This chapter compares and contrasts experiences of “memory politics” in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the three Central American countries which during the 1990s undertook official processes of investigating past abuses of human rights, and examines the examines the role exercises in memory have played in the struggle for democratization. In marked contrast to the Southern Cone of Latin America, the transition to procedural democracy in these three Central American countries roughly coincided with the worst period of human rights abuse, the consolidation of military power over the state and civil society, and the demobilization of opposition movements. It is therefore argued here that effective democratic consolidation hinges less on the constitution of formal procedural channels for participation and representation, and more crucially on the effective and far-reaching demilitarization of state and society. This involves securing both formal changes to state institutions and the creation of a democratic political culture of citizenship. Exercises in memory have constituted a critical variable in these distended and complex processes.
(2001) “The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in Central America,” in Alexandra de Brito, Carmen González and Paloma Aguilar (eds.), The Politics of Memory and Democratization, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York: 161-89. ISBN: 0-19-924090-6