Encounters with History: Dealing with the 'Present Past' in Guatemala

Abstract

During the past decade the truth commission has risen to prominence as a key instrument of transitional justice. In this article, the Guatemalan "Commission for Historical Clarification" (CEH) and the Catholic "Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory" (REMHI) are taken as examples in demonstrating the limitations as well as the benefits of this political instrument that customarily must serve a variety of aims. The importance of the official CEH must be seen within the context of its support for the fragile peace and reform process. Moreover, the CEH presented a historical narrative corresponding to the concomitant need for a multicultural national project. Threatened by still existing local structures of repression, REMHI used methods aimed at facilitating a social process of memory work with a fairly longterm perspective. The influence that CEH and REMHI had or could have had on communicative and cultural memory is described, and the politics of reparation and persistent structures of impunity are dealt with as well.