Memories, histories and city

Abstract

This article relates to topics of memory and victims’ reparation in armed conflicts. It supports the idea that amnesty and pardon to the victimizers are necessary in any peace process or agreement, but they must provide opportunities for the reconstruction of a collective memory that gives the victims of violence the possibility to find sense and an explanation for their drama. The author makes reference to the singularity of the colombian conflict and the experience of Medellín, a city that has implemented agreements of demobilization and submission to justice that have given great importance to the pacts of forgive and forget but have ignored the memory of the victims and the reconstruction of “their” truth. The article also questions the actual possibility of implementing processes with a high dose of memory and truth for the victims, and ends by claiming that the starting point to build the memory and the history of the city must be based on the truth, and that the creation of “policies of memory” must be a joint responsibility between the State and the society.