The Comité of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (Cofadeh) has produced the documentary “A story in 6 parts”, a project for the construction of historical memory on the disappearances in the Central American country since the decade of the 80 of the last century.
The documentary, produced in coordination with the Enrique Ponce Garay Cinematheque, of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (Unah), will be presented this Wednesday in a Tegucigalpa movie theater.
“We conceived the purpose of this documentary because it is necessary to record from the time we were born, to the present, in a document and within the framework of the 40 years of Cofadeh,” the institution’s coordinator told Efe. Human rights defender, Bertha Oliva.
Recovery of historical memory
added Cofadeh has wanted to deliver to the Honduran society that has accompanied them for four decades, through a documentary, a historical memory of everything that the institution has been doing in favor of life.
“We have always believed that it is essential, that every ten years, at least, it is good to look back, because we believe in the recovery of memory. It is very elementary to bring it to the present, see how we are and so on. to be able to define the future”, he stressed. Oliva, who was the wife of Tomás Nativí, a union leader who disappeared in the early 1980s.
In that decade, nearly 200 people, including nationals and foreigners, were disappeared in Honduras as part of a State policy of national security, without justice having been done until now, nor is more information known about the majority of the disappeared.
Oliva indicated that Cofadeh’s commitment continues to be for “a Honduras free of impunity and the cessation of the different forms and methodologies of violating human rights, as generated by the law.” in the 1980s within the framework of the national security doctrine”.
“We cannot forget that, we believe that there is a debt with the Honduran family, with the country, that the State has contracted, and that at any moment it must try to settle it. And the process to settle it is by assuming responsibility for what they did or for what was done on behalf of the State,” he said.
Cofadeh promotes the generation of public policies and initiatives of law in the framework of the search for the truth, as a universal right.
Oliva said that disappearances and human rights violations cannot be allowed to go into oblivion, because they are convinced that “the issue of forgetting and erasing is a project of the guilty, which always was and continues to be”.
In his opinion, instead of seeking the truth, there has been a strategy to hide it, as was intended. with the disappeared detainees in Honduras.
“They thought that by disappearing them their ideals would disappear, that they would disappear from the collective imagination, but as time goes by one realizes, as is reflected now, that those who designed that policy and put it into practice lost the battle”, expressed the head of Cofadeh.
He added that “this is one of the biggest defeats they have had, that the disappeared continue to live on the continent, in Honduras, in Central America and in the world.”
A stop to human rights violations
The documentary reflects, in parts, the four decades of incessant struggle, permanent claim and justice for forced disappearances in Honduras in the last 40 years that has come and will continue. doing the Cofaded “in favor of life, justice and freedom”.
“We can’t change our claim claims, because the claim remains intact, they haven’t told us who the culprits are, they haven’t told us, worse yet, to be sure where the bodies of our beloved ones. We started the search for the practice of forced disappearance, which is an act that must be condemned and can be condemned at any time,” he said. Oliva.
He also said that the repetition of events, such as forced disappearances, is what destroys attempts at democracy in towns, and that is why they have chosen to document it to see if it exists. the possibility of erasing and breaking the chains of impunity in Honduras.
Oliva believes that when fighting for a cause, it should be “embraced body and soul, even though we are aware that life demanding justice and freedom.”
“We are not inventing anything, it is true, that is what makes you overcome fear, fears. And it is not that we are brave, or provocative, or that we treasure hatred, we treasure love, hope and knowledge, and at no time in history do we want to be accomplices in this project of death that was generated by the war. and that we must put a stop to it in these new times”, he added.