Colombia: Memory and Accountability
In Colombia, a coalition of human rights groups is recovering the nation's collective memory of state terror. Their goal: to prevent future injustice. Refugees, mostly children, receive...
...Therefore, all war criminals-from planners to perpetrators-should be brought to trial and punished accordingly...
...Refugees, mostly children, receive food aid in a temporary shelter in Turbo, located in the northern province of Urabd...
...al., eds...
...The state must also recognize the legitimacy of social and human rights organizations and guarantee their right to do their work...
...Indeed, for many Latin Americans, the phrase Nunca Mds-Never Again-implies much more than an institution, a report or a document...
...Second is the question of the right to justice...
...The project has three elements...
...Finally, we maintain that the state is obligated to prevent war crimes...
...Colombia: Memory and Accountability 1. Luis Carlos Restrepo, "Memoria o la imposible posesi6n" in Jaime C6rdoba Trivirio et...
...The most serious infractions of international law involve extrajudicial execution, forced disappearance and torture...
...In addition, armed conflict itself must be studied in the context of the peace negotiations, and the government should publicly release all the information it has about the actors, the victims, those responsible for human rights crimes, and the sanctions, if 9AS project any, that were imposed...
...First is the collection of information about human rights violations committed in the 33 years between 1966 and 1998...
...Our main goal is to recover historical memory, in order to contribute to the struggle against impunity for war crimes and gross human rights violations committed in our country...
...First is historical truth...
...This is more than a juridical problem...
...The NUNCA MAS project is a collaborative effort of 19 Colombian human rights groups...
...So we support the initiative of victims' organizations to convoke a National Assembly of Victims of Political Violence...
...2. Elizabeth Jelin and Pablo Azchrate, "Memoria y politica: Movimiento de derechos humanos y construcci6n democrAtica" (Buenos Aires: CEDES, 1991), Mimeograph, p. 8...
...It is also a social one with grave political and cultural implications...
...This is a concrete alternative to previous peace negotiations in Colombia, in which the issue of victims was not addressed, or was dealt with only by armed actorsthus excluding victims, their families, and civic organizations...
...NUNCA MAS is an effort to build a future based on justice, not impunity...
...Punishment is the first step in providing reparations--our third criteria-which must also include dismantling the repressive apparati responsible for these crimes, and implementing programs and campaigns to rebuild the social fabric...
...When violations do occur, the state must investigate and punish the perpetrators...
...By documenting and remembering the struggles and objectives that so many Colombians gave their lives for, it is our hope that, even amid Colombia's ongoing war, we can help open a space to the future...
...And we propose that the negotiations to end Colombia's internal conflict must be public, transmitted directly to the people, and carried out in a Colombian city that guarantees access to the press, and which is accessible enough for victims and their family members to participate...
...La memoria frente a los crimenes de lesa humanidad (Bogota: Fundaci6n Manuel Cepeda Vargas, N.D...
...and to ensure civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights...
...We need to know who the victims were-from the most revered presidential candidate to the most humble campesino...
...We want to learn the identities of the perpetrators of physical violence, as well as who planned those crimes and who participated in covering them up...
...By recovering historical memory that privileges truth and justice, the NUNCA MAS project will help dignify the memory of the victims of human rights violations in Colombia...
...And though forced displacement is not considered a crime, given the massive nature of this phenomenon and its effect on the population, it must also be examined and analyzed since it is a direct result of the internal armed conflict...
...Impunity leaves citizens unprotected because it legitimizes crime-which destroys the basis of civilized coexistence...
...It creates a deformed sense of history, as truth is replaced by amnesia in the face of terror...
...involves a struggle over the meaning of the past, a dispute The NUNCA among social actors over the has already c content of values and tradition...
...But more than that, it is a movement of people seeking to preserve the memory and identity of a people, as well as dignity and peace with social justice...
...2 Recovering memory about 47,000 case human rights violations implies rights vi a struggle to vindicate the supreme values of life and throughout human dignity, so that such crimes are not repeated...
...But the construction of memory is not univocal: It NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS This excerpt from the document, " 'NUNCA MAS': Memoria de los crimenes de lesa humanidad en Colombia," was translated from the Spanish by NACLA and reprinted with the permission of the NUNCA MAS Project Secretariat in Bogota...
...The project's second aim is to analyze this information so that we can promote society-wide reflection on the meaning of the disappearance, torture and murder of tens of thousands of Colombians...
...to guarantee the lives, honor, property and beliefs of all people residing in Colombia...
...It is our hope and belief that through this project we can help contribute to understanding the violence-an essential precondition for overcoming it...
...If the peace ocumented process does not address these issues, we believe it is our ethical of human and political duty to demand that lations they be taken up by a truth commis- sion...
...We believe that only by documenting individual cases can we paint the fullest possible picture of the universe of human rights violations, and discern specific patterns of abuse...
...It is a common reference point that embodies our collective indignation over the state terrorism that has destroyed so many lives...
...Tens of thousands have fled Urabd and nearby regions due to paramilitary, army and guerrilla violence...
...p. 35...
...The Colombian state is committed to upholding international human rights treaties and conventions to which it is signatory...
...Finally, the project seeks to create a social movement against impunity for human rights crimes in Colombia...
...everal ethical and political criteria guide the NUNCA MAS project's work...
...We need knowledge about several aspects of the human rights crimes committed in Colombia...
...We believe that no one can represent the victims except the victims themselves...
...truth, not silence...
...Such reconstructions of the past are necessary if we are to live in the present and build the future...
...By naming the violence for what it is, we can shed light on what has been until now a long, dark night of terror...
...remembrance, not forgetting...
...Impunity sends society the message that conflict cannot be resolved democratically...
...Memory has a collective dimension: It incorporates values and remembrances that edify or illustrate past events...
...Our struggle against impunity is based on our belief that the absence of punishment for criminals constitutes a frank negation of justice and the right to know the truth...
...We also insist on transparency in the peace process...
...We also need to know the underlying political, economic and social reasons for these crimes...
...NUNCA MAS has already documented 47,000 cases throughout the country and has systematized them into a data base that will allow more careful and detailed analysis of the nature, type, causes and effects of the violence...
...With the NUNCA MAS project, the Colombian human rights movement is taking up this challenge in favor of memory and against forgetting...
...Luis Carlos Restrepo1 In Colombia, the NUNCA MAS project is a labor of individuals committed to seeing truth and justice prevail...
...It must also implement the treaties and conventions it has ratified, derogate laws that violate them (such as laws that protect paramilitary groups), add war crimes to the Colombian penal code, and dismantle paramilitary groups...
...The objective of memory is to highlight both the struggle of the dead and the nature of the powers that silenced them...
Vol. 34 • July 2000 • No. 1
