The legal truth seeking by courageous Guatemalans will continue, even if the Constitutional Court annuls the trial to date and returns it to a previous stage with a new judge who, in the past, has institutionalised impunity through a series of questionable rulings. This ongoing process is essential to prevent genocidal history from repeating itself or, in fact, from rhyming and places at the centre of the debate the question as to whether, at least in the minds of the victims, the genocide and its enduring impact have indeed ever ended.
Continue Reading →The negotiation of land distribution and horizontal inequalities, direct causes of the conflict, meaningful transitional justice mechanisms, including prosecution of perpetrators, and indigenous territorial autonomy, was at best sidelined, at worst bluntly sacrificed, in order to lower resistance of the parties to the accords to sit at the negotiation table and sign the peace. Moreover, the process was undergirded by the framework of universal individual rights over and above social, economic and cultural rights, rights that would have gone some way towards addressing certain structural causes of violent conflict.
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