Preservation Efforts for Guatemalan Conflict Victims’ Records

Guatemala is rushing to safeguard around 60,000 testimonies documented in files of victims from the internal armed conflict that lasted from 1960 to 1996. These victims sought reparations for the human rights abuses they endured. The government, led by Bernardo Arévalo, aims to protect these records before his term ends in January 2028.

The records were gathered over a decade by the National Reparation Program (PNR). This program was started in 2003, following the 1996 Peace Accords that ended the war. Its purpose was to compensate victims both economically and through various projects. However, in the last eight years, under the administrations of former Presidents Jimmy Morales and Alejandro Giammattei, the program was halted, neglected, and ordered to dissolve without safeguarding the testimonies.

“Wet boxes, scattered, incomplete, and broken files.”

This is how the current state of the archive was described by Erick Briones, an archive assistant. Briones is part of a UNESCO-funded initiative to recover the PNR archive and potentially nominate it as a world documentary heritage. This archive is expected to serve as a public resource for those who wish to understand the country’s history from that tumultuous period.

The collection includes cases like that of Manuel Botom Uz, among over 100 records of missing children. His family recounts that in 1982, at four years old, Manuel disappeared. The testimony reveals how he and his four siblings, all minors, were attacked by the army and civil patrols in Quiché. While his siblings were returned to family members, Manuel’s whereabouts remained unknown until his body was found in a clandestine grave two decades later. After his exhumation, his family reburied him.

Elvin Díaz, the presidential commissioner for human rights, emphasized that the prior administrations wanted to erase the collective memory and destroy this valuable heritage built from victims’ testimonies. He stressed the importance of preserving these records to maintain the country’s living history.

Díaz added that although the PNR aimed at humanitarian aid and reparations, the records also contain critical information for criminal investigations.

Among blue plastic boxes categorized by department, thousands of testimonies narrate extrajudicial executions, murders, sexual abuses, forced disappearances, and recruitment of men, women, and children during the war between the army and guerrilla groups. According to historical records, this conflict resulted in 200,000 deaths and 45,000 disappearances.

The initiative plans to digitize the archive for global accessibility. Last month, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances visited Guatemala and noted a systematic dismantling policy of peace and justice institutions, primarily under Morales and Giammattei’s governments.

These records will be part of the Plan for the Reparation and Dignification of Victims of the Armed Conflict, announced last month by President Arévalo. This plan seeks to consolidate and centralize information dispersed across public institutions and civil society organizations to continue victim reparations. Additionally, unresolved cases of disappearances will be included in Guatemala’s Humanitarian Search Mechanism for disappeared persons during the armed conflict.