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Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Practices of denunciation are at once ubiquitous and marginalised in literature on the Guatemalan armed conflict. Meanwhile, ordinary Guatemalans who spontaneously denounced neighbours, former friends and fellow villagers have largely escaped scrutiny in scholarly work on low-level perpetrators. Departing from untapped confidential documents in the Historical Archive of the National Police, this article provides the first archival study of denunciatory behaviour during the Guatemalan Civil War, specifically at the height of the conflict (1970–85). This contribution reveals both the strategic considerations that spurred state intelligence apparatuses to elicit civilian information as well as the broad range of personal, opportunistic and strategic motives that drove civilians to denounce. The case study questions scholarly consensus on the spontaneous and voluntary character of denunciation by arguing that besides providing novel pathways for opportunistic action, denunciations also opened up new strategies for survival in the face of a civil war that structured available choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant theories of mass violence hold that strategic concerns in civil war drive the deliberate targeting of civilians. However, the causal mechanisms that link strategic objectives to large-scale violence against civilians remain underspecified, and as such the causal logics that underpin each remain blurred. In this article, we identify and explicate four plausible mechanisms that explain why armed groups would target, for strategic purposes, civilians in war. We then turn to the peak period of violence during the Guatemalan armed conflict to assess which mechanisms were most prevalent. Specifically, we leverage unique archival data: 359 pages of military files from Operation Sofía, a month-long counterinsurgent campaign waged in the northwestern Ixil region. Through process tracing of real-time internal communications, we find that state actors most commonly described the civilian population as loyal to rebel forces; violence against civilians was a means to weaken the insurgency. Troops on the ground also depicted the Ixil population as ‘winnable’, which suggests that security forces used violence in this period to shape civilian behavior. These findings are most consistent with the idea that mass violence in this case and period was a coercive instrument to defeat insurgents by punishing civilians for collaboration. The evidence from this period is less consistent with a logic of genocide, in which the purpose of violence would be to destroy ‘unwinnable’ civilian groups. Our analysis illustrates how a mechanism-centered approach based on process tracing of conflict archives can help uncover logics underlying civilian killing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article opens an empirical window into the practice of imprisonment in postwar Guatemala. It foregrounds the spatial and social components of incarceration that create a combination of improvised disciplinary techniques, what this article calls the practice of "making do." During Guatemala's genocidal civil war, which began in 1960, state officials tended to disappear rather than imprison people. Following the 1996 Peace Accords, rates of incarceration rose dramatically while the state committed less than one percent of its annual budget to managing and maintaining the country's twenty-two formal prison structures. Today dilapidated infrastructure and extreme budgetary constraints characterize postwar Guatemala's penitentiary system, as does the improvisational nature of incarceration. Often extending beyond the penitentiary system itself, those forms detailed in this article include a state-run prison farm; high profile prisoner cells; an extrajudicial police detention center; and a private drug rehabilitation center. By illustrating the manifold carceral spaces in Guatemala, this article highlights the importance of expanding notions of detention beyond the prison proper while also reflecting on improvisational approaches to imprisonment. Este artículo discute de manera empírica la práctica del encarcelamiento en la Guatemala post-guerra. Se enfoca en los componentes espaciales y sociales del encarcelamiento que generan una combinación de técnicas disciplinarias improvisadas; las cuales en este artículo se llaman las prácticas de "arreglarse con". Durante la guerra civil genocida de Guatemala, que inicio en 1960, los oficiales del Estado solían desaparecer en vez de encarcelar a las personas. Luego de los Acuerdos de Paz de 1996, los índices de encarcelamiento aumentaron drásticamente, mientras el Estado invertía menos del uno por ciento de su presupuesto anual en manejar y mantener las 22 prisiones formales del país. Hoy en día, el sistema penitenciario de Guatemala se caracteriza por sus restricciones presupuestarias extremas y mala infraestructura, así como la naturaleza improvisada de encarcelamiento. En este artículo se exponen y detallan algunas de las distintas formas de encarcelamiento existentes, que muchas veces se extienden más allá del sistema penitenciario en sí, como una granja prisión manejada por el Estado, celdas de prisioneros de perfil alto, un centro de detención policial extrajudicial y un centro privado de rehabilitación para las drogas. Al ilustrar los distintos espacios de encarcelamiento de Guatemala, este artículo recalca la importancia de expandir las nociones acerca de la detención más allá del espacio de la prisión como tal. Además, también hace una reflexión sobre las técnicas de improvisación ante los encarcelamientos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia is the property of Universidad de Costa Rica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Historia is the property of Universidad de Costa Rica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal is the property of Vervuert Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates how the production of police records was linked to the policies of repression and violence during Guatemala's civil war. We provide empirical evidence from the Historical Archive of the Guatemalan National Police that the police used language, terminology and codes to record deaths in ways that produced silences about the level of violence during the height of repressive military rule. Using a dataset derived from a statistically valid sample of police records together with qualitative archival analysis, we find evidence of profound changes in the terminology used to record and report on deaths-changes that follow a pattern consistent with