Violence and Genocide in Guatemala[1]

By Victoria Sanford

vdlsanford@aol.com

Senior Research Fellow

Institute on Violence and Survival, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Assistant Professor

Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York

CHART 1 (Responsibility for Acts of Violence): In its final report, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH- Guatemalan Truth Commission) concluded that army massacres had destroyed 626 villages, more than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, 1.5 million were displaced by the violence, and more than 150,000 were driven to seek refuge in Mexico. Further, the Commission found the state responsible for ninety-three percent of the acts of violence and the guerrillas (URNG-Guatemalan Revolutionary Union) responsible for three percent.[2]

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[1] This draws from Violencia y Genocidio en Guatemala (Guatemala City: FyG Editores, 2003) and Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). The author thanks Allison Downey for her assistance in developing the massacre databases, Raul Figueroa Sarti for publishing this critical material in Guatemala, and Ben Kiernan for making it available on this website.

[2] CEH, Guatemala Memoria del Silencio, vols.1-12 (Guatemala City: CEH, 1999), vol.5:42.