The collection of the Dutch professor Dirk Kruijt is composed primarily of research materials related to his broad field of interest on the political and social reality of Latin America and to his books on the study of military regimes, especially the socialist project in Peru (Government of Velasco Alvarado) and the violence in Central America (Salvador, Nicaragua). The collection is on three mediums: magnetic tapes or cassettes, paper or printed documents, and computer files.
There are 135 magnetic tapes, distributed over the following countries: 41 on Nicaragua, 36 on Guatemala, 29 on El Salvador, 25 on Peru and 3 on Costa Rica (plus 1). The second list attached shows the importance of people who were interviewed as the most important members of the “guerrillero generation” as well as militaries of governments in the countries of Central America.
The documents on paper are drafts of some transcripts of the magnetic tapes while others do not have any record-tape because they have been lost. There are 85 transcriptions for Peru and most of them had been done in 1985-1986 for his book Revolution by Decree, Peru 1968-1975 (Thela Publishers, Amsterdam, 1994 and its version in Spanish, La Revolución por Decreto. El Perú durante el gobierno militar. Serie Democracia y Fuerza Armada, Lima 2008). Nevertheless, there are also important paper documents of 1991.
The interviews were realized by Professor Dirk Kruijt around the Government of Velasco Alvarado who lead the “military socialist regime” in Peru (1968-1980) with the influence of the Liberation Theology and the Democrat Party. Kruijt spoke with the most influential men of Velasco’s regime such as General De la Flor Valle, Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Presidential Advisory Committee; Jose Graham Hurtado, Director of the Presidential Advisory Committee (COAP), Arturo Valdes who was the Chief of the Cabinet Secretary and good friend and confidant of Velasco; and Francisco Guerra García who had an important role in the institution in charge of the Agrarian Reform.
Some of these militaries were also important later on. This is the case of General Robles who is in prison now because he has been accused of insubordination. He said that he had been victimized because he denounced in 1993 a Death Squad known as the "Colina Group," set up by Peru’s National Intelligence Service (SIN) and leaded, it is said, by Montesinos, the main advisor and Government Minister of President Fujimori (1990-2000).
Text by Rossana Barragán, 2011
