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| Graham Hunt |
On September 24, the Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) celebrated the second of a series of mural-painting festivals being carried out throughout 2011, with the participation of artists' groups including Pie de Lana, the Clavel Rojo Collective, and Fe y Esperanza, as well as employees and family members of employees of the Archive. The wealth of documentation managed today by the staff of the AHPN regarding the activities of one of the most repressive forces in operation during Guatemala's civil war came to light in July of 2005, when the detonation of an explosive device in a military building in the outskirts of the capital led a team of human rights workers to conduct an investigation of other structures belonging to the public security authorities, in order to detect similar risks. Having entered into a building located in a police complex in Zone 6 of Guatemala City, the team came across millions of documents referring to the internal functioning of the National Police, a force that was disbanded with the signing of peace accords at the end of Guatemala´s civil war. Since 2006, in an effort supported by the governments of a number of European nations, a team of dedicated individuals works tirelessly to preserve the documents and place them at the service of Guatemalan society. For more information, visit the official website of the
AHPN. Likewise, for more context, see the
web page of the film La Isla, by filmmaker Uli Stetzner. A short documentary produced by the Public Broadcasting Station can be seen
here.
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| Graham Hunt |
In a press conference, the National Coordinator of the AHPN, Gustavo Meoño, informed as to the advances made over six years of archival work carried out by the team of 150 people who work at the Archive, preserving, digitalizing and systematizing the documentation it contains, as well as attending to