Abstract

In the morning of November 6th in 1985, during an impasse in negotiations with the government of President Belisario Betancur, M-19 guerrillas seized the Palace of Justice and held the entire Colombian Supreme Court hostage. The Army responded by destroying the building. More than a hundred people were killed, as well as eleven civilians- the cafeteria staff and some occasional visitors- who were made to disappear. What is puzzling is that these civilians were safely escorted outside the Palace of Justice, but perhaps because they were witnesses to what had gone on inside, they were made to disappear. The families of these people have struggled for over 25 years to find their loved ones. During a five month period in 2008 I studied the way in which some Colombians remembered or forgot this traumatic event that touched and changed their lives. It was through the use of methods such as interviews, focus groups, participant observation, walkabouts, visits to exhibitions related to forced disappearances and a course I took on "Violence, Memory and History" that I came to know their memories and stories and to understand their struggles for truth and justice. Furthermore, to guide my understanding I drew upon theories that highlighted the importance of memory in societies were social trauma occurred, societies in transition from repression to democracy. An extensive interdisciplinary study by Elizabeth Jelin, theories by Mario Amoros, Jorge Mendoza Garcia and Reyes Mata among others, guided this study. I was able to share in the continuous search process which is followed by the families of the disappeared. A search for truth and justice. However, and most importantly, the families struggle to develop ways to keep from forgetting, they share their stories with those who want to listen, and keep courageously trying to remember what cannot be forgotten.