. Upon seeing the enthusiasm and reception that the Workshop aroused, the then-Director of the School, anthropologist José Vegas Pozo, made the happy decision to ingratiate himself with the Forensic Anthropology Workshop. He approved not only its execution but also our written proposal, endorsed with signatures, for the incorporation of Forensic Anthropology as an elective course in the major, and promoted taking the same measure in the Academic School of Archaeology. The Director of the School of Anthropology was re-elected, although they did not fulfill their promise to provide us with all the facilities: classrooms were difficult to obtain, and only once did we have an overhead transparency projector at our disposal.

On that occasion, professionals from the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Public Ministry and the Directorate of Criminalistics of the Ministry of the Interior participated selflessly, including forensic anthropologist Aidee Chávez Rodríguez, forensic anthropologist Danny Humpire Molina, forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada, forensic odontologist José Vela, and forensic anthropologist Roberto Parra Chinchilla. The idea behind the Forensic Anthropology Workshop was for the students themselves to choose, from among the speakers, the next professor for the Forensic Anthropology course.

When the 2003 academic year began, the Directorate of the Professional Academic School of Anthropology at San Marcos decided, on its own accord and without the corresponding public competition, to assign the responsibility of teaching the Forensic Anthropology course to archaeologist María Inés Barreto, who was one of the assistants in the research group of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It was after the four grave exhumations conducted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR)—when the Public Ministry assumed absolute responsibility for investigations into clandestine graves and allegations of extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances dating from the era of the counter-terrorism struggle that took place in Peru between the 1980s and 2000—that Forensic Anthropology experienced a profound transformation. Needless to say, these functions always constitutionally belonged to the Public Ministry, which allowed for the consolidation of the institutionalization of Peruvian Forensic Anthropology. This implied not only the formalization of professional practice and an increase in the number of positions for anthropologists, but also the progressive, albeit slow, equipping of the essential infrastructure for scientific research work nationwide.

However, it must be recognized that the institutionalization of Forensic Anthropology, and of the other forensic sciences, was enriched by the participation of private groups of foreign and national experts in investigations regarding allegations of extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances from the counter-terrorism era between 1980 and 2000.

In the year 2003, a truly advanced document for Peruvian Forensic Anthropology was presented: the Organization and Functions Manual of the "Leonidas Avendaño Ureta" Institute of Legal Medicine. In this document, the competence of the Anthropologist in these functions is defined in Article 118, subsections b, c, e, f, h, i, l, m, n:

"The functions of the anthropologist are:

b) Locate and record anthropometric indicators on skeletal remains.

c) Describe pathology on the skeletal substrate.

e) Examine radiographic plates from an anthropological perspective.

f) Observe and handle samples for anthropological identification studies.

h) Perform somatological examinations on unidentified cadavers (John/Jane Does).

i) Practice anthropometric evaluation on living subjects and unidentified cadavers.

l) Classify common and distinct traits of human groups.

m) Develop epigenetic, morphological, and metric studies of human skeletal remains to establish comparative data for contemporary and ancestral Peruvian populations.

n) Design and implement anthropological examinations and procedures."

It was during the I International Congress of the Public Ministry - Legal Medicine, held in November 2004, that Dr. Luis Bromley Coloma, National Chief of the Institute of Legal Medicine, recognized that only since 2003 had this institution begun to develop on par with other similar and equivalent institutions worldwide, *"progressively becoming a technical, completely scientific institution providing support and advice to prosecutorial investigation."* For the first time, he presented a public balance on the exhumations of so-called clandestine graves, reporting that up to that point, 95 mass graves and 30 niches had been worked on, 102,000 skeletal remains had been studied, and out of 402 individuals, 102 identified human remains had been returned to their families.

During my appointment as a Forensic Anthropologist in the Ayacucho region—the center of investigations into extrajudicial executions, mass grave exhumations, and forced disappearances—and through the mediation of Dr. Humberto Rodríguez Pastor from the Social Sciences Area of CONCYTEC, I presented the same proposal for implementing a Forensic Anthropology course into the curriculum of the Professional School of Anthropology to Dr. Ulpiano Quispe, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the National University of San Huamanga. I held several meetings with his closest professors and students. Upon returning to the capital in Lima months later, I learned that the teaching of the forensic anthropology chair had been approved, but they had appointed a local professor who held multiple specializations, except for forensic anthropology.

Later, on the initiative of Ms. María I. Barreto Romero, the Diploma in Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights was taught at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the National University of San Marcos. Furthermore, since 2007, the Master's Degree in Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology was established at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru through the management of Dr. Sonia Guillén Oneeglio, counting with the participation of experts from the Public Ministry. As reported by journalist Paola Ugaz, this program ultimately ended amidst a scandal of plagiarized theses.

Since the beginning of 2007, a Forensic Anthropology Laboratory has been under construction in Nahuinpuquio, Huamanga-Ayacucho. I was the first to request and justify the need for this facility through the article "Scientific Intelligence in Human Identification Matters" in the Journal of the Public Ministry of Ayacucho in May 2004. This occurred when I was deployed, in my capacity as a professional anthropologist, to the Legal Medical Division of Ayacucho, which led to me being awarded Resolution of the Senior Dean Prosecutor of Ayacucho No. 287-2004-MP-FSDDJ-A, granting Recognition and Commendation for my Institutional Identification and Academic Merits (Ayacucho Fiscal District). The forensic anthropology laboratory is projected to become the most modern in Latin America.

Currently, Peruvian forensic anthropology is going through its most decisive phase: the possibility of consolidating its scientific character in the exercise of the profession, or atomizing into new, minuscule anthropologies to which some wish to prematurely grant autonomy. Furthermore, in my capacity as a Forensic Anthropologist in the Lima Centro Region of the Institute of Legal Medicine, deployed to the Ayacucho department with the Commission for the Exhumation of Clandestine Graves, Extrajudicial Executions, and Forced Disappearances (2004), I observed with great surprise those who promote abandoning the function of scientific investigation in order to apply certain methods and techniques that a group of foreign forensic anthropologists have internationalized. While these have been implemented in urban American and European populations, there is an attempt to use them on contemporary Andean populations.

Evidently, the final word will belong to the new generation of young Peruvian forensic anthropologists. They must decide whether they will settle for accumulating diplomas in Forensic Anthropology and applying what others have researched, or—what is more intelligent and honest—whether they will specialize in each of the broad and fascinating topics that comprise Forensic Anthropology and dedicate themselves to publishing what they themselves have rigorously and faithfully researched.

I am the anthropologist Enrique F. Sarmiento, one of the pioneers of forensic anthropology in Peru, and I invite you to write to me; perhaps we can do something more for forensic anthropology in Peru.

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