Voice over
0:31 0:54
In the virgin jungle of the Huallaga river valley there was once a town called Paraíso, or Paradise. In the memory of those who lived there, it seems like one of those fabulous cities from Latin American mythology.
For a long time it was a forbidden zone, and in spite of everything that happened in this tropical paradise of the New World, its story has never been told.
MEMORIES OF PARADISE
Voice over
1:21 1:48
The story of Paradise begins near the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains. It was here that the American continent suffered its greatest cataclysm of the twentieth century.
Thirty-three years later, we went back to the site of the vanished city of Yungay. El Huascarán, the first protagonist in this story, was hidden in the clouds.
FIRST MEMORY: THE EARTHQUAKE
Voice over
2:10 2:38
On the afternoon of May 31st, 1970, at 3:45 in the afternoon, a violent earthquake rocked the area for 45 interminable seconds.
70,000 people died.
The beautiful city of Yungay was buried under a landslide. Part of snow-covered Huascarán, the highest peak in the Peruvian Andes, cascaded over it.
Voice Subtitle
2:48 3:24 2:51 3:24
Mireya León : My little girl pulled me along, “Run, Mami, run Mami! We don’t want to die like this!” My husband grabbed hold of us, and said, “We can’t run any more.” Big blocks of earth were sticking up all over. It was like a movie… everything blew up. I didn’t know what was happening. But when I could tell I was still breathing I told my husband, “The avalanche didn’t get us. Let’s run away!” Runtu was the safe place. I told him “Let’s get to Runtu!”
Voice Subtitle
3:25 4:10 3:26 4:10
Mateo Casaverde: My strongest memory is of running into the cemetery after climbing over a fallen gate. I turned back to look at Yungay, and just then there was a really enormous wave, like a wave in the sea, moving left and breaking at the crest. It was starting to hit Yungay. That’s when I could grasp the magnitude of the avalanche that was about to sweep away the city of Yungay.
Voice and subtitle
4:11 4:18
Haydé Caballero: The earth moved with so much fury that every time it shook, the dust flew up all over.
Voice and subtitle
4:19 4:54
Manuel Vásquez: I see a mass of people rushing toward me, and that’s a moment that never leaves me. People were shouting “Avalanche, avalanche!” The whole mass swept toward me, and suddenly a woman grabs me by the hand and turns me around. I don’t know who she was. I really think it was the Virgin Mary. She told me, “Run!”
Voice and subtitle
4:55 5:21
Haydé Caballero: Somebody yelled that we should get up to high ground. My brother said, “Let’s run.” I was barefoot and crying. My feet hurt because of the thorns. So my brother picked me up and we ran and ran. What I remember most is the sound of the avalanche. It was terrifying.
Voice and subtitle
5:22 5:36
Raquel Alva: I turned around, and ah! I saw it: a mountain top coming down, covering everything. And I said, “The mountain is coming!” But my older sister told me, “No, it’s not a mountain, it’s the avalanche.”
Voice and subtitle
5:37 6:00
Berta Caballero: We kept running and running to another part of the mountain. When we got there we were so tired we fell down. Then we looked back, and the avalanche had gone by. We saw a heap of trees, houses, cars the avalanche had carried along. Huge rocks it carried like a little ball.
Voice and subtitle
6:01 6:49
Mireya León : I didn’t look down until I got up there. There was nothing left. It was just black. I asked some other people, “Tell me, what about Yungay?” A man tells me, “Lady, there is no Yungay any more. Our Yungay is gone.” That’s when I broke down. And some women tell me, “Let’s all pray.” That’s when I forgot about God. I told them, “Why should we pray when Yungay is gone!”
Voice and subtitle
6:57 7:32
The 31st of May/ fatal day/of the unforgettable tragedy/all Perú weeps for the earthquake/but the Andeans, we weep harder/Beautiful Huascarán, you are the culprit/all your children admired you/how your currents destroyed/my lovely beloved Yungay.
Voice over
7:57 8:36
I left Yungay remembering how the survivors treasured the few belongings they’d been able to rescue after the avalanche.
Mireya and her Sacred Heart. Walter and the picture of his sweetheart, buried in Yungay. Raquel and her trunk. Haydé and her sewing machine. Berta and her Saint Martin.
Many Yungaínos, after they had lost everything, went to settle the jungle. They were told they could build a town on the other side of the Andes. Instead of being victims, they would become settlers.
Voice Subtitle
8:37 8:49 8:40 8:49
Livia León: They said they were going to prepare a site in the jungle that would be called Yungay, and that the government would help us.
Voice and subtitle
8:50 8:56
Santiago Ortega: Many people went to the jungle. I don’t know what happened to them.
Voice and subtitle
8:57 9:06
Juvenal Angeles: We left Yungay with a grand illusion, to settle the jungle.
Voice and subtitle
9:07 9:13
Eloy Montañez: We had already decided to leave and look for a new horizon.
Voice and subtitle
9:14 9:30
Eusebio Alegre: Perú is a big country. There’s enough virgin land in the jungle to make a better future. And we didn’t know if there would be another quake. That’s why I said “I’m going!”
Voice over
9:40 9:48
Today we’re taking the same route that they took, even though in 1971 it was a much more difficult journey.
Voice over
9:59 10:03
We spent hours driving down the mountains in search of Paradise.
Voice over
10:08 10:13
As we entered the jungle, the landscape looked hazy through the dense mist.
Voice over
10:22 10:27
Along the road, we found the hill known as the Sleeping Beauty, lying on the banks of the Huallaga river.
Voice over
10:39 10:53
For many years no outsider entered Paradise, much less with a television camera. Its only point of entry, Puerto Megote, was guarded first by drug traffickers and later by terrorists.
Voice over
10:54 11:02
This time, I was determined to get to that mysterious, legendary town in the heart of the jungle.
Voice over
11:20 11:26
Juan Pawlikowski, the engineer who received the Yungaínos and organized the original settlement, came with me.
