Reconciliation needs truth and justice.
This essay first appeared in El Faro English with the title New Fronts in the Battle over History in El Salvador on March 5, 2020. By Nelson Rauda Zablah In the first week of March, experts from the Attorney General’s office will resume digging a trench in the middle of the campus of the University of El Salvador—the largest and only public university of the country—searching for the bodies of students who were assassinated in the beginning of the war. The Salvadoran Civil War (which was fought from 1980 to 1992 and resulted in the death of 75,000 people and the displacement of around 750,000) ended almost three decades ago, but its legacy still reverberates throughout the country. Its memory, despite the best efforts of some of the most powerful war criminals, is still very much alive. During the last week of February, a PhD candidate asked me if El Salvador is “a reconciled country”—if it has come to terms with its past. It was a peculiar week to ask that question, but a...