On August 28, 2003, the Commissioners of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) submitted their Final Report to President Alejandro Toledo and the nation. After two years of work and some 17,000 testimonies, the Commissioners had completed their task of examining the causes and consequences of the internal armed conflict of the 1980s-1990s.

Among the most striking conclusions in the Final Report is the number of fatalities—69,280 deaths, three times the number cited by human rights organizations and the government prior to the TRC—and the responsibility for these deaths (America's Watch, 1992). In the section of the Final Report regarding accountability, the Commissioners state that the Shining Path guerrillas (Senderistas) were responsible for 54 percent of the fatalities reported to the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, TRC, 2003).