Voice over
11:47 11:57
Pawlikowsky had not been back since the beginning
We had heard that Paradise had experienced an extravagant heyday, but all we found was an almost deserted village.
Voice Subtitle
12:00 12:31 12:02 12:32
Juan Pawlikowski: Here’s where we started building twenty houses for the survivors. Those houses over there were built with their own hands. We gave them corrugated tin, cement, iron, and they did the work. I feel very sad, because years ago so much effort went into this. Now it’s all destroyed.
Voice over
13:20 13:36
All we found were ruins devoured by the jungle. The glory days had vanished just as quickly as they began. But what happened here lives on in the memory of those who have returned to Paradise. Now, for the first time, they tell their story.
THE GRAND ILLUSION
Voice Subtitle
14:04 14:21 14:04 14:23
Juan Pawlikowski: When they arrived in the jungle, they were joyful. They came in ten buses, 530 people. They stayed in Aucayacu until we set up temporary camps. Then we brought them to Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
14:26 14:39 14:26 14:36
Juvenal Angeles: It was so exciting to see how good your land was. If you had big trees or skinny ones.
Voice and subtitle
14:40 15:04
Eloy Montañez: Paradise, yes, that’s what we called it. Because it was so green. We thought we’d been born again when we found ourselves among the trees, like Adam and Eve.
Voice Subtitle
15:05 15:29 15:05 15:27
Eusebio Alegre: I say Paradise because the Bible tells us it’s near a very beautiful river. For me this Frijol river is like the river Jordan, and we’re beside it, so it must be Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
15:31 15:53 15:33 15:52
Arturo González: Nobody was living here. It was all virgin land, ruled by the mosquitoes. We weren’t used to sleeping under a mosquito net. It made us nervous to look at this jungle.
Voice
16:04 16:27
Wilson Ocmín : They were in their alpaca wool ponchos, and they suffered a lot. The mosquitoes made wounds all over their hands, their faces, their feet. People got sick. They cried. They were afraid of the snakes. They called them “worms.”
Voice Subtitle
16:28 16:55 16:28 16:54
Juvenal Angeles: Coming from the mountains to the jungle, it’s a shock. The worms, the stinging flies. It was hard, but worth it. My father was fifty years old then, and we were six brothers.
Voice over
17:01 17:15
The settlement received aid from the Peruvian government as well as international financing. 4,000 calves arrived from Nicaragua. The farmers were helped to plant corn, coffee and other crops.
Voice Subtitle
17:21 17:32 17:23 17:32
Felix Miranda: The early days in Paradise, from ‘70 to ‘77, were good times too, because we had advisors, we had a lot of government aid.
Voice
17:33 17:58
Juan Pawlikowski: The government aid stopped in ‘75. When the Inter-American Development Bank, which was financing it, ran out of money, so did its Peruvian counterpart. So the bank credits and the technical assistance stopped. Maybe that’s why coca growing started to increase in ‘77.
Voice over
18:00 18:26
When the economic aid ended, so did the dream. In order to make bank payments the settlers sacrificed their herds, and for lack of highways and markets, the crops rotted in the fields.
The only cash crop they could depend on was coca, which virtually grew wild in the jungle. And that is how, in the 1980’s, the Huallaga valley became the source of sixty percent of the world’s coca leaves.
COCA IN PARADISE
Voice Subtitle
18:45 18:50 18:46 18:50
Artemio Miranda: You don’t need much to grow coca. The buyer will go out to the middle of nowhere to pick it up.
Voice Subtitle
19:01 19:22 19:03 19:18
Wilson Ocmín: Ninety percent of the land was covered with coca plants. Most people had at least one or two hectares. Many had eight, ten, fifteen.
Voice and subtitle
19:23 19:46
Rómulo Soto: Paradise was just what its name says: paradise. A town overflowing with money. Nobody was poor. Even the workers had good pay, good food, good drink. Everybody had everything they needed.
Voice Subtitle
19:47 20:22 19:47 20:23
Wilson Ocmín: When the drug traffic was going on, Paradise was fantastic. It was rich. There were ten Colombian drug firms in Paradise. Seventy percent of the people were Colombians in the mafia times. Big businessmen, great artists from Perú and all over the world, came here.
Voice Subtitle
20:23 20:32 20:23 20:34
Fidel Tello: Everybody had one or two cars, three motorbikes. It was fabulous because there was so much cash and all kinds of things they don’t even have in Lima.
Voice and subtitle
20:35 20:42
Wilson Ocmín: At least fifty brothels, and that’s just in private houses. On the streets, in the bars, more than you could count.
Voice Subtitle
20:49 21:15 20:51 21:15
Azucena Valdéz: It used to be a big city. There were the most elegant houses you ever saw up there, all shiny, polished wood. Beautiful. The only houses left are the shacks that belonged to the earthquake survivors. Paradise used to be full of people. There was lots of action, all the time.
Voice Subtitle
21:23 21:30 21:24 21:30
Marina Valdéz: For the ones who lived here, it all disappeared like a dream. There was lots of money, and that disappeared too.
Voice over
21:34 22:02
Nothing remains of the dream but a few traces, like this Carrara marble mausoleum built to immortalize the bones of a drug trafficker. Near the mausoleum are these cement roadblocks that were supposed to keep small planes from landing. All they do is cause truck accidents.
Paradise used to have seven airports where the drugs were flown out.
Voice Subtitle
22:02 22:26 22:05 22:26
Wilson Ocmín: The narcos paid big bribes to the police and the army. The police had a lot of money because drugs were flown out of here. Any firm that didn’t pay off the police, they’d confiscate the drug cargo. But if you paid, nothing happened.
Voice and subtitle
22:27 22:46
Fidel Tello: Bribing the authorities, that happened all the time, everywhere. I don’t mean to offend the military, but that was an old custom. I don’t think it started in Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
22:47 23:06 22:48 23:06
Rómulo Soto: The police, the army and the Shining Path were all bribed here. Everything had to be fixed... so things would run smoothly.
