30+ Years of Freedom of Information Action

About this Project

The National Security Archive launched the Guatemala Documentation Project in 1994, after peace negotiators seeking to end Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict agreed to establish a truth commission. The project's first objective was to support the human rights investigations of the UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission by forcing the declassification and release of secret U.S. government files on decades of repression and state violence in Guatemala.

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Blog Posts

Exemption 5 Can’t Go International: FRINFORMSUM 3/30/2017

Mar 30, 2017

New Identification of Guatemala’s Disappeared

Dec 13, 2016

The New York Times Magazine Highlights Archive Partner Fredy Peccerelli

Jul 1, 2016

Oscar Mejía Víctores Dead at 85: Guatemalan dictator dies as human rights trials resume

Feb 8, 2016

“GRANITO: How to Nail a Dictator” now available on iTunes

Dec 17, 2013

The Guatemala Project

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From Silence to Memory

Washington, DC, December 4, 2013 – The landmark report on the Guatemalan police archives, From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the AHPN, has been made available in a new English translation...

Dec 3, 2013

Previous Postings

Guatemalan Court Convicts National Police Chief

Sep 24, 2013

The Final Battle: Ríos Montt's Counterinsurgency Campaign

May 9, 2013

Dos Erres Massacre Radio Show Wins 2013 Peabody Award

Mar 28, 2013

Indicted for Genocide: Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt

Mar 19, 2013

Update: The Guatemalan Death Squad Diary and the Right to Truth

May 3, 2012

The Pursuit of Justice in Guatemala

Mar 23, 2012

Remains of Two of Guatemala's Death Squad Diary Victims Found in Mass Grave

Nov 22, 2011

From Silence to Memory: A Celebration of the Report of the Historical Archives of the National Police

Jun 9, 2011

27 Years Later, Justice for Fernando García

Feb 18, 2011

In the Media

Dead Reckoning

PBS

Mar 28, 2017

Guatemala Cuts Immunity to Lawmaker in Indigenous Massacre Case

telesur

Mar 16, 2017

The Secrets in Guatemala’s Bones

The New York Times Magazine

Jun 30, 2016

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
A documentary by Skylight pictures.

In 1982, Guatemala was engulfed in an armed conflict during which a genocidal “scorched earth” campaign by the military killed nearly 200,000 Maya people including 45,000 disappeared. Now, as if a watchful Maya god were weaving back together threads of a story unraveled by the passage of time, forgotten by most, our characters become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought that they have pieced together, each adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale.
Sundance Premiere of Granito Highlights Guatemala Human Rights Work (Jan 2011)

The Echo of the Pain of Many
A documentary by Armadillo Productions

When Carlos Cuevas was disappeared in 1984, his family was forced into political exile. Years later, his sister Ana Lucía Cuevas learned while scouring the Internet for news from Guatemala that an enormous secret police archive had been discovered in Guatemala City. Ana Lucía decided to return to her country in search of information about Carlos – one of the victims of the notorious Diario Militar (death squad dossier). She also decided to document her journey and what she found.

Finding Oscar

FINDING OSCAR is a feature-length documentary about the search for justice in the case of the Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala in 1982.

30+ Years of Freedom of Information Action

The Guatemala Project

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The Guatemala Project

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The Guatemala Project

The Guatemala Project

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