Reconciliation and Trials

“There are enormous efforts by the victims and victims’ organizations, which have been battling all these years for truth and justice. There’s an effort by relatives of the disappeared to find their loved ones and bury them. And by relatives of victims of extrajudicial execution, or survivors of sexual violence, to get justice for those cases.

And finally, thanks to verdicts at the national level, in the last three or four years there has been major advances, like the Constitutional Court ruling that says that the crime of forced disappearance constitutes a permanent crime, or the Inter-American Court ruling on the Dos Erres case, calling on judges and the justice system in general to eliminate obstacles to the trials moving forward. Or verdicts like the one from the Spanish courts, which issued arrest warrants for top military leaders as a matter of universal justice.

So I don’t believe that there’s ever a consensus in any country to “put them on trial now,” but rather efforts supported both by national and international figures and institutions that allow these cases to go forward.”
– Claudia Paz y Paz for ICTJ (International Center for Transitional Justice)

In 2000, Guatemala ratified the Inter-American Convention about the Disappearing of Persons. This treaty defined the crime of forced disappearances as a violation of international human rights law and determined that the forced disappearance of persons cannot be justified in any circumstances, not even in emergencies. The treaty also formally established that the crime “shall be deemed continuous or permanent as long as the fate or whereabouts of the victim has not been determined” (Article 3), which was monumental in Felipe Cusanero Coj’s case.^[1]

On August 31, 2009, former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj was condemned by the Criminal Court of Chimaltenango to 150 years in prison. Cusanero’s trial was the first that asked the Court to determine a sentencing based on the crime of forced disappearances in Guatemala. Ultimately, Cusanero was sentenced for crimes against humanity and for forced disappearances as the Constitutional Court ruled that “It is not when the crime began, but when it stops being committed” and the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person are established with certainty.

Reactions to the Verdict:

The day of the verdict, one woman whose husband had been disappeared in the 1980s stated that: “If we win today, it will give the rest of us the courage to start talking about the forced disappearances we have suffered.”

As Cusanero was handcuffed following the judge’s verdict, the room erupted in cries of “Que viva la Justicia en Guatemala” (“Long live justice in Guatemala!”).^[2] [3]

On January 22, 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights determined that based on previous merits and reparations Judgments from 1998 and 1999, the State is obligated to “adopt all the measures necessary” to investigate the denounced facts and to punish those responsible for disappearances and deaths. Furthermore, the Court declared that the State of Guatemala must inform the Court every six months of progress towards the identification and punishment of responsible parties.^[4]

On December 12, 2006, the United Nations and Guatemala signed an agreement to create CICIG as an independent body to support state institutions, such as the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the National Civilian Police. CICIG operates to strengthen the rule of law by conducting investigations on serious crimes in Guatemala, presenting criminal complaints to the Public Prosecutor, and recommending judicial reforms.^[5]

“The Guatemalan National Reparations Program (NRP) was created in 2005 as a result of the recommendations of the UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification. The program compensates victims’ families with $3,000 (US) for each victim. For example, when a family from the department of Q’uiche (where 45% of the massacres took place during the internal armed conflict) files for compensation for the murder of their father, their case is reviewed, and if accepted, they receive this sum of money.”

“There are several criticisms of the NRP program. As one massacre survivor said, “What amount of money can compensate for the loss of my son?”^[2]

“Truth commissions exist for a designated period of time, have a specific mandate, exhibit a variety of organizational arrangements, and adopt a range of processes and procedures, with the goal of producing and disseminating a final report, including conclusions and recommendations” ^[1]

The use of truth commissions, like any other form of justice, have been used to bring some sense of justice and closure to the survivors in Guatemala. Commissions like those of the United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification have sought to bring truth and healing to citizens in Guatemala, as well as attempt to publicly hold the Guatemalan government accountable for the mass atrocities that occurred there. While truth commissions have done significant work to elicit truth and bring justice to the people, it must be recognized that the use of truth commissions alone cannot be solely depended on for the enactment of justice. There is a critical importance in recognizing that there are many factors that go into the execution of a truth commission, including but not limited to: The different groups that are participating in the truth commission, the group organizing and carrying out the commission, and the voices that become dominant in storytelling in the duration of the commission. To use the word “storytelling” is another important concept on its own as well. The details of mass atrocity– the pain, suffering, and understanding of what happened in Guatemala exists as more than a statistic, a set of facts or solid detail of history. It exists in the living narratives of people, and their memories.

It’s difficult to understand the interpretation of the armed conflict from just one perspective. The stories of many survivors come in the stories of their self-defense as often as their stories of witnessing violence.

One woman, Fabiana Ordóñez, an ex-guerilla community member from Santa Anita tells of her involvement in the armed conflict:

“When I joined the ORPA guerilla, that was on May 10, 1982… I was 24 when I joined up in the war…That is why I made the decision to go and fight in the mountains, for a change to take place in Guatemala… so that there is equality so that there is no exploitation…”^[2]

Because the Guatemalan government has never acknowledged the responsibility of the death, disappearances, and other acts of violence in the armed conflict, the denunciation of the government in truth commissions was a common thing Eldelberto Torres Rivas, a sociologist, remembers the reaction to the genocide by many sectors:

“The work of the army was applauded by civil sectors, by the press, by businessmen, politicians…” ^[3]

Both commissions expose narratives of the harm to the Guatemalan people that the government has caused. We’ve found two main truth commissions that were used in Guatemala– one of them under the Roman Catholic Church and one under a United Nations mandate.