Una memoria, un testimonio: Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco, el mecenas

Abstract

The book is one of the dimensions 01 Alfredo Pareja that are seldom addressed: the human side of a diplomat, a teacher overseas, as a member 01 the Guayaquil Group. It primarily recounts the birth 01 a key space for the recuperation of collective memory: the Historical Archive and the specialized library of the Ecuadorian Foreign Relations Ministry. Starting in 1981, Pareja worked for three years in a small office, created reference cards for the manuscripts, scroles and other documents sto red there; he saw this as absolutely necessary for the rescuing and reconstruction of the nation's history. From this and other sources-colonial and from the 19th Century, that until then had been unknown or interpreted according to the whim of various Ecuadorian territorialists. Pareja proposed a new interpretation of the border conflicts with Perú, and clamored for a peaee treaty; this implied accepting the Río Protocols, which made him the target of many an attack, but in the end was the option finally taken. The «Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco» Historical Archive was inaugurated in July of 1996.