Resource Library

In a conversation dedicated to the International Day of the Disappeared, Eduardo Gonzalez, director of ICTJ’s Truth and Memory Program talks to Jose Pablo Baraybar, director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team. Gonzalez and Baraybar explore why it is crucial for societies in transition to address the issue of the disappeared, the tension between demands of conventional justice and the right to truth, and the need for a strategy in searching for the disappeared.

ICTJ applauds Brazil’s momentous step toward the creation of a truth commission and notes opportunities to ensure its success. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved on Wednesday a bill creating the National Truth Commission to establish the facts and responsibilities about crimes committed under the country’s military regime.

As part of an ongoing partnership between ICTJ’s Children and Youth Program and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada, youth from throughout Canada attended the third national TRC hearings to document the work of the commission. This weekend they are attending a retreat to finalize their radio segments and short films to raise awareness about what they have learned.

ICTJ spoke with Pablo Parenti about the trial that just concluded which investigated human rights violations and crimes against humanity that occurred at the Naval Mechanics School (ESMA), used as a detention and torture center during the Argentine dictatorship.

ICTJ and the Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation of Colombia are organizing an event on Memory: Public Policy for Transformation. Dialogue at the conference will serve as the basis for providing recommendations to the process of creating the Center for Historical Memory and designing public memory policy in the country.

ICTJ interview with Pablo Parenti, of the Attorney General’s Unit for coordination and monitoring cases involving violations of human rights during the Argentine dictatorship.

Brazil’s recent decision to examine the abuses of the military dictatorship from several decades ago could change the face of democracy at home, making it more genuine and transparent. At the same time it could have a wider impact, allowing Brazil to take a decisive stand on human rights regionally and internationally.

The civil war in El Salvador officially ended 20 years ago, yet justice and accountability for past violations remain acutely absent. To launch a Spanish language podcast series focusing on Latin America ICTJ spoke with Carlos Dada, editor of the digital newspaper El Faro, about the critical role the media has played in uncovering the truth about past atrocities in El Salvador.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its interim report and a new historical publication titled They Came for the Children in Vancouver today. The TRC was established in 2008 to examine and make public the truth about Canada’s former Indian Residential Schools, a system designed to forcibly assimilate aboriginal children. From 1874 to 1996 more than 150,000 children were taken from their families and placed in church-run schools. They were prohibited from speaking their native languages and practicing cultural traditions, and physical, sexual, and emotional violence was commonplace.

In a simple house made of wood and straw and smelling of earth, women, girls, and the occasional man narrate, sometimes laughing and other times crying, the stories of how their life used to be before being forcibly displaced to San Juan Nepomuceno. This is one of the many local memory initiatives taking place throughout Colombia today.