Public memorialization in perspective: Truth, justice and memory of past repression in the Southern Cone of South America

D. ORENTLICHER, C. BELL, C O'ROURKE, C. LEKHA, A. ROSS, K. THEIDON, E. BAINES, E. COLE, E. JELIN, Y. CHHANG, N. NADERY

International Journal of Transitional Justice

Oxford University Press

Año: 2007 vol. 1 p. 138 - 156

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:70.85pt 85.05pt 70.85pt 85.05pt; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> The end of dictatorial regimes and State-sponsored political repression involves a multi-layered process of transition. It entails the development and implementation of a democratic institutional apparatus, yet at the same time it has to find ways to deal with past crimes and state repression. Settling accounts with the past becomes a significant task, converging with the need to build a different future. This paper deals with one specific arena of the process of settling accounts with the past, namely the struggles about memories and meanings, as reflected in the processes involved in public memorialization. This paper selects three areas where practices and policies of memorialization are at stake: dates of commemorations, territorial markers and archives. Based on research about the recent experience of the countries coming out of periods of political violence, state terrorism and political repression in the Southern Cone of South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay), it analyzes the constant interaction between state and societal actors in the struggles for understanding and interpreting past violence and repression. The paper attempts to make two basic points: first, that policies of memorialization are part of a larger arena of transitional politics and cannot be seen independently. By showing how these processes develop in various institutional, symbolic and subjective levels, it becomes clear that the demands for public memorialization are always part and parcel of the demands for ?Truth? and ?Justice?. Second, that there is no state and society ?division of labor? involved, in the sense that institutional justice is in the hands of the state and symbolic memory in the hands of society. Rather, in all the arenas where ?settling accounts with the past? is at issue, both state actors and societal forces come into play