Guatemala
With 15,806,675 inhabitants, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America. It was in a state of civil war from 1960 to 1996. During the long conflict, regime forces confronted a variety of left-wing rebel groups.
According to the 1999 report, “Guatemala: Memory and Silence” UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) up to 200,000 people died during the war. The report cites a figure of more than 6,000 disappeared.
A report issued in 1998 by the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala (ODHAG) attributed almost 90 percent of the atrocities and more than 400 massacres to the Guatemalan army (and paramilitary), and less than 5 percent to the guerrillas (including 16 massacres). A more recent report by the Catholic Church, Project to Recover Historical Memory (REMHI), adjusts this proportion slightly, attributing just under 80 percent of cases to the Army and just under 10 percent to the guerrillas.
The UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) stated in its 1999 report that the state was responsible for 93 percent of human rights violations committed during the war, the guerrillas for 3 percent. The report found that violence peaked in 1982; 83 percent of victims were Maya; and both sides used terror as a deliberate policy.
Although a National Reconciliation Law, which raises the prospect of amnesty for “political crimes” committed on all sides during the conflict, has not led to wholesale impunity, an under-resourced judicial system, and a continuing climate of intimidation have made it difficult for victims of political violence and relatives of the missing to secure justice through the courts.
- In 2009, Felipe Cusanero, a former military officer, was convicted in a Guatemala court of responsibility for the disappearance of six peasant farmers and sentenced to 150 years in prison. This was the first time a case had been brought successfully against anyone for disappearances during the civil war.
- In May 2013, the former general and president, Efraín Ríos Montt, was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity during his 1982-83 period in power, including the killing and disappearances of more than 1,400 indigenous Ixil Mayans His conviction was overturned by the Constitutional Court less than two weeks after sentencing and a new trial ordered. This retrial had not taken place by the time of Rios Montt’s death in 2018.
- In 1990 and 1991, groups of survivors began to report clandestine graves in their communities, most of which contained the bodies of Mayans massacred during the “scorched earth” policy pursued by the government in the early 1980s. The forensic services of the Guatemalan judiciary began to investigate some of these cases.
- In 1991, survivors’ groups contacted the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), leading to the establishment of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Team, today known as the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation. The same year, the Historical Clarification Commission, established in 1994 to investigate human rights violations as part of the peace process, asked the FAFG to conduct four field investigations in order to secure physical evidence to back up testimony it had gathered from survivors; this evidence was included in the Commission’s final report.
The FAFG endeavors to allow the relatives of the disappeared to recover the remains of their missing family members and to proceed with burials in accordance with their beliefs, and enable criminal prosecutions to be brought against perpetrators. It has carried out exhumations at approximately 1,650 gravesites, discovered the remains of more than 7,000 victims, helped identify missing family members, and provided crucial testimony in trials in Guatemala and Spain.
Another agency that has played an important role in addressing the missing persons issue in Guatemala is the Center of Forensic Analysis and Applied Sciences (CAFCA), an NGO engaged in the exhumation of bodies and forensic anthropological research involving legal and technical investigation. It also runs a social program, including aspects of mental health promotion and psychosocial support. CAFCA maintains active links with ODHAG and FAFG.
In May 2022, magistrate Miguel Ángel Gálvez ordered nine retired military and police officials to stand trial on charges including the illegal detention, torture, killing and forced disappearance of more than 195 people between 1983 and 1985. In November 2022, Gálvez announced his resignation and left Guatemala citing persecution and harassment.
