After the Peace Accords: Divergent Experiences of Remembering and Forgetting in El Salvador and Nicaragua

Drawing from previous research of the results of the 1990 and 1992 Peace Accords in Nicaragua and El Salvador respectively, this comparative analysis will focus on the aspects of “forgetting and remembering” in these two post-war countries. Nicaragua’s experience of demobilization and reconciliation, which occurred after the 1990 elections, marked a new course of history for the country. Lessons were learned from the Nicaraguan demobilization and civilian re-insertion of former combatants and some of those mistakes were avoided in the Salvador demobilization and reconciliation process two years later in 1992. This paper will analyze the manner in which Nicaragua and El Salvador remembers and memorializes (or not) their civil wars of the 1980s. It will investigate the role of the Truth Commission in the case of El Salvador, and the lack of a similar structure in Nicaragua. The paper will investigate the desire of many people in El Salvador to “keep the memories alive” and contrast that to the desire of most of the Nicaraguan former combatants to “put the past behind us and move forward.” The paper will also look at the public sites and spaces where memories are preservered using examples of the unkempt, incomplete “Peace Park” in Managua where over 150,000 weapons are buried and the majestic “Memory Wall” in Cuscatlán Park in San Salvador where the names of 60,000 dead and disappeared Salvadorans are engraved. Finally the paper will look as certain political aspects of preserving the memories of the conflicts of the 1980s. The position of the government of the United States, principal protagonists in much of the human rights abuses in Central America in the 1980s, has been one of forgive and forget. However things may be changing as indicated by the recent visit of President Obama to El Salvador and his historic visit to the tomb of Latin American martyr, Mons. Oscar Romero. And the very recent Spanish court indictment of 20 Salvadoran soldiers for their involvement in the murders and subsequent cover-up of six Jesuit priests in 1989. Those indicted are being accused of murder, terrorism and crimes against humanity