THE SHINING PATH
Voice over
23:25 24:01
Suddenly the Shining Path, a Maoist group that originated in the Peruvian Andes, burst into the drug-traffickers’ Paradise. In the Huallaga the group found a way to finance its activities all over the country. At the beginning, the guerrillas protected the drug traffickers in return for a slice of the profits.
In the memories of those who lived there, they arrived one August afternoon in 1984.
Voice Subtitle
24:04 24:27 24:06 24:27
Wilson Ocmín: “We’re the Shining Path, the communists who have come to help the rural people defend themselves against the police. And we want you to help us so that we can help you.”
Voice Subtitle
24:28 24:48 24:28 24:47
Felix Miranda: I liked what he said, that someday we would dominate the Yankees, and that we’d stop being slaves. He made us all believe that, you know? We weren’t really prepared...
Voice and subtitle
24:49 25:00
Wilson Ocmín: Well, from then on they started talking politics. They said we don’t need bandits, criminals, rapists or addicts.
Voice Subtitle
25:01 25:15 25:01 25:16
Artemio Miranda: And they started to make a list of everyone who lived here. They said, “Number one, don’t sell coca, not even one leaf, to anybody. Number two, don’t sell even a kilo of drugs. Number three, we set the price.”
Voice Subtitle
25:22 25:58 25:23 25:58
Juvenal Angeles: After six o’clock it got harder. Because then you’d see the Shining Path with their motorbikes, or cars. They’d call an assembly to sacrifice somebody. That’s what we were afraid of. Sometimes there’d be an all-night meeting. Then you’d have to hide to get out of going. Because I’ve seen a lot of killings. A lot of killings.
Voice and subtitle
25:59 27:28
Venancia Amasifuen: We were in a circle, women on one side and men on the other. Pretty soon they brought in three men, tied up with their hands behind their backs. One of the terrorists says, “These are going to die as an example for all of you. They’re informers, thieves,” Two of the prisoners were like us, and one was black. They made them kneel. “Bang, bang” they fire at them, and two of them fell down like doves. A pool of blood started coming out. The poor black one struggles to raise his head as if he wants to say something, and they shoot him in the head.
Voice and subtitle
27:29 27:44
Juvenal Angeles: Right in front of everybody. My son’s face was dripping with blood, because the three men were kneeling right next to him. When they were shot, blood splattered onto my son.
Voice and subtitle
27:45 28:09
Felix Miranda: When the dead body was lying on the floor, they looked for someone who seemed a little nervous and said, “You there.” Then they made him step on top of the body and dance. And if he fainted, they made him stick a knife in it and draw blood and lick it. They said it was to make the man strong.
Voice Subtitle
28:11 28:28 28:11 28:30
Wilson Ocmín: People were screaming and crying. But if somebody cried they grabbed him and smeared blood on his hands and all over his face. After that, no one had the courage to cry.
Voice and subtitle
29:04 29:54
Song: Memory by memory, destroying an illusion. Memory by memory, destroying an illusion.
The stronger the illusion, the more it destroys me, trying in vain to forget.
The stronger the illusion, the more it destroys me, trying in vain to forget.
THE BATTLE OF MACHI
Voice over
30:29 31:16
These are the ruins of the stronghold of the biggest drug trafficker in Paradise. He was a Peruvian known as Machi. It was in this fortress, surrounded by this hired guns, that Machi decided to fight the Shining Path when the group tried to take control of the drug business.
Hundreds of Shining Path members, mercenaries, and innocent bystanders died in a legendary battle that lasted for two days. It took place in October of 1987.
In the town of Paradise, they say that just as the Shining Path was about to capture the drug lord, he was rescued by the forces of law and order.
Voice Subtitle
31:17 31:40 31:20 31:40
Wilson Ocmín: The helicopter came down and rescued Machi and five others. Machi had on a green t-shirt, green shorts, and a green backpack. He dragged himself into the helicopter leaning on a stick, and they took him to Tingo María
Sonia Goldenberg: Who did the helicopter belong to?
Wilson Ocmín: The police.
Voice
31:41 31:55
Artemio Miranda: The army and the police, both of them. They rescued Machi when he’d been shot in the leg in the battle with the Shining Path.
Voice Subtitle
31:55 31:59 31:56 31:59
Rómulo Soto: No, he wasn’t taken prisoner. He was the strong man in Alto Huallaga.
Voice and subtitle
32:00 32:07
Felix Miranda: The police force took him away in a helicopter. But I heard they charged him 280 thousand dollars.
Voice and subtitle
32:08 32:13
Noemí Rojas: Nobody knows whether he’s alive or dead. Some say he died in Colombia.
Voice and subtitle
32:14 32:20
Wilson Ocmín: We heard a rumor that Machi was killed in Colombia.
Voice over
32:25 32:34
Machi’s whereabouts are still a mystery, but the battle was the beginning of a war hidden away in the depths of the jungle.
THE HORROR
Voice over
32:52 33:04
After the battle the Peruvian armed forces decided to launch a full-scale attack against the Shining Path. They bombarded Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
33:13 33:37 33:19 33:37
Venancia Amasifuen: I saw people run by on the riverbank. In herds, like a flock of sheep. And my husband said, “Venancia, let’s go. Do you want to die?”
Voice over
33:40 34:15
The population sank deeper and deeper into the horror. Out of the sinister total of 50,000 victims of political violence in Perú, almost a thousand came from Paradise.
The Huallaga became the biggest common grave in the country. The military and the police threw their victims’ bodies into the river.
The Shining Path left them in the jungle with signs on the bodies as a warning.
Voice Subtitle
34:16 34:38 34:19 43:38
Gisella del Aguila: One day, tired of searching, I went to the police chief. I didn’t care if he killed me. I looked him in the face and knelt down and said, “Sir, I know my brothers are here. Why don’t you tell me.”
