Abstract

In the last two decades, through the very persistent efforts of nongovernmental organizations for human rights, the expectation of economic, social, and cultural rights has become hard law, constitutionally recognized, in a number of Latin American nations. However, economic, social, and cultural rights have only been rubber-stamped and not actively recognized as human rights in Guatemala and Peru. There has been consistent resistance to the reconstruction of these nations’ recent political histories of massacres, torture, genocide, and racial discrimination. The 1999 Guatemalan Truth Commission for Historical Clarification’s report was entitled “Memory of Silence,” a poignant title, expressing the Indigenous lack of voice. Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s monument included a representation of the Indigenous Goddess, Pachamama, entitled “The Eye That Cries.” Reactions to both Truth Commissions and the Peruvian monument have hardened the old colonial line, raising once again the political architecture and narratives of “Dos Demonios” in Guatemala and Peru.