Edelberto Torres Rivas..pdf

Edelberto Torres Rivas, a renowned sociologist and researcher, was interviewed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Interpeace, which began as the War-Torn Societies Project (WSP) in Guatemala in 1997. The WSP aimed to help the international community and national actors understand and respond to the complex challenges faced by a society emerging from war. Torres Rivas, who was appointed director of the project, reflected on the context in which the WSP was born, following the signing of the Accord to Establish a Firm and Lasting Peace between the Government of Guatemala and the National Revolutionary Union of Guatemala (URNG) in 1996, ending a three-decade long armed struggle that left 200,000 dead, 45,000 disappeared, and over one million displaced persons. The project's objective was to create analytical and operative capacities to document experiences in peace building, analyze them through participatory research, and extract lessons to facilitate dialogue among internal and external actors. Torres Rivas emphasized the importance of constructing confidence in the country, which had been weakened by 35 years of war, and the need for significantly greater efforts of reconstruction than those required for material reconstruction.