Erasmo Wong Seoane

"Truth eats the soul" is a publication that explores the strategies used by the ex-head of the secret service in Peru Vladimiro Montesinos to manipulate, persuade and control the public’s perception. I am interested in manipulation, persuasion, perception management and how these elements relate to the concept of truth. I am also interested in the relationship between these elements and believe systems. Montesinos was the lord and master of the transformation of reality; he edited truth and engineered a fake world.

 My exploration seeks to raise questions in the current politically unstable times and uses the story of Sarah Ellen as a vehicle to examine the concepts mentioned before. Her story was used by the Peruvian government (Montesinos and dictator Fujimori) as a smoke screen to distract the public from the implementation of the death penalty in a context of extreme political violence, with thousands of cases of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and torture by the security forces.

Sarah Ellen was a British woman from Blackburn, England. According to the story, Sarah was accused of practicing witchcraft and committing murder. She was ultimately sentenced to death. Sarah was chained and sealed alive in a lead-lined coffin. Before Sarah was entombed, she warned that she would return from the dead in eighty years’ time and take revenge. The townspeople, as well as the authorities, were so afraid that they did not allow Sarah’s husband, John Roberts, to bury her in Blackburn. He was forced to travel around the country in hopes of finding a place for his wife’s final rest. Eventually, John left the country with the coffin on a boat from Liverpool in search of a place to bury Sarah Ellen. He reached Peru, purchased a grave for 5 pounds and finally buried Sarah in a small fishing town called Pisco, 200 km south of Lima, the capital of Peru.

On Sarah’s headstone he wrote:

In Memory of Sarah Ellen,

Beloved wife of J.P. Roberts

Of Blackburn, England.

Born March 6, 1872 and Died June 9, 1913.