The Guatemala Project

35+ Years of Freedom of Information Action

About this Project

The National Security Archive launched the Guatemala Documentation Project in 1994, after peace negotiators seeking to end Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict agreed to establish a truth commission. The project's first objective was to support the human rights investigations of the UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission by forcing the declassification and release of secret U.S. government files on decades of repression and state violence in Guatemala.

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Blog Posts

Why Does Sen. Rubio Want to Stop U.S. Funding for Crime-Fighting Commission in Guatemala?

Jun 5, 2018

Exemption 5 Can’t Go International: FRINFORMSUM 3/30/2017

Mar 30, 2017

New Identification of Guatemala’s Disappeared

Dec 13, 2016

The New York Times Magazine Highlights Archive Partner Fredy Peccerelli

Jul 1, 2016

Oscar Mejía Víctores Dead at 85: Guatemalan dictator dies as human rights trials resume

Feb 8, 2016

Featured Posting

Joint Declaration on the Guatemala Police Archive

Washington, D.C., November 18, 2019 – The Historical Archive of the National Police of Guatemala (AHPN) is in trouble.

Nov 18, 2019

Previous Postings

Imminent Threat to Guatemala’s Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN)

May 30, 2019

Guatemala Police Archive under Threat

Aug 13, 2018

The Guatemala Genocide Ruling, Five Years Later

May 10, 2018

From Silence to Memory

Dec 3, 2013

Guatemalan Court Convicts National Police Chief

Sep 24, 2013

The Final Battle: Ríos Montt's Counterinsurgency Campaign

May 9, 2013

Dos Erres Massacre Radio Show Wins 2013 Peabody Award

Mar 28, 2013

Indicted for Genocide: Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt

Mar 19, 2013

Update: The Guatemalan Death Squad Diary and the Right to Truth

May 3, 2012

In the Media

U.S. will lose out as Guatemala shuts anti-corruption commission, say experts

NBC News

Aug 30, 2019

Guatemala Declares War on History

Foreign Policy

Jul 30, 2019

A Vast Archive Exposed the Secret History of Kidnapping and Assassination in Guatemala. Now it's Under Threat.

The Intercept

Jun 8, 2019

For a decades-old massacre in Guatemala, justice neared. Now it’s retreating.

The Washington Post

Apr 5, 2019

Guatemalan President Shuts Down Anti-Corruption Probe

NPR

Sep 3, 2018

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
A documentary by Skylight pictures.

In 1982, Guatemala was engulfed in an armed conflict during which a genocidal “scorched earth” campaign by the military killed nearly 200,000 Maya people including 45,000 disappeared. Now, as if a watchful Maya god were weaving back together threads of a story unraveled by the passage of time, forgotten by most, our characters become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought that they have pieced together, each adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale.
Sundance Premiere of Granito Highlights Guatemala Human Rights Work (Jan 2011)

The Echo of the Pain of Many
A documentary by Armadillo Productions

When Carlos Cuevas was disappeared in 1984, his family was forced into political exile. Years later, his sister Ana Lucía Cuevas learned while scouring the Internet for news from Guatemala that an enormous secret police archive had been discovered in Guatemala City. Ana Lucía decided to return to her country in search of information about Carlos – one of the victims of the notorious Diario Militar (death squad dossier). She also decided to document her journey and what she found.

Finding Oscar

FINDING OSCAR is a feature-length documentary about the search for justice in the case of the Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala in 1982.

35+ Years of Freedom of Information Action

The Guatemala Project

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