Voice and subtitle
34:39 34:56
Johnny Huamán: My dad went out to tend our corn field. The Shining Path found him up there and took him prisoner. They brought him to the road in front of my house.
Voice and subtitle
34:59 35:13
Gisella del Aguila: “If he’s dead, then give him to me.” I was hanging onto his waist, and he threw me off. I fell down. “It doesn’t matter, Sir,” I told him. “Justice is in the hands of God.”
Voice and subtitle
34:14 35:35
Johnny Huamán: I thought they’d come to force young men into the guerrilla army. So I hid out in the jungle. I was hoping my sister would come get us as soon as they went away.
Voice and subtitle
35:36 36:04
Gisella del Aguila: “I’m fed up with you, you stupid cunt,” that’s how he talked to me. I was crying, howling. He said, “Come here.” He picked up the key, opened a little door and said, “Get in there, you stupid cunt.”
Voice and subtitle
34:05 36:20
Johnny Huamán: I heard a shot, but it didn’t sound like a gun shot. It sounded more like somebody had hit a tin roof, so I didn’t pay attention.
Voice and subtitle
36:21 37:24
Gisella del Aguila: “See for yourself if he’s here.” So I look in. I saw a man with a white rag around his head. He’s about to fall. The blood is dripping down. I say, “My brother!” I screamed, “Manasés!” Then I saw my other brother, Melciades. He was on the floor, but he must have heard me. He tried to push himself toward me. “Guisho, Guisho,” that’s all he said. He always called me Guisho.
Voice and subtitle
37:25 38:00
Johnny Huamán: I thought, “What’s happened?” Then my sister shows up, crying. She calls out “They’ve killed Papa.” That’s when I turned cold. “It’s a lie,” I said. “Why would they kill him? He’d never done anything.” Then my mother came with my little brothers and told me the same thing. But I didn’t have the courage to go see him.
Voice and subtitle
38:01 38:54
Gisella del Aguila: I went back and asked a policeman, “Is the police chief here?” “You again, Lady?” “Yes. I want you to give me my brothers’ bodies. I know they’re dead.” “Look,” he tells me, “I feel sorry for you, Lady. I’m going to tell you, but don’t tell anyone. Last night at midnight, they threw your brothers out.” “Where?” I screamed. “Where? Where?”
Voice and subtitle
38:55 39:02
Johnny Huamán: I only saw my dad from a distance. He was lying on the ground face down. I didn’t have the courage to go near him.
Voice and subtitle
39:03 39:28
Gisella del Aguila: “Go to the river and look for them, but you won’t find them. They put them in a sack with rocks and iron and threw them in. Because you saw them, and if you find the bodies, that’s the proof that could send the killers to jail. So you won’t find your brothers, Lady, no matter where you go.”
Voice and subtitle
39:29 40:11
Johnny Huamán: I don’t really know how he died. The neighbors say the guerrillas made him suffer. He screamed, but I didn’t hear him. And he had a wire tied around his neck, his hands tied behind him, his ears cut off. His back slashed open with an axe. His head all empty. He didn’t die, so he asked them to kill him. He was still talking, and that’s when one of them shot him. That was the shot I heard. When they finished him off.
Voice and subtitle
40:12 40:48
Gisella del Aguila: I went to Juanjui, to Sión, to Pisana, in a boat, looking. So many dead bodies in the river, men and women, their heads cut open, their breasts cut open, their eyes cut out. Those were human beings in those sacks, not garbage. If the river could talk, the river would tell you how many dead there were back then.
Voice and subtitle
41:04 42:36
Song: [Where have all the people gone?]
Coming down the mountains
Hoping and fearing
Down the Huallaga valley
I look for my hometown, Lord
It was fate
Such a tragedy
How Paradise suffered
And nobody knows it existed!
Where have all the people gone?
Where can I find them?
Ah, Lord River Huallaga
Do you know where they are?
Where have all the people gone?
Where can I find them?
Ah, Lady Sleeping Beauty
Can you help me find them?
RETURN TO PARADISE
Voice over
43:01 43:16
The residents of Paradise, who fled from the violence in the mid-nineties, are beginning to return. Out of 10,000 original inhabitants, only a few hundred have come back.
Voice Subtitle
43:27 43:41 43:29 43:41
Felix Miranda: Lots of the Yungaínos are coming back again. Because you can plant anything here, from a hot pepper to a cacao tree.
Voice and subtitle
43:50 44:02
Marina Valdez: I don’t know what brings people back. I’ve been lots of places, but there’s no place like Paradise.
Voice and subtitle
44:11 44:14
Juvenal Angeles: Paradise is so beautiful.
Voice Subtitle
44:22 44:33 44:22 44:34
Wilson Ocmín: So I brought my family back. I’ve been here two years now, and thank God, it’s very peaceful.
Voice and subtitle
44:47 44:56
Felix Miranda: I hope it will be better than before. With no drug traffic, no terrorism. A real democracy instead, sincere, clean, honorable, with respect for human rights.
Voice and subtitle
45:08 45:18
Artemio Miranda: All kinds of people from all over used to come to Paradise. They used to come for the coca. Now I want them to plant something different.
Voice
45:37 46:40
Party Song: Where have all the people gone?
Voice over
47:16 47:50
After many years, the settlers who have returned are celebrating the day of their patron saint, Saint Joseph; once again, he is carried through Paradise the way he was at the beginning. Don Felix Miranda told us, “We’ve come back, like a wheel that makes a full circle.”
Voice and subtitle
47:58 48:00
Azucena Valdéz: L4, L4, this is Paradise.
Voice and subtitle
48:14 48:16
Professor: How big is the universe?
(Family portraits from Paradise.)
(Images of the army marching through Paradise):
Voice over
49:15 49:39
On the last day of filming, an army patrol was marching through Paradise. They were looking for members of the Shining Path, which is still a presence in the region, while coca is beginning to flourish again in the Huallaga valley.
