Memory and Reconciliation
The goal of Inter Pares' program in Latin America is to support the development of thriving, healthy communities where people share secure lives and livelihoods, confident that here is a genuine opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their children. This is a modest hope, and one that Inter Pares shares with our colleagues and counterparts in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia and Peru.
A critical impediment to this goal is the conflict and repression that has plagued these countries for almost a century, and persists even today - conflict that has its roots in the reaction of elite interests, and the states they control, against the claim of justice and equality of the majority of citizens.
 How are we going to sow the crops?... We have to find the strength to raise our children, to work... Florentina Castro, from Ccarhuac, Huancavelica, excerpted from the book From the Green Time to the Blue Time (After the Red Nightmare) by Project Counselling Service, 1997. |
Civil violence, whether committed by the state or by armed actors resisting the state, is a trauma not only of the body but of the spirit of those violated, and of their communities. It is their humanity itself that is violated, maimed and seared in the carnage of civil war, and it is this humanity that has to be restored in the rebuilding of peace. Key to this healing is the restoration of public memory of the events that have devastated so many lives and communities, and the establishment of a formally-acknowledged collective truth about the past in which to frame discussions about the future.
The root of the word memory is "memor", meaning "mind". To remember is to be mindful of everything - not merely of the past as past, but the past as present, and as the tale and the trail of the future. We refer to this as "remembering the future". Memory in this sense is the soul of action. To be an active citizen in the process of building a just and lasting peace means to be able to reveal the past, name the present, and define the future.
This is why there has been such emphasis in the last decade on commissions of truth, most famously in South Africa, but also in Latin American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and most recently in Peru. Similar processes will be required in building a just and lasting peace in Colombia. We cannot create the future without being "mindful" of the past. Unless we remember we cannot reconcile, and if we do not reconcile, we will not create a new future but repeat again and again a cruel past.
In our work, Inter Pares has emphasized processes of memory, truth and justice along with material support and protection to those who have been the victims of the violence. We have sponsored the return of refugees and displaced people to resettle the original communities where the violence was first experienced. We have assisted our counterparts to organize and support local communities in making effective representations to the various investigative commissions about the crimes committed. We have supported discussion and learning through which people - particularly women - can begin the processes of private sharing and disclosure that are necessary before their living memory can be brought to the public sphere to influence national debates. And we have promoted and supported initiatives such as leadership schools and municipal roundtables that can assist newly empowered people to begin to move past memory and healing to build their communities anew - economically and politically - on a foundation of trust, transparency, collaboration and common cause.
It is through this work, and this experience, that peace is built. Inter Pares is committed to accompanying our counterparts in this process of peacebuilding to its completion.
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Inter Pares works overseas and in Canada in support of self-help development groups, and in the promotion of understanding about the causes, effects and solutions to under-development and poverty.
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