Rubén Chababo

“Compared to other countries in our region only the right wing part of the wide public and the catholic church offered the idea of reconciliation. From the very beginning of their movement human right activists were asking truth and justice from us as they guessed that proponents of the idea of reconciliation target only and only to pardon and forgetfulness done by crime; and it has to be said that the later development confirmed their assumption. Personally I believe that we have to accept not the perpetrator, but our own history, with our painful past; but for this to happen it is first necessary that the truth and justice come out. The idea of reconciliation cannot be accepted, if it is not preceded by recognition of the damages that the society suffered.”

“In Argentina, compared to Guatemala or Salvador, the repressive apparatus had an effect on the members of working class unions, organised by students, the middle class, intellectuals, which are just the groups, which have the power to raise their voices and get attention. In Argentina each lawyer, judge, architect, engineer, psychologist, pedagogue and doctor at least one friend, who suffered directly from repression, and these institutions of these professional groups alone were managed, destroyed and enslaved by the dictatorship. In other words, violence concentrated mainly at those parts of society, which can address their rights, and I believe that this fact was the main reason for the historical experience from the break of the 1970s and 1980s was not forgotten following the renewal of democracy. I don’t mean that is the only reason; but it is one of more variable we have to consider, if we wish to understand why memory obtained such importance in a social dialogue.”