Fernando Andrade

LAS150
Dr. Elizabeth Oglesby
4/9/2015

Essay Draft
TRUTH: What is a Truth Commission and what is its purpose? Commissions
created during periods of political transition to investigate human rights crimes of
the past (Oglesby). Basically what the truth commission does is, they bring cases
that were not closed in the past or they re-open cases to try and find the truth and
bring justice to the people. It also keeps track of the human rights violations.
What are some of the limitations of a Truth Commission? Some limitations a
truth commission have, are that the findings sometimes cannot be used in trial
because of the complication of the case and cant really trust in the records. Like in
the case of Rios Montt.

JUSTICE: What are the arguments for and against justice (trials and
prosecution of human rights cases) as a path toward reconciliation? In
order to have restoration of friendly relations with the people of the country there
needs to be JUSTICE. Like in the case of Argentina, people were afraid of their own
government for a while, because it was too unpredictable and you could become a
desaparecido for no valid reasons. There needs to be justice in each country in
order for the people living in it can live in peace.

FORGIVENESS: Many people, advocate forgiveness as the path to

reconciliation. What are the pros and cons of this argument? The pros I see
advocating forgiveness as a path to reconciliation are that people will see what is
happening and there will be a better relationship with the government. Some cons
of advocating forgiveness as the path to reconciliation can be that some of this
people dont deserve forgiveness for the things they have done and the people
dont want them to be forgiven so this can cause some serious issues against the
government.

What sort of REFORMS might prevent this history of political violence from
happening again? The sort of reforms the government needs to actually change
and prevent this political violence from happening again, would be to be harsher
and bring more justice. If they want to prevent and improve the situation in their
country

I will pick a case study from Guatemala and the other one from Argentina, because I think both
cases were very similar, having the government in total control and too many deaths came out of
both countries.