Central America: Guatemala & El Salvador
| During
the Cold War, Central America became a battleground between military and
military-backed governments and leftist guerrillas. The United States
was a key supporter of the anti-Communist governments in power in both
Guatemala and El Salvador from the 1950s until the end of the Cold War,
bankrolling these governments with millions of dollars in military and
economic aid. After years of civil war, in the 1990s government and guerrilla
forces in both Guatemala and El Salvador signed peace agreements--in 1992
in El Salvador and 1996 in Guatemala. In both countries, the signed peace accords included mechanisms to deal with past abuses of political power. In Guatemala, an independent Commission on Historical Clarification was set up to investigate crimes committed during the civil war period (1960-1996) and to identify those (institutions) responsible. In February of 1999, this commission released its final report. It found that the armed forces were guilty of 93 percent of all human rights abuses documented by the Commission, and the guerrillas were found responsible for 5 percent of all abuses. In an effort to assign responsibility to the crimes committed in Guatemala during the civil war, the Catholic Church sponsored its own project--for the Recovery of Historical Memory (REHMI)--issuing its final report in April of 1998. Two days after the report was issued, Monsignor Juan Gerardi--head of the Guatemalan Archbishop's Human Rights Office and the most prominent human-rights activist in Guatemala--was assassinated outside his home in the capital city. No one has yet been charged with the crime, but many Guatemalans believe the killing was in direct response to the release of the report. In January of 1992 when El Salvadorian President Alfredo Cristiani and representatives of the FMLN (Farabuno Marti National Liberation Front) signed a peace agreement ending the Salvadorean civil war, they agreed to establish a Truth Commission, or Comision de Verdad. In the words of the document that established the Commission, it was stated that the Commission "shall have the task of investigating serious acts of violence that have occurred since 1980s and whose impact on society urgently demands that the public should know the truth" (cited in Danner 1994: 262). In March of 1993, the Truth Commission delivered its report entitled From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador to the Secretary General of the United Nations (see below). Books: El Salvador Americas Watch. El Salvador's decade of terror: human rights since the assassination of Archbishop Romero. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Arnson, Cynthia J.,ed. Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America. Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Danner, Mark. The Massacre at El Mozote. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. From madness to hope: the 12 year war in El Salvador: report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. New York: United Nations Security Council, 1993. Munck, Ronaldo, and Purnaka L. de Silva, eds.. Postmodern insurgencies: political violence, identity formation and peacemaking in comparative perspective. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. Sinclair, Minor, ed. The new politics of survival: grassroots movements in Central America. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995. Sundaram, Anjali, and George Gelber, eds. A decade of war: El Salvador confronts the future. London: CIIR; New York: Monthly Review Press with the Transnational Institute, the Netherlands, 1991. Tula, Maria Teresa. Hear my testimony: Marķa Teresa Tula, human rights activist of El Salvador. Trans. and ed. Lynn Stephen. Boston: South End Press, 1994. Tulchin, Joseph S., with Gary Bland. Is there a transition to democracy in El Salvador? Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers, 1992. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs. Peace and reconstruction in El Salvador: hearings before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, second session, June 17 and July 9, 1992. Washington D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1992. Books: Guatemala Arnson, Cynthia J.,ed. Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America. Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Jonas, Suzanne. Of centaurs and doves: Guatemala's peace process. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Koonings, Kees and Dirk Kruijt, ed. Societies of fear: the legacy of civil war, violence, and terror in Latin America. London; New York: Zed Books; New York: Distributed in the USA by St. Martin's Press, 1999. Risse, Thomas et al. The power of human rights: international norms and domestic change. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Sluka, Jeffrey A., ed. Death squad: the anthropology of state terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Web Sites: Guatemala |