Family Photos and Mass Graves Reveal the Horrors of Guatemala’s Civil War
PROOF:
3 hours ago
Family Photos and Mass Graves Reveal the Horrors of Guatemala’s Civil War
Author
Alexa Keefe
During the exhumation of a mass grave at a former military base in the Ixil region of Guatemala, the remains of a man were found with an ID photo and a family portrait in his pocket. His wife, gathered at the site with other relatives of missing loved ones, identified herself in the portrait, taken 30 years earlier.
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The entire community of Xecol, Chajul, receives the remains of one of the victims murdered by the army in 1986.
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This man was but one of the estimated 200,000 people who were killed or went missing during the civil war in Guatemala—a 36-year conflict between the state-backed military and leftist guerillas that came to an end in 1996. According to a 1999 report by the U.N.-backed Commission for Historical Clarification, the army identified all indigenous Maya indians in several parts of the country as guerrilla supporters, leading to a scorched-earth policy aimed at destroying the social and cultural fabric of the communities. Massacres, forced disappearances, rape, and eradication of villages ensued.
. . .
This man was but one of the estimated 200,000 people who were killed or went missing during the civil war in Guatemala—a 36-year conflict between the state-backed military and leftist guerillas that came to an end in 1996. According to a 1999 report by the U.N.-backed Commission for Historical Clarification, the army identified all indigenous Maya indians in several parts of the country as guerrilla supporters, leading to a scorched-earth policy aimed at destroying the social and cultural fabric of the communities. Massacres, forced disappearances, rape, and eradication of villages ensued.
. . .
When Daniele Volpe first visited Guatemala from his native Italy in 2006, the postcard beauty of the landscape and the powerful connection of the people to their ancestral roots drew him in. When he returned there to live a year later, he began to also appreciate its complexity. He spent time as volunteer for the Recuperation of Historical Memory project, which allowed him to listen to the stories of the Guatemalan people.
Volpe came to understand that the current problems plaguing parts of the country—high levels of violence against women, narco-trafficking, alcoholism, suicide—are all rooted in the pain of the past. Evidence of the thousands who disappeared is apparent in photographs displayed on the streets of Guatemala City, even though, Volpe says, the current generation is not taught about the civil war in school.
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Francisco Bernal, 42, and Petrona Guzaro Raymundo, 29, husband and wife. They were executed by the army along with 34 others in Canaquil, Nebaj, on March 25, 1982. Two of their children also died that day.
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More:
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/08/family-photos-and-mass-graves-reveal-the-horrors-of-guatemalas-civil-war/
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