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Caribbean & Central America - August 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Steps forward and back as Guatemala addresses civil war past

There have been some recent milestones, vis-à-vis the pledge by centre-left President Alvaro Colom to redress past impunity in relation to the 1960-1996 civil war that left more than 200,000 people dead and saw the State (chiefly the military) accused of 93% of human rights violations committed. These include: the first ever conviction of former soldiers for a massacre; the arrests of the highest-ranking military official to date, on charges of genocide, and of the suspected mastermind of the emblematic 1980 Spanish embassy attack; and the launch of a new centre providing unprecedented public access to the country’s military archives. These developments are significant when comparing Guatemala’s efforts with those of Southern Cone countries which, bar Argentina which convicted top military officials in the 1985 Trial of the Juntas, only began acting in 2010, nearly 30 years after the region’s return to democracy. Yet human rights groups fear this renewed push for “justice” – which the right-wing Partido Patriota (PP) of ex General Otto Pérez Molina, a former chief of military intelligence and the frontrunner ahead of the 11 September presidential vote, complain is electorally motivated – could founder if Pérez Molina wins the presidency.

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