Truth commissions and the construction of collective memory: the Chile experience

Finding facts and constructing memory: the creation and custody of human rights records in South America

“…40,No. 3 In Peru, a truth commission was established in 2001, with the purpose of elucidating the process, facts and responsibilities related to terrorist violence and human rights violations between 1980 and 2000.…”

“…40,No. 3 archives, and they should be treated as archives (as opposed to documentary centres), respecting their context, provenance and original order -characteristics in which resides their capacity to serve as evidence.…”

“…As a final result, 2279 cases of human rights violations were identified and documented, a series of recommendations on institutional reform were elaborated on and a reparations program for the victims and their families was designed. 40 The work of the CNVR was continued by the National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation (Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación or CNRR), which was created in 1992 -a body that was also responsible for the custody of the Commission's records. 41 In 2003, a new truth commission was created: the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture (Comisión Asesora para la Calificación de Detenidos Desaparecidos, Ejecutados Políticos y Víctimas de Prisión Política y Tortura), also known as the Valech Commission.…”

Editors' Note: Special Section on Archival Education and Human Rights

“…This article added to an ongoing conversation in archival education regarding the ethical imperative of faculty to engage students with culturally sensitive curricula and to promote a social justice agenda in and outside the classroom. At the same time, a growing body of archival studies literature has addressed the intersection of archives and human rights, interrogating the role of records and recordkeeping institutions in both facilitating human rights violations and holding oppressive regimes legally and historically accountable for such violations (Blanco-Rivera, 2009;Caswell, 2010;Harris, 2002Harris, , 2011Jimerson, 2010). This special section of InterActions brings together these two streams of archival thought in order to explicate the increasing importance placed on human rights and social justice in archival education.…”

Silenced genocide voices in Zimbabwe’s archives: Drawing lessons from Rwanda’s post-genocide archives and documentation initiatives

“…Archives are the lifeblood of justice and the safeguarding of human rights. To Blanco-Rivera (2009) war crimes tribunals and truth commissions increasingly employ archives as key instruments in human rights and social justice efforts. Moreover, without credibly and authoritatively establishing the facts of what happened, efforts to memorialize and commemorate genocides can tell the story in ways that are partial, subjective, and politically motivated (Cook, 2000).…”