Guatemala to open military archives from civil war
Posted by: Jenny Penny in Americas, History, Human rights, Politics, War and militaryMilitary archives spanning nearly four decades of civil war in Guatemala will be opened to the public, the country’s President Alvaro Colom has announced.
Some 250,000 civilians were killed or disappeared in the 36-year conflict, which was ended in a1996 by a UN-sponsored peace agreement.
Mr Colom made Monday’s announcement from the balcony of the National Palace overlooking Guatemala’s Central Square. Demonstrators had gathered from all over the country to hear the news.
“We are going to make all of the army’s archives public so we can know the truth, to start building on a foundation of truth and justice,” Mr Colom told the hundreds-strong crowd.
This is a good initiative, but questions arise on if and how the evidence found in the archives will be used against serving or retired military officers (government forces were the main perpetrators in the conflict, that many label as genocide). In 2006, I listened to a lecture by Orlando Rodriguez from ODHAG (Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, the Guatemalan Archbishop’s Office for Human Rights). One of the things he said was that there is a “conflict over history” in Guatemala:
- There are people who don’t want to talk about what happened, that want it kept quiet. The state has not acknowledged its responsibility, and has not apologized to the victims. What happened needs to be discussed. We can’t build a new society based on a lie.
The whole article is here (in Swedish).
I hope that the opening of the archives can be the beginning of a true healing process in Guatemala, and that impunity for the perpetrators will be ended.
The Seminal has more here, and I had a link to Amnesty International about impunity in Guatemala in Friday food for thought a while ago.
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