Salomón Lerner Febres was the President of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru from 2001 to 2003. After two decades of armed conflict, political violence and suffering due to an authoritarian regime, the Commission, created by the government of Peru, was established to face up to the factors which made violence possible, and to the consequences of destruction and of physical and moral suffering, especially in the most humble and impoverished sectors of Peruvian society. The Commission published its report on 28 April 2003. Salomo´n Lerner is now President of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where he was Rector from 1994 to 2004. He was also President of the Union of Latin American Universities, where he had previously been Vice-President for universities in the Andean region. After studying law in Peru and obtaining a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), Dr Lerner worked at a number of academic institutions and is currently a research associate at Tokyo University. In addition to several other awards, he was honoured as "Great Official of the Order of Merit of Peru" by Peru’s Ministry of Domestic Affairs in 2003.
The interview was conducted on 10 April 2006 in Lima by Professor Elizabeth Salmo´n of the Editorial Board of the International Review of the Red Cross, and Philippe Gaillard, head of the ICRC delegation in Peru.
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