*****
0:31 0:54
In the virgin jungle of the Huallaga river valley there was once a town called Paraíso, or Paradise. In the memory of those who lived there, it seems like one of those fabulous cities from Latin American mythology.
For a long time it was a forbidden zone, and in spite of everything that happened in this tropical paradise of the New World, its story has never been told.
MEMORIES OF PARADISE
Voice over
1:21 1:48
The story of Paradise begins near the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains. It was here that the American continent suffered its greatest cataclysm of the twentieth century.
Thirty-three years later, we went back to the site of the vanished city of Yungay. El Huascarán, the first protagonist in this story, was hidden in the clouds.
FIRST MEMORY: THE EARTHQUAKE
Voice over
2:10 2:38
On the afternoon of May 31st, 1970, at 3:45 in the afternoon, a violent earthquake rocked the area for 45 interminable seconds.
70,000 people died.
The beautiful city of Yungay was buried under a landslide. Part of snow-covered Huascarán, the highest peak in the Peruvian Andes, cascaded over it.
Voice Subtitle
2:48 3:24 2:51 3:24
Mireya León : My little girl pulled me along, “Run, Mami, run Mami! We don’t want to die like this!” My husband grabbed hold of us, and said, “We can’t run any more.” Big blocks of earth were sticking up all over. It was like a movie… everything blew up. I didn’t know what was happening. But when I could tell I was still breathing I told my husband, “The avalanche didn’t get us. Let’s run away!” Runtu was the safe place. I told him “Let’s get to Runtu!”
Voice Subtitle
3:25 4:10 3:26 4:10
Mateo Casaverde: My strongest memory is of running into the cemetery after climbing over a fallen gate. I turned back to look at Yungay, and just then there was a really enormous wave, like a wave in the sea, moving left and breaking at the crest. It was starting to hit Yungay. That’s when I could grasp the magnitude of the avalanche that was about to sweep away the city of Yungay.
Voice and subtitle
4:11 4:18
Haydé Caballero: The earth moved with so much fury that every time it shook, the dust flew up all over.
Voice and subtitle
4:19 4:54
Manuel Vásquez: I see a mass of people rushing toward me, and that’s a moment that never leaves me. People were shouting “Avalanche, avalanche!” The whole mass swept toward me, and suddenly a woman grabs me by the hand and turns me around. I don’t know who she was. I really think it was the Virgin Mary. She told me, “Run!”
Voice and subtitle
4:55 5:21
Haydé Caballero: Somebody yelled that we should get up to high ground. My brother said, “Let’s run.” I was barefoot and crying. My feet hurt because of the thorns. So my brother picked me up and we ran and ran. What I remember most is the sound of the avalanche. It was terrifying.
Voice and subtitle
5:22 5:36
Raquel Alva: I turned around, and ah! I saw it: a mountain top coming down, covering everything. And I said, “The mountain is coming!” But my older sister told me, “No, it’s not a mountain, it’s the avalanche.”
Voice and subtitle
5:37 6:00
Berta Caballero: We kept running and running to another part of the mountain. When we got there we were so tired we fell down. Then we looked back, and the avalanche had gone by. We saw a heap of trees, houses, cars the avalanche had carried along. Huge rocks it carried like a little ball.
Voice and subtitle
6:01 6:49
Mireya León : I didn’t look down until I got up there. There was nothing left. It was just black. I asked some other people, “Tell me, what about Yungay?” A man tells me, “Lady, there is no Yungay any more. Our Yungay is gone.” That’s when I broke down. And some women tell me, “Let’s all pray.” That’s when I forgot about God. I told them, “Why should we pray when Yungay is gone!”
Voice and subtitle
6:57 7:32
The 31st of May/ fatal day/of the unforgettable tragedy/all Perú weeps for the earthquake/but the Andeans, we weep harder/Beautiful Huascarán, you are the culprit/all your children admired you/how your currents destroyed/my lovely beloved Yungay.
Voice over
7:57 8:36
I left Yungay remembering how the survivors treasured the few belongings they’d been able to rescue after the avalanche.
Mireya and her Sacred Heart. Walter and the picture of his sweetheart, buried in Yungay. Raquel and her trunk. Haydé and her sewing machine. Berta and her Saint Martin.
Many Yungaínos, after they had lost everything, went to settle the jungle. They were told they could build a town on the other side of the Andes. Instead of being victims, they would become settlers.
Voice Subtitle
8:37 8:49 8:40 8:49
Livia León: They said they were going to prepare a site in the jungle that would be called Yungay, and that the government would help us.
Voice and subtitle
8:50 8:56
Santiago Ortega: Many people went to the jungle. I don’t know what happened to them.
Voice and subtitle
8:57 9:06
Juvenal Angeles: We left Yungay with a grand illusion, to settle the jungle.
Voice and subtitle
9:07 9:13
Eloy Montañez: We had already decided to leave and look for a new horizon.
Voice and subtitle
9:14 9:30
Eusebio Alegre: Perú is a big country. There’s enough virgin land in the jungle to make a better future. And we didn’t know if there would be another quake. That’s why I said “I’m going!”
Voice over
9:40 9:48
Today we’re taking the same route that they took, even though in 1971 it was a much more difficult journey.
Voice over
9:59 10:03
We spent hours driving down the mountains in search of Paradise.
Voice over
10:08 10:13
As we entered the jungle, the landscape looked hazy through the dense mist.
Voice over
10:22 10:27
Along the road, we found the hill known as the Sleeping Beauty, lying on the banks of the Huallaga river.
Voice over
10:39 10:53
For many years no outsider entered Paradise, much less with a television camera. Its only point of entry, Puerto Megote, was guarded first by drug traffickers and later by terrorists.
Voice over
10:54 11:02
This time, I was determined to get to that mysterious, legendary town in the heart of the jungle.
Voice over
11:20 11:26
Juan Pawlikowski, the engineer who received the Yungaínos and organized the original settlement, came with me.
