Lima, Peru ? A final report on Peru’s brutal 20-year war against the Shining Path insurgency concluded that nearly 70,000 people were killed, and that military officers responsible for many of those deaths committed massive human rights abuses, an official said Thursday.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s nine-volume report, delivered to the government Thursday, said the conflict was exacerbated by deep racism and a fundamental misunderstanding of the highland Indians who comprised most of the victims.

“We have proven with sorrow that members of the armed forces and police implemented a systematic or generalized practice of human rights violations and consequently there exist grounds for indicating crimes against humanity,” commission president Salomon Lerner said.

Only pieces of the report were released to the public Thursday, but officials discussed it widely during the two years they compiled it.

Commissioner Gasten Garatea said the names of more than 100 officers incriminated in human rights abuses and the evidence against them would be given to prosecutors. He said that had not been put in the report being made available to the public.

Peru’s powerful armed forces awaited the report with trepidation. Retired officers warned the military was unhappy with the commission’s plans to name individual officers.

Political parties in power during the violence also criticized the commission for digging into the past.

The commission has “managed to put into the defendant’s chair nothing less than those who won the war against terrorism,” conservative congressman Jose Barba Caballero said Thursday.

The 12-member Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed in June 2001 to shed light on the atrocities that occurred from May 1980 to November 2000 during fighting among government security forces, leftist rebels and civilians. Most of the battles happened in remote Andean areas.

The commission has identified by name some 32,000 people who died during the violence, but the report estimated that 69,000 people disappeared or were killed — double previous estimates.

The violence erupted in May 1980 when the Shining Path, a Maoist-inspired rebel movement that tolerated no opposition, began terrorizing peasants to force them into supporting its drive to overthrow the government.

Diaz Dineo, 33, whose father was killed during a crackdown on rioting imprisoned guerrillas, cries during a vigil in front of the Palace of Justice in Lima, Peru. After two years of study, Peru's truth commission released a report on violence between leftist guerrillas and government security forces, concluding that nearly 70,000 people were killed between 1980 and 2000.