“The objective of memory is to highlight both the struggle of the dead and the nature of the powers that silenced them.”
—Luis Carlos Restrepo [1]
In Colombia, the NUNCA MAS project is a labor of individuals committed to seeing truth and justice prevail. 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. Indeed, for many Latin Americans, the phrase Nunca Más—Never Again—implies much more than an institution, a report or a document. It is a common reference point that embodies our collective indignation over the state terrorism that has destroyed so many lives.
The NUNCA MAS project is a collaborative effort of 19 Colombian human rights groups. 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. The most serious infractions of international law involve extrajudicial execution, forced disappearance and torture. 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. This is more than a juridical problem. It is also a social one with grave political and cultural implications. Impunity leaves citizens unprotected because it legitimizes crime—which destroys the basis of civilized coexistence. Impunity sends society the message that conflict cannot be resolved democratically. It creates a deformed sense of history, as truth is replaced by amnesia in the face of terror. 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.
Memory has a collective dimension: It incorporates values and remembrances that edify or illustrate past events. Such reconstructions of the past are necessary if we are to live in the present and build the future. But the construction of memory is not univocal: It involves a struggle over the meaning of the past, a dispute among social actors over the content of values and tradition.[2] Recovering memory about human rights violations implies a struggle to vindicate the supreme values of life and human dignity, so that such crimes are not repeated. With the NUNCA MAS project, the Colombian human rights movement is taking up this challenge in favor of memory and against forgetting.
The project has three elements. First is the collection of information about human rights violations committed in the 33 years between 1966 and 1998. 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. 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. 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. Finally, the project seeks to create a social movement against impunity for human rights crimes in Colombia. 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.
Several ethical and political criteria guide the NUNCA MAS project’s work. First is historical truth. We need knowledge about several aspects of the human rights crimes committed in Colombia. 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.
We also need to know the underlying political, economic and social reasons for these crimes. 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. 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 any, that were imposed. If the peace process does not address these issues, we believe it is our ethical and political duty to demand that they be taken up by a truth commission.
Second is the question of the right to justice. The Colombian state is committed to upholding international human rights treaties and conventions to which it is signatory. Therefore, all war criminals—from planners to perpetrators—should be brought to trial and punished accordingly. 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.
We believe that no one can represent the victims except the victims themselves. So we support the initiative of victims’ organizations to convoke a National Assembly of Victims of Political Violence. 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 actors—thus excluding victims, their families, and civic organizations. We also insist on transparency in the peace process. 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.
Finally, we maintain that the state is obligated to prevent war crimes; to guarantee the lives, honor, property and beliefs of all people residing in Colombia; and to ensure civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. When violations do occur, the state must investigate and punish the perpetrators. 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 state must also recognize the legitimacy of social and human rights organizations and guarantee their right to do their work.
NUNCA MAS is an effort to build a future based on justice, not impunity; truth, not silence; remembrance, not forgetting. It is our hope and belief that through this project we can help contribute to understanding the violence—an essential precondition for overcoming it. By naming the violence for what it is, we can shed light on what has been until now a long, dark night of terror.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This excerpt from the document, ” ‘NUNCA MAS’: Memoria de los crímenes de lesa humanidad en Colombia,” was translated from the Spanish by NACLA and reprinted with the permission of the NUNCA MAS Project Secretariat in Bogotá.
NOTES
1. Luis Carlos Restrepo, “Memoria o la imposible posesión” in Jaime Córdoba Triviño et. al., eds. La memoria frente a los crímenes de lesa humanidad (Bogotá: Fundación Manuel Cepeda Vargas, N.D.), p. 35.
2. Elizabeth Jelín and Pablo Azcárate, “Memoria y política: Movimiento de derechos humanos y construcción democrática” (Buenos Aires: CEDES, 1991), Mimeograph, p. 8.
