Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala - Hardcover

Sanford, Victoria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1403960232 ISBN 13: 9781403960238

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Synopsis

Between the late 1970s and the mid 1980s, Guatemala was torn by a civil war which came to be known as La Violencia. During this time of mass terror and extreme violence, more than 600 massacres occurred in villages destroyed by the army, one and a half million people were displaced, and more than 200,000 civilians murdered. Eighty-three per cent of the victims were Maya, the indigenous people of Guatemala. "Buried Secrets" brings these chilling statistics to life as it chronicles the journey of Maya survivors seeking truth, justice and community healing and demonstrates that the Guatemalan army carried out a systematic and intentional genocide against the Maya. Victoria Sanford provides us with an insider's look at the workings of the Commission for Historical Clarification through the exhumation of clandestine cemeteries. The book is based on exhaustive research, including more than 400 testimonies from massacre survivors, interviews with members of the forensic team, human rights leaders, high-ranking military officers, guerrilla combatants and government officials.

About this title

About the Author

VICTORIA SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. She was a Bunting Peace Fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, a Kellogg Fellow at Notre Dame, and a Rockefeller Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. She has worked with Maya refugees since 1986 and in Maya communities since 1993. She co-authored the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation's report to the Commission for Historical Clarification.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1403960232
• ISBN 13: 9781403960238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352