the policies of information control and concealment of the three different military regimes that ruled Guatemala between 1978 and 1985. We argue that researchers will need to consider the silences created through the selective use of terminology in documents when using archives to produce historical knowledge. Detecting and intercepting silence will be especially important as state records are increasingly sought in service of ongoing pursuits for truth and justice about past atrocities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the end of Guatemala's thirty-six-year-long internal armed conflict, the country set about figuring out the history of this violent past. This article explores street artists' contributions to historical knowledge, arguing, first, that they are public historians and, second, that these artist-historians work to expand responsibility for gross human rights violations beyond a traditional focus on the military to include the economic elite, whose role in the conflict must also be acknowledged if Guatemala is to work through past trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG) fought one of the longest and bloodiest civil wars in recent Latin American history. In 1996, the URNG and the Government of Guatemala signed a Firm and Lasting Agreement ending the country’s civil war and initiating the URNG’s post-war life as a political party. After finishing third in its initial electoral competition, the URNG has since been unable to capture more than 4% of the vote, on its own or in coalition, leaving it a minor political party. What explains the poor electoral performance of the URNG as a political party? Based upon fieldwork, elite interviews, and analysis of electoral data, I argue that the URNG’s minor party performance was caused by both organizational and institutional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This text analyzes the semiofficial interpretations about Guatemala's Civil War (1960-1996) since 1990's. These interpretations are favorable with the Marxist guerrilla, which was the responsible for the arm movement and was defeated. These explanations justify the insurgency from a sociological study and denigrate the position of those people who combated the Marxist guerrilla. Then, it analyzes the theoretical and practice consequences of these interpretations. Finally, this work presents others similar cases in the Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal is the property of Vervuert Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the significance of historically sedimented military practices for conservation in contemporary Guatemala. During a 36-year civil war, the military represented the lowlands as dangerous jungle that had to be tamed to justify its counterinsurgency campaigns, thus positioning the jungle's inhabitants as suspect citizens or potential insurgents. Also during the war, international conservationists coalesced to successfully lobby for a protected areas system that enclosed one-third of Guatemala's territory. This paper argues that this transnational conservation alliance, comprised of international conservation agencies and national elites, evokes the violence of scorched earth counterinsurgency. The use of jungle and forest discourses in successive territorial projects produces a racialized landscape that connects a violent past to a violent present. In recent years, jungle discourses have articulated advocacy for increased militarization to fight the ‘war on drugs’ in protected areas. As such, I argue that conservation agencies and the military are complicit in reproducing social inequalities, often through violent exclusions. This paper was presented at the 2010 International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, sponsored by the Land Deal Politics Initiative, at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex. A National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant provided research support. Leonardo Luc, Mario López Barrientos and Alberto Alonso Fradejas all offered important insights into Guatemalan land politics. I consulted the CIRMA Archive and the ProPetén library for key project documents. J. Keith Gilless, Octaviano Chavarin, Norman B. Schwartz, Melissa Leach and two anonymous reviewers wrote incisive comments on paper drafts. I am especially grateful to Nancy L. Peluso for encouraging me to develop this paper in consonance with her work. I am responsible for all translations. Any remaining errors are my own. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 1961 and 1996 civil war in Guatemala claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people, over 80% of whom (according to a United Nations Truth Commission) were Maya Indians. The experience of one Maya family, whose story is narrated, raises questions pertaining to continued insecurity, lack of justice, and uninvestigated crimes, the combined effects of which still haunt and charge community life throughout the countryside. Telling about the experience of one family also raises issues concerning the vicissitudes of representation and how fieldwork can, on occasion, yield unanticipated but rewarding returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: The Guatemalan society was exposed to an internal armed conflict during the period from 1962 to 1996. During these years, the civil society suffered multiple traumatic events. The objective of this study is to understand the psychological impact that the conflict had on the mental health of the Guatemalans. METHODS: A review of articles published between 1962 and 2004, in the databases Medline, Lilacs, Embase, Psiclit-Infon, Cochrane Library and Pilots was conducted. The articles that were selected found mental disorder prevalences in Guatemalans through standardized instruments. RESULTS: Eight studies were found to demonstrate, in general, elevated prevalences for mental disorders in different population groups affected by the violence. For the depression ranges, the prevalence was between 38.8% and 41.8%; for anxiety symptoms intervals between 27.7% and 54.4 %; for sleep problems, 75 %, and for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) studies with low frequencies from 2% to 11.8 % and other studies that demonstrated higher prevalences from 32% to 52%. CONCLUSIONS: These mental disorders prevalences can be interpreted as elevated when compared with population studies of persons not exposed to armed conflicts where the PTSD ranges generally go from 0.5% to 11.7%. This permits the inference that these high frequencies are probably related to traumatic experiences of the war in Guatemala and in exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]