Memory in Times of War
Colombia, along with Peru, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala, belongs to an unusual group of countries determined to resolve and end an internal armed conflict without abandoning a democratic mode of governance. For almost six decades Colombia has endured a prolonged and debilitating internal war whose current status combines elements of both conflict and postconflict. While open confrontation with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) continues, President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s government has negotiated a transitional peace with the United Autodefenses of Colombia. This process began with the demobilization of over thirty thousand paramilitary fighters, as well as the promulgation of Law 975, known as the “Justice and Peace Law,” in 2005. Two striking results of this transitional justice process are, first, the public hearings in which nearly twenty-four hundred demobilized paramilitary commanders will be asked to confess their crimes before receiving the benefits of Law 975, and second, the visibility and empowerment of victim organizations. The truth sought by Law 975 is a judicial truth constrained by the paramilitary commanders’ voluntary confessions and by the ability of the Attorney General’s Office to substantiate them. Unlike countries in which truth commissions were set up in the aftermath of a given conflict — simplifying enormously the determination of areas of action, investigation, and intervention — Colombia sanctioned the National Committee for Reparation and Reconciliation in a social and political context of war. Colombia’s unique circumstances not only complicate such issues as the specification of heinous crimes, reparations for victims, and reconciliation, but also pose new challenges for the construction of truth and memory, key instruments in transitional justice processes.
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