Memory and Peace: The Beginning and End of a Society

The attacks carried out by armed insurgent groups against National Police stations and the personnel of that institution were and remain a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, as well as of domestic law, given that they directly affect the civilian population’s lives, honor, and property; hindering the police’s ability to carry out its duties in the areas of law enforcement, community policing, education, and social service for the benefit of the community. Peace processes, in one way or another, create scenarios that offer opportunities to redress or redefine the lives of individuals or many people; therefore, it is the victims and the perpetrators who must recount these memories and, in doing so, seek to remedy or minimize the pain that violence has caused in various ways in a society as enthusiastic, hardworking, and enterprising as Colombia’s.