Voice over
11:47 11:57
Pawlikowsky had not been back since the beginning
We had heard that Paradise had experienced an extravagant heyday, but all we found was an almost deserted village.
Voice Subtitle
12:00 12:31 12:02 12:32
Juan Pawlikowski: Here’s where we started building twenty houses for the survivors. Those houses over there were built with their own hands. We gave them corrugated tin, cement, iron, and they did the work. I feel very sad, because years ago so much effort went into this. Now it’s all destroyed.
Voice over
13:20 13:36
All we found were ruins devoured by the jungle. The glory days had vanished just as quickly as they began. But what happened here lives on in the memory of those who have returned to Paradise. Now, for the first time, they tell their story.
THE GRAND ILLUSION
Voice Subtitle
14:04 14:21 14:04 14:23
Juan Pawlikowski: When they arrived in the jungle, they were joyful. They came in ten buses, 530 people. They stayed in Aucayacu until we set up temporary camps. Then we brought them to Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
14:26 14:39 14:26 14:36
Juvenal Angeles: It was so exciting to see how good your land was. If you had big trees or skinny ones.
Voice and subtitle
14:40 15:04
Eloy Montañez: Paradise, yes, that’s what we called it. Because it was so green. We thought we’d been born again when we found ourselves among the trees, like Adam and Eve.
Voice Subtitle
15:05 15:29 15:05 15:27
Eusebio Alegre: I say Paradise because the Bible tells us it’s near a very beautiful river. For me this Frijol river is like the river Jordan, and we’re beside it, so it must be Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
15:31 15:53 15:33 15:52
Arturo González: Nobody was living here. It was all virgin land, ruled by the mosquitoes. We weren’t used to sleeping under a mosquito net. It made us nervous to look at this jungle.
Voice
16:04 16:27
Wilson Ocmín : They were in their alpaca wool ponchos, and they suffered a lot. The mosquitoes made wounds all over their hands, their faces, their feet. People got sick. They cried. They were afraid of the snakes. They called them “worms.”
Voice Subtitle
16:28 16:55 16:28 16:54
Juvenal Angeles: Coming from the mountains to the jungle, it’s a shock. The worms, the stinging flies. It was hard, but worth it. My father was fifty years old then, and we were six brothers.
Voice over
17:01 17:15
The settlement received aid from the Peruvian government as well as international financing. 4,000 calves arrived from Nicaragua. The farmers were helped to plant corn, coffee and other crops.
Voice Subtitle
17:21 17:32 17:23 17:32
Felix Miranda: The early days in Paradise, from ‘70 to ‘77, were good times too, because we had advisors, we had a lot of government aid.
Voice
17:33 17:58
Juan Pawlikowski: The government aid stopped in ‘75. When the Inter-American Development Bank, which was financing it, ran out of money, so did its Peruvian counterpart. So the bank credits and the technical assistance stopped. Maybe that’s why coca growing started to increase in ‘77.
Voice over
18:00 18:26
When the economic aid ended, so did the dream. In order to make bank payments the settlers sacrificed their herds, and for lack of highways and markets, the crops rotted in the fields.
The only cash crop they could depend on was coca, which virtually grew wild in the jungle. And that is how, in the 1980’s, the Huallaga valley became the source of sixty percent of the world’s coca leaves.
COCA IN PARADISE
Voice Subtitle
18:45 18:50 18:46 18:50
Artemio Miranda: You don’t need much to grow coca. The buyer will go out to the middle of nowhere to pick it up.
Voice Subtitle
19:01 19:22 19:03 19:18
Wilson Ocmín: Ninety percent of the land was covered with coca plants. Most people had at least one or two hectares. Many had eight, ten, fifteen.
Voice and subtitle
19:23 19:46
Rómulo Soto: Paradise was just what its name says: paradise. A town overflowing with money. Nobody was poor. Even the workers had good pay, good food, good drink. Everybody had everything they needed.
Voice Subtitle
19:47 20:22 19:47 20:23
Wilson Ocmín: When the drug traffic was going on, Paradise was fantastic. It was rich. There were ten Colombian drug firms in Paradise. Seventy percent of the people were Colombians in the mafia times. Big businessmen, great artists from Perú and all over the world, came here.
Voice Subtitle
20:23 20:32 20:23 20:34
Fidel Tello: Everybody had one or two cars, three motorbikes. It was fabulous because there was so much cash and all kinds of things they don’t even have in Lima.
Voice and subtitle
20:35 20:42
Wilson Ocmín: At least fifty brothels, and that’s just in private houses. On the streets, in the bars, more than you could count.
Voice Subtitle
20:49 21:15 20:51 21:15
Azucena Valdéz: It used to be a big city. There were the most elegant houses you ever saw up there, all shiny, polished wood. Beautiful. The only houses left are the shacks that belonged to the earthquake survivors. Paradise used to be full of people. There was lots of action, all the time.
Voice Subtitle
21:23 21:30 21:24 21:30
Marina Valdéz: For the ones who lived here, it all disappeared like a dream. There was lots of money, and that disappeared too.
Voice over
21:34 22:02
Nothing remains of the dream but a few traces, like this Carrara marble mausoleum built to immortalize the bones of a drug trafficker. Near the mausoleum are these cement roadblocks that were supposed to keep small planes from landing. All they do is cause truck accidents.
Paradise used to have seven airports where the drugs were flown out.
Voice Subtitle
22:02 22:26 22:05 22:26
Wilson Ocmín: The narcos paid big bribes to the police and the army. The police had a lot of money because drugs were flown out of here. Any firm that didn’t pay off the police, they’d confiscate the drug cargo. But if you paid, nothing happened.
Voice and subtitle
22:27 22:46
Fidel Tello: Bribing the authorities, that happened all the time, everywhere. I don’t mean to offend the military, but that was an old custom. I don’t think it started in Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
22:47 23:06 22:48 23:06
Rómulo Soto: The police, the army and the Shining Path were all bribed here. Everything had to be fixed... so things would run smoothly.
