Uruguay will attempt a new approach to human rights and disappeared persons, an ongoing legacy of the military dictatorship; it will replace “truth and justice” with “truth and memory,” along the lines of the South African experience. 

The Attorney General’s office says the 43 normalistas in Iguala, Guerrero were killed and then their bodies were incinerated.  Yet the parents of the victims reject the official version, and say that they will not allow the government to close the investigation.  The parents, by the way, are now in dire financial straits.  President Enrique

Reintegrating FARC fighters could cost $1.1 billion dollars, according to Colombia’s comptroller; Colombians wonder what the true role of victims in the end of the conflict should be; and there are growing suspicions that the “post-conflict” may be more complex than the conflict.

Leaders of MS-13 and Barrio 18 have ordered a reduction of murders in El Salvador and a study projects that by 2019, 42,000 young people between 12 and 19 years will have been murdered in Brazil. Experts say impunity and lack of opportunities are among the main reasons.

While the FARC delegation in Havana warned that the “military siege” against FARC units could terminate the unilateral ceasefire that the FARC declared at the end of 2014, a former ELN guerrilla leader declared the peace process in Colombia “irreversible.” 

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, in jail for human rights abuses, was given an additional eight-year prison sentence for siphoning public funds to help finance his re-election in 2000. 

Peasant groups in Chiapas accuse a mayor of using paramilitaries against them, former “rural police” self-defense groups in Michoacán clash with Federal Police, while indigenous groups in Oaxaca form their own self-defense groups, and the parents of the missing “normalistas” are met by security forces with tear gas. 

Luciano Hazán, coordinator of the Truth and Justice Program, highlighted progress in the prosecution of crimes against humanity during the dictatorship, and outlined the major problems facing the leaders of all political parties.  He also thinks they should explain their positions on human rights. 

Mexicans believe that their society has been “kidnapped by violence,” because of the horrific number of disappeared and murdered. 

The president of the Argentine human rights organization CELS spoke at the Organization of American States on the compatibility of both finding the truth about past dirty wars and achieving justice.