Policy Memory in Colombia. Historical Narrative of the National Historical Memory Center

Societies that make the transition from conflict to peace need to seek truth, justice, and reparation concerning massive and systematic violations of human rights. Thus truth, history, and historical memory are understood as central to reconciliation and play a key role in fulfilling the national and international obligations of the state. Historical Memory in Colombia started before the sign of the peace agreements as an official initiative of the State among other non-jurisdictional mechanisms to satisfy the requirements of truth of the victims of the Colombian conflict. One important dimension of the study of the politics of memory requires paying attention to the narrative practices by which past injustices are given collective meaning. This paper analyses the historical narrative provided by the National Centre of Historical Memory through a documental analysis of the academic and informative production of the Center itself. We find that both the selection of oral testimonies and the events analyzed by this institution present the history of the conflict in Colombia as a kind of memory of persecution and resistance of those who suffered, but also faced and resisted the violence of paramilitaries and armed groups, with the connivance or the omissions- of members of the Armed Forces.