THE SHINING PATH
Voice over
23:25 24:01
Suddenly the Shining Path, a Maoist group that originated in the Peruvian Andes, burst into the drug-traffickers’ Paradise. In the Huallaga the group found a way to finance its activities all over the country. At the beginning, the guerrillas protected the drug traffickers in return for a slice of the profits.
In the memories of those who lived there, they arrived one August afternoon in 1984.
Voice Subtitle
24:04 24:27 24:06 24:27
Wilson Ocmín: “We’re the Shining Path, the communists who have come to help the rural people defend themselves against the police. And we want you to help us so that we can help you.”
Voice Subtitle
24:28 24:48 24:28 24:47
Felix Miranda: I liked what he said, that someday we would dominate the Yankees, and that we’d stop being slaves. He made us all believe that, you know? We weren’t really prepared...
Voice and subtitle
24:49 25:00
Wilson Ocmín: Well, from then on they started talking politics. They said we don’t need bandits, criminals, rapists or addicts.
Voice Subtitle
25:01 25:15 25:01 25:16
Artemio Miranda: And they started to make a list of everyone who lived here. They said, “Number one, don’t sell coca, not even one leaf, to anybody. Number two, don’t sell even a kilo of drugs. Number three, we set the price.”
Voice Subtitle
25:22 25:58 25:23 25:58
Juvenal Angeles: After six o’clock it got harder. Because then you’d see the Shining Path with their motorbikes, or cars. They’d call an assembly to sacrifice somebody. That’s what we were afraid of. Sometimes there’d be an all-night meeting. Then you’d have to hide to get out of going. Because I’ve seen a lot of killings. A lot of killings.
Voice and subtitle
25:59 27:28
Venancia Amasifuen: We were in a circle, women on one side and men on the other. Pretty soon they brought in three men, tied up with their hands behind their backs. One of the terrorists says, “These are going to die as an example for all of you. They’re informers, thieves,” Two of the prisoners were like us, and one was black. They made them kneel. “Bang, bang” they fire at them, and two of them fell down like doves. A pool of blood started coming out. The poor black one struggles to raise his head as if he wants to say something, and they shoot him in the head.
Voice and subtitle
27:29 27:44
Juvenal Angeles: Right in front of everybody. My son’s face was dripping with blood, because the three men were kneeling right next to him. When they were shot, blood splattered onto my son.
Voice and subtitle
27:45 28:09
Felix Miranda: When the dead body was lying on the floor, they looked for someone who seemed a little nervous and said, “You there.” Then they made him step on top of the body and dance. And if he fainted, they made him stick a knife in it and draw blood and lick it. They said it was to make the man strong.
Voice Subtitle
28:11 28:28 28:11 28:30
Wilson Ocmín: People were screaming and crying. But if somebody cried they grabbed him and smeared blood on his hands and all over his face. After that, no one had the courage to cry.
Voice and subtitle
29:04 29:54
Song: Memory by memory, destroying an illusion. Memory by memory, destroying an illusion.
The stronger the illusion, the more it destroys me, trying in vain to forget.
The stronger the illusion, the more it destroys me, trying in vain to forget.
THE BATTLE OF MACHI
Voice over
30:29 31:16
These are the ruins of the stronghold of the biggest drug trafficker in Paradise. He was a Peruvian known as Machi. It was in this fortress, surrounded by this hired guns, that Machi decided to fight the Shining Path when the group tried to take control of the drug business.
Hundreds of Shining Path members, mercenaries, and innocent bystanders died in a legendary battle that lasted for two days. It took place in October of 1987.
In the town of Paradise, they say that just as the Shining Path was about to capture the drug lord, he was rescued by the forces of law and order.
Voice Subtitle
31:17 31:40 31:20 31:40
Wilson Ocmín: The helicopter came down and rescued Machi and five others. Machi had on a green t-shirt, green shorts, and a green backpack. He dragged himself into the helicopter leaning on a stick, and they took him to Tingo María
Sonia Goldenberg: Who did the helicopter belong to?
Wilson Ocmín: The police.
Voice
31:41 31:55
Artemio Miranda: The army and the police, both of them. They rescued Machi when he’d been shot in the leg in the battle with the Shining Path.
Voice Subtitle
31:55 31:59 31:56 31:59
Rómulo Soto: No, he wasn’t taken prisoner. He was the strong man in Alto Huallaga.
Voice and subtitle
32:00 32:07
Felix Miranda: The police force took him away in a helicopter. But I heard they charged him 280 thousand dollars.
Voice and subtitle
32:08 32:13
Noemí Rojas: Nobody knows whether he’s alive or dead. Some say he died in Colombia.
Voice and subtitle
32:14 32:20
Wilson Ocmín: We heard a rumor that Machi was killed in Colombia.
Voice over
32:25 32:34
Machi’s whereabouts are still a mystery, but the battle was the beginning of a war hidden away in the depths of the jungle.
THE HORROR
Voice over
32:52 33:04
After the battle the Peruvian armed forces decided to launch a full-scale attack against the Shining Path. They bombarded Paradise.
Voice Subtitle
33:13 33:37 33:19 33:37
Venancia Amasifuen: I saw people run by on the riverbank. In herds, like a flock of sheep. And my husband said, “Venancia, let’s go. Do you want to die?”
Voice over
33:40 34:15
The population sank deeper and deeper into the horror. Out of the sinister total of 50,000 victims of political violence in Perú, almost a thousand came from Paradise.
The Huallaga became the biggest common grave in the country. The military and the police threw their victims’ bodies into the river.
The Shining Path left them in the jungle with signs on the bodies as a warning.
Voice Subtitle
34:16 34:38 34:19 43:38
Gisella del Aguila: One day, tired of searching, I went to the police chief. I didn’t care if he killed me. I looked him in the face and knelt down and said, “Sir, I know my brothers are here. Why don’t you tell me.”
