La Comisión de la Verdad en Colombia (2018-2022): entre regímenes testimoniales y contraforenses en la construcción de dispositivos de esclarecimiento de la verdad y responsabilidad

Abstract

The Truth Commission for the Clarification, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition, created in Colombia after the signing of the Peace Agreements between the national government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2016, has promoted the use and development of new research methodologies and techniques to elaborate on and expose narratives about the armed conflict, its causes, and consequences. For example, for the exhibition «Traces of Disappearance» featuring the cases of Urabá, Palace of Justice, and Nukak territory (2021-2022), the Commission established an alliance with Forensic Architecture. They combined geographic information systems, video game software, and data mining with spatial and architectural reconstructions based on judicial files and testimonies of victims and perpetrators to clarify and communicate how violent events occurred, and establish what they call «forensic truths». This implied a partial decentering of the testimony of the survivors or the perpetrators as the only means of accessing the truth of facts. Instead, other techniques and devices were used in this exhibition to clarify and communicate what happened. Based on this experience and the publication of the final transmedia report, launched by the Commission in August 2022, this article studies the way in which these emerging forms of truth production have been configured and their ability or inability to propose other models of truth and accountability associated with the production of evidence. This new model of truth makes it possible to account for structural forms of violence and capital accumulation in contexts of human rights violations.

Keywords

• Colombia
• truth commission
• counter-forensic investigation
• Big Data
• transmedia