Speeches
in the Signing of Agreements
Signing of the Cooperation Agreement with Canada
Acknowledgement Speech by TRC President
The tasks trusted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
are complex and multiple, but they can be summarized in one
essential mission, contributing to the establishment of a fair
and democratic order in our country, by acknowledging and overcoming
our great collective failures of the past, those that caused
the terrible years of violence that we have been called to
investigate.
In fact, hard and demanding work lies before us. It is also
an inescapable job. In some more days, once the internal organization
of our work concludes, the Commission will summon the whole
country and will ask it to listen to the testimony of the victims
of human rights abuse and to investigate the truth about violence
between 1980 and 2000, before which, we must recognize it,
the nation preferred to close the eyes and not denounce them,
punish them or stop them. Likewise, we shall invite society
to accompany us in a deep meditation of the reasons that made
all this possible. We will have made little progress towards
a better collective future if we limit ourselves to take note
of what happened those years. Beyond the important information
we collected, it will be fundamental to make a conscious examination
that will show us what we must change in our shared life so
we can make of it a space of peace and realization of people.
This will take us to reconciliation, the final goal of our
efforts, which will only be possible if perpetrators repent,
if the damages suffered by the victims are redressed and if
they really decide to pardon the offences received.
We Peruvians know that we are not alone before this critical
challenge of our national life, because we know of the good
will and generosity of the great democratic nations of the
world. The people and government of Canada can well be the
paradigm of this commitment attitude with the promotion and
defense of democracy around the world. It is not surprising
then, that through its embassy in Lima, this great nation has
been one of the first to offer its support to the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
Already during the first weeks, once the Commission was installed,
we received from the Canadian government a spontaneous offering
of logistic support, which was invaluable for our first steps.
Now, through the agreement we signed, the government of Canada
will expand this collaboration to financing several Commission
activities mainly related with a priority need: establishing
a fluid and intense communication with Peruvian society so
that Peruvians are appropriately and permanently informed about
our mission and objectives and about the progress of our work.
Canada’s government’s financial cooperation will
permit, indeed, to afford a significant portion of our public
information campaign through advertisements and through the
creation of a web page in the Internet. Through this means,
and others we will soon put into practice, we wish to make
this investigation and reflection process we are about to start
to become a truly collective activity.
This is of fundamental importance, because our work will only
give beneficial results to Peruvian society if it adopts our
work as a duty of its own.
The truth we will expose, did not relate solely to facts,
but also to factors that caused them. They must be assumed
as the fruit of introspection made act by all Peruvians. We
must all then be imbued of the moral purposes that drive this
Commission and feel committed with the task of amending the
great failures of our society and be ready to look at the victims
with compassionate and, most of all, respectful eyes.
Thanks to the government of Canada, represented by its ambassador
in Lima, his Excellency Mr.…, we will be able to attend
that necessary fluid, timely and permanent communication. The
Truth Commission expresses its acknowledgement to this exemplary
nation, a constant and sure friend of our democratic illusions.
Salomon Lerner Febres
President
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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