By 8am on 12 August 2005, the Sacapulas Municipal Hall is filled with residents of surrounding villages, dressed in traditional traje and speaking quietly in Quiché, the local indigenous language. Representatives of the Guatemalan government, weary from the five-hour drive to the small highland town, and looking uncomfortable in their stiff suits, begin to take their seats on the stage. Despite the heat and the crowd, in the early light the hall has the reverent hush of a chapel.
Domingo, Agustín and Juan sit silently in the first row, their faces revealing a sadness which the events about to take place will do little to ease. They are preparing to hear government officials publicly accept state responsibility for the 1990 murder of their mother, María Mejía, a respected community leader and outspoken critic of the army. They will offer formal apologies, and seek her family’s forgiveness.
The banner suspended above the officials’ heads, bearing a photo of María and printed with stark black lettering, expresses succinctly the response they can expect: No hay perdón sin justicia—No forgiveness without justice.
Fifteen years after her brutal assassination in front of her husband and children by members of the military who still live in their village, no investigations have taken place, no one has been charged, and the case remains, like thousands like it, in absolute impunity.
Guatemala is still coming to terms with peace a decade after a 36-year civil war ended with the signing of peace accords. Among the challenges it faces is how to address the profound damage caused by decades of conflict and state repression, which included atrocities such as the massacre of hundreds of indigenous villages, tens of thousands of ‘disappearances’ and widespread torture.
As in other countries undergoing post-conflict transitions, Guatemala established a truth commission as part of its reconciliation process. In 1999, the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH, for its initials in Spanish) published its report, Guatemala—Memory of Silence, which concluded that the civil war had claimed more than 200,000 victims, 83 per cent of whom were indigenous Mayans. The report found that the state was responsible for 93 per cent of the human rights violations committed, which included genocide.
The CEH’s recommendations, in addition to stressing the importance of the peace accords, sought to specifically address victims’ needs. These recommendations included measures for dignifying the memory of victims, a wide-ranging reparations program, and, importantly, justice.
Over the past six years Guatemalan governments