TRUTH COMMISSIONS: OFFICIAL

MEMORIES OR PLURAL
VERSIONS?
 THE PRESENTATION

1. Truth Commissions in transition processes

2. El Salvador´s, Guatemala ´s and South Africa
´s experiencies with Truth Commissions.
3. Why a Truth Commission in Colombia?
4. Politics of memory in Colombia: resisting
oblivion and impunity
5. How a Truth Commission in Colombia
1. Truth Commissions in transition processes

Global context: Second World War and a

“humanitarian consciousness”. The primacy of
memory over oblivion and justice over impunity of
crimes against humanity.

Functions of TCs :
 To TESTIFY to avoid invisibility and denial, to
support justice
 To RESIGNIFY to strengthen historical memory
ethical consciousness , political consensus
 To DIGNIFY victims
1. Truth Commissions in transition processes

Transitions from war and authoritarian regimes

1) TCs institutionalize processes of revealing crimes
against humanity vs hidden and silenced crimes .
2) Rebuild social networks and build a different
political project to overcome conflicts
3) TCs are framed in a wider political
peace/democratization process
4) TCs are part of an ethical consensus

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH MEMORY OF THE PAST?

1. Truth Commissions in transition processes

 What are Truth Commissions: are created to help

societies who suffered political violence or internal
armed conflicts in critically facing their past by
measuring the damage, recognizing
responsibilities, overcoming crises and thinking of
a different future (Esteban Cuya,1996).

FUNCTIONS DURING TRANSITIONS:

1) Building historical record of HR violations
2) Guarantee a public forum: reparations,
rehabilitation, reintegration measure
3) Make recommendations
2. El Salvador´s, Guatemala´s and South Africa
´s experiencies
 Criteria in evaluating TC: functioning and impacts
FUNCTIONING
1) Procedure by which TC was created
2) Who presides the TC
3) Who endorses and supports TC
4) Type of investigated crimes
5) Establishing individual responsibilities
6) Contribution to judicial processes
7) How obligated and pressed the State is
8) Support given by civil society
9) Acces to official information
10) TC composition
11) Economic resources
12) Methodology
2. El Salvador´s, Guatemala´s and South Africa
´s experiencies
Impacts:
1) Acceptance of the TC report
2) Implementation of TC recommendations
3) The balance between amnesty and punishment
4) Perpetrators´capability of influencing
government institutions
5) Political guarantees
6) Distribution of the TC report
7) International community support, oversight
8) Protection and reparations programs for victims
2. El Salvador´s, Guatemala´s and South Africa
´s experiencies
3. Why a Truth Commission in Colombia?

1) Socio political violence has

been a historical variable (60
years). We still have 44
rearmed paramilitary groups
after demobilization (JUSTICE
AND PEACE LAW, 2005), and
there is no peace process with
guerrilla (FARC).

 In 2009 The Supreme Court

asked the national government
to create a Truth Commission
3. Why a TC in Colombia?

2) Humanitarian Crisis

 Links between at least 1/3 of

Congress and paramilitary groups
 Political persecution against opposition groups, victims, human rights
defenders,
journalists, judges, UN office, European Parliament. Extermination:
Patriotic Union
 Official discourse that stigmatizes human rights defenders as
guerrillas or terrorist collaborators. DENYING their accusations and
delegitimizing their activities
 Official records do not contained information about this situation
(“Dirty war” and “political genocide”) PU left party
 Prior memory experiences: COLOMBIA NEVER AGAIN (1996), National
Movement of Victims of State Crimes
3. Why a TC in Colombia?
 Homicides of innocent civilians by Security
Forces who –after dressing up the bodies
with camouflages- presented the victims as
guerrilla combatants ( “false postives”)
 Forced displacement (4.5 million people)
 50 thousand forced disappearences in
Colombia (official records), buried in mass
graves (1.086) Some of them unearth by
paramilitaries who did not demobilize
 Extradition of 14 paramilitary commanders
 As a consequece :the destruction of
evidence and proof as a strategy
3. Why a TC in Colombia?
3) There is no policy of transition to peace
 Official Memory: limits of the Historical Memory
Commission
 The NCRR is identifying reparations criteria with no
previous truth process
 A Closed door methodology (expert knowledge) vs
public forum and political process with the
participation of victims
 It does not take into account the social movements´
database of H.R violations
 NCRR and HMC do not have judicial functions, they do
not influence national reparations policy (JandP Law)
3. Why a TC in Colombia?

4) There is not an integral reparations policy for

victims of sociopolitical violence
(reconciliation as an imperative).
5) There is a political polarization: conflicting
memories.
4. Politics of memory in Colombia: resisting
oblivion and impunity
 Functions of memory in re-building processes in
Colombia
1) Ethical and political : public debate vs official
silence on crimes against humanity
2) Testimonial database: collective consciousness
3) Judicial function: public hearings
4) Pshycological function: strengthening of social
networks, dignifying victims
5) Pacific civil resistance of war
4. Politics of memory in Colombia: resisting
oblivion and impunity
Galleries of Memory
4. Politics of
memory in Colombia:
resisting oblivion
and impunity
4. Politics of memory in Colombia:
resisting oblivion and impunity
 5. How a TC in Colombia?

 Wide institutional support from the national

government
 Plural participation of different social sectors and
victims
 Official recongnition of Humanitarian crisis and
internal armed conflict
 Official recognition of the State responsibility
 An integral reparation policy for victims
 A broad mandate to the TC not subordinated to
reconciliation
 Protection for commissioners, judges, victims and
witnesses
 International community support and oversight.
Memory and national identity: a symbolic
field