From 21st to 28th April three members of the MaGPIE team, Dr Melanie Klinkner, Dr Ellie Smith and Diego Renato-Nunez, visited Guatemala to gain insight into the country’s ongoing efforts in protecting, investigating, commemorating and memorialising mass graves borne from the nation’s 36-year civil war.
During their visit a landmark genocide trial of former general Benedicto Lucas Garcia was being heard at the Guatemalan Supreme Court. This trial is highly significant for Guatemala, and particularly for the Maya Ixil people; being only the second genocide trial to have been held despite tireless campaigning for accountability by civil society since the end of the civil war. This trial is still ongoing and can be accessed via this webpage.
The team visited the FAFG (Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala) who work ‘to investigate, search, exhume, and identify the victims of Guatemala’s Internal Armed Conflict’ using state-of-the-art forensic science techniques. Currently, their efforts have resulted in the successful identification of more than 3,800 disappeared persons. For Dr Melanie, the FAFG anthropological laboratory was one of the most poignant aspects of the trip:
‘I still find the anthropological work in relation to age, sex, and cause of death determination, fascinating. It’s amazing how much skeletal remains can tell us about the way in which a person died’.
As the FAFG engages in potentially politically sensitive work, the laboratory is reinforced with bulletproof doors and glass so that this vital work can take place safely.
The MaGPIE team also met with Famdegua, a survivor-support group in Guatemala who work, inter alia, to get the legal permission required to exhume and identify the missing, and to support survivors in the plight for accountability. Although the excavation and identification work is now largely undertaken by the aforementioned FAFG, Famdegua have been active in this work for many years and were instrumental in a number of searches and exhumations, including the Dos Erres massacre. In that instance, due to this exhumation taking place before the inception of the FAFG, they reached out to Argentina for assistance.
The FAFG, and survivor groups, emphasise the connection between their vital forensic work and the memorialisation processes. This picture (below) is taken at FAFG headquarters, in Guatemala City, in a commemoration area, and of note to the team was the colourful nature, and the artistic approach taken to depict (and engage with) such horrific human experience.
Continuing with the memorialisation processes, the FAFG, with CONAVIGUA (Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala), acquired land on a former military site where individuals were brought from all over the country to be tortured and executed. The land was acquired so that the mass graves could be exhumed, and many survivors who were were identified there are now laid to rest on site.
After the first exhumations took place families became more insistent in their requests to recover their loved ones’ remains. As the return of remains became more central, forensic practices evolved and Guatemalan teams became known internationally for their expertise in forensic science, and particularly for the strong relationships they sustain with the families and the way in which they manage to articulate the scientific work with the symbolic dimension of exhumation as a reparative tool. Considering the numerous exhumations conducted, the number of commemoration sites comprised of mainly tombs, plaques or murals remains relatively low; far from properly reflecting the dimensions of the issue. Paisajes de la memoria is a completely different kind of site built around the idea of active practices of memorialization.
Despite its military origins, the space now incorporates mass graves and stone structures containing human remains, some of which are identified, while many others sadly, despite being discovered and exhumed, remain unknown. Within the memorial compound is also a wall of memory where images of those who were disappeared are posted, and a ‘stone of memory’ where all names are listed of those disappeared from across Guatemala. The centre piece of the Landscape of Memory is the ‘memorialisation house’, called “Nimajay”, which is covered in frescos by Mayan artists relating to their culture that celebrate both life and death. The site also contains a Mayan altar, together with BBQ facilities and a children’s playground, encouraging whole families to attend, pay their respects and spend time with loved ones. For Dr Ellie, this Comalapa Landscape of Memory represented:
‘… a sharp contrast to much more austere places like Potocari (Srebrenica) or the Killing Fields’
And Dr Melanie noted a similar feeling:
‘There was a lightness and conviviality about it as a contemplative, living commemoration space’.
“It is not only a place of sadness and mourning. It is more of a celebration of what remains: life”. Paisajes de la Memoria is a space of active practices and full of meaning. The families come here, they meet, they spend time together and with their dead. They belong to different ethnicities, come from different places and backgrounds, they may also have different funerary practices, but this is place for all of them to feel comfortable and reunite. Different rituals, beliefs and cosmologies coexist in the same place, and everyone is welcome.
For Dr Melanie, an important overall revelation of the country visit was that of international actors in ‘accompanying’ families and survivor groups. Understandably, researchers and an international presence international may be perceived as an intrusion, however, in this context, their presence and accompaniment felt in some circumstances like a ‘protective shield’. For the whole team, especially Diego Nunez who is new to the field of mass grave research, the visit offered invaluable insights into the continued transitional justice efforts; MaGPIE is grateful for the generosity of the organisations shown in giving up their time and we look forward to following their work as well as, where possible, collaborating.
