Key facts
- Guatemala is working to preserve 60,000 case files detailing abuses during its 1960-1996 armed conflict.
- The testimonies include accounts of extrajudicial executions, murders, sexual abuse, forced disappearances, and forced recruitment.
- Previous administrations neglected and attempted to dismantle the National Reparations Program that collected these testimonies.
- President Bernardo Arévalo is prioritizing the recovery and digitization of these archives.
- The project aims to protect the archive and make it accessible for historical and potential criminal investigation purposes.
Guatemala is undertaking an urgent effort to preserve approximately 60,000 case files containing testimony from victims of the country's internal armed conflict (1960-1996). The initiative aims to safeguard these historical records before President Bernardo Arévalo's term concludes in January 2028.
The files were originally collected over a decade by the National Reparations Program (PNR), established in 2003 following the 1996 peace accords to provide reparations to victims. However, during the administrations of former Presidents Jimmy Morales (2016-2020) and Alejandro Giammattei (2020-2024), the program was reportedly neglected, abandoned, and ordered for liquidation without ensuring the protection of the collected testimonies.
Workers involved in the current salvage project have described finding the files in poor condition, with descriptions like "damp boxes, piled up, incomplete, broken files." This effort is part of a UNESCO-funded initiative to recover the PNR archive, with the future goal of designating it as world documentary heritage to ensure its preservation and accessibility.
Among the cases documented is that of Manuel Botom Uz, who disappeared at the age of four in 1982. His family reported that he and his siblings were attacked by army members and civil self-defense patrollers. While his siblings were handed over to relatives, Manuel disappeared. His body was later identified in a clandestine grave twenty years after his disappearance.
Elvin Díaz, presidential commissioner of Human Rights, stated that the previous governments "intended to erase collective memory, destroy a heritage built over many years based on victims' testimonies." He emphasized the importance of recovering and safeguarding this memory for the country's living history. Díaz also noted that the PNR's original focus was humanitarian aid and reparations, but the collected information is also relevant for criminal investigations.
The testimonies detail atrocities such as extrajudicial executions, murders, sexual abuse, forced disappearances, and forced recruitment of men, women, and children. The conflict is estimated to have resulted in 200,000 deaths and 45,000 disappearances.
The project plans to digitize the archive for universal access. The recovered files will be incorporated into President Arévalo's recently announced Plan for Reparation and Dignification of Victims of the Armed Conflict. This plan aims to centralize information from various public institutions and civil society organizations to continue victim reparations and include cases of disappearance in the Humanitarian Search Mechanism for those missing during the internal armed conflict.