Voice and subtitle
34:39 34:56
Johnny Huamán: My dad went out to tend our corn field. The Shining Path found him up there and took him prisoner. They brought him to the road in front of my house.
Voice and subtitle
34:59 35:13
Gisella del Aguila: “If he’s dead, then give him to me.” I was hanging onto his waist, and he threw me off. I fell down. “It doesn’t matter, Sir,” I told him. “Justice is in the hands of God.”
Voice and subtitle
34:14 35:35
Johnny Huamán: I thought they’d come to force young men into the guerrilla army. So I hid out in the jungle. I was hoping my sister would come get us as soon as they went away.
Voice and subtitle
35:36 36:04
Gisella del Aguila: “I’m fed up with you, you stupid cunt,” that’s how he talked to me. I was crying, howling. He said, “Come here.” He picked up the key, opened a little door and said, “Get in there, you stupid cunt.”
Voice and subtitle
34:05 36:20
Johnny Huamán: I heard a shot, but it didn’t sound like a gun shot. It sounded more like somebody had hit a tin roof, so I didn’t pay attention.
Voice and subtitle
36:21 37:24
Gisella del Aguila: “See for yourself if he’s here.” So I look in. I saw a man with a white rag around his head. He’s about to fall. The blood is dripping down. I say, “My brother!” I screamed, “Manasés!” Then I saw my other brother, Melciades. He was on the floor, but he must have heard me. He tried to push himself toward me. “Guisho, Guisho,” that’s all he said. He always called me Guisho.
Voice and subtitle
37:25 38:00
Johnny Huamán: I thought, “What’s happened?” Then my sister shows up, crying. She calls out “They’ve killed Papa.” That’s when I turned cold. “It’s a lie,” I said. “Why would they kill him? He’d never done anything.” Then my mother came with my little brothers and told me the same thing. But I didn’t have the courage to go see him.
Voice and subtitle
38:01 38:54
Gisella del Aguila: I went back and asked a policeman, “Is the police chief here?” “You again, Lady?” “Yes. I want you to give me my brothers’ bodies. I know they’re dead.” “Look,” he tells me, “I feel sorry for you, Lady. I’m going to tell you, but don’t tell anyone. Last night at midnight, they threw your brothers out.” “Where?” I screamed. “Where? Where?”
Voice and subtitle
38:55 39:02
Johnny Huamán: I only saw my dad from a distance. He was lying on the ground face down. I didn’t have the courage to go near him.
Voice and subtitle
39:03 39:28
Gisella del Aguila: “Go to the river and look for them, but you won’t find them. They put them in a sack with rocks and iron and threw them in. Because you saw them, and if you find the bodies, that’s the proof that could send the killers to jail. So you won’t find your brothers, Lady, no matter where you go.”
Voice and subtitle
39:29 40:11
Johnny Huamán: I don’t really know how he died. The neighbors say the guerrillas made him suffer. He screamed, but I didn’t hear him. And he had a wire tied around his neck, his hands tied behind him, his ears cut off. His back slashed open with an axe. His head all empty. He didn’t die, so he asked them to kill him. He was still talking, and that’s when one of them shot him. That was the shot I heard. When they finished him off.
Voice and subtitle
40:12 40:48
Gisella del Aguila: I went to Juanjui, to Sión, to Pisana, in a boat, looking. So many dead bodies in the river, men and women, their heads cut open, their breasts cut open, their eyes cut out. Those were human beings in those sacks, not garbage. If the river could talk, the river would tell you how many dead there were back then.
Voice and subtitle
41:04 42:36
Song: [Where have all the people gone?]
Coming down the mountains
Hoping and fearing
Down the Huallaga valley
I look for my hometown, Lord
It was fate
Such a tragedy
How Paradise suffered
And nobody knows it existed!
Where have all the people gone?
Where can I find them?
Ah, Lord River Huallaga
Do you know where they are?
Where have all the people gone?
Where can I find them?
Ah, Lady Sleeping Beauty
Can you help me find them?
RETURN TO PARADISE
Voice over
43:01 43:16
The residents of Paradise, who fled from the violence in the mid-nineties, are beginning to return. Out of 10,000 original inhabitants, only a few hundred have come back.
Voice Subtitle
43:27 43:41 43:29 43:41
Felix Miranda: Lots of the Yungaínos are coming back again. Because you can plant anything here, from a hot pepper to a cacao tree.
Voice and subtitle
43:50 44:02
Marina Valdez: I don’t know what brings people back. I’ve been lots of places, but there’s no place like Paradise.
Voice and subtitle
44:11 44:14
Juvenal Angeles: Paradise is so beautiful.
Voice Subtitle
44:22 44:33 44:22 44:34
Wilson Ocmín: So I brought my family back. I’ve been here two years now, and thank God, it’s very peaceful.
Voice and subtitle
44:47 44:56
Felix Miranda: I hope it will be better than before. With no drug traffic, no terrorism. A real democracy instead, sincere, clean, honorable, with respect for human rights.
Voice and subtitle
45:08 45:18
Artemio Miranda: All kinds of people from all over used to come to Paradise. They used to come for the coca. Now I want them to plant something different.
Voice
45:37 46:40
Party Song: Where have all the people gone?
Voice over
47:16 47:50
After many years, the settlers who have returned are celebrating the day of their patron saint, Saint Joseph; once again, he is carried through Paradise the way he was at the beginning. Don Felix Miranda told us, “We’ve come back, like a wheel that makes a full circle.”
Voice and subtitle
47:58 48:00
Azucena Valdéz: L4, L4, this is Paradise.
Voice and subtitle
48:14 48:16
Professor: How big is the universe?
(Family portraits from Paradise.)
(Images of the army marching through Paradise):
Voice over
49:15 49:39
On the last day of filming, an army patrol was marching through Paradise. They were looking for members of the Shining Path, which is still a presence in the region, while coca is beginning to flourish again in the Huallaga valley.
*****