ABSTRACT
Benjamin's work highlights the dialectical relationship between the past and the present by assuming that a critical consciousness does not come from the great monuments of history erected by the victors but from the ruins and fragments that have remained buried and hidden. This chapter presents the results of the first phase of field research which involved accompanying relatives of the disappeared in citizen-led searches. Such an approach embraces the possibility of producing a counter-memory to the amnesia produced by terror. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognises the right to truth so that families of the victims of enforced disappearances can know the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones. The General Law of Victims outlines the truth as a process of reconciliation and prevention of future violent episodes as much as the rebuilding of the lives of affected individuals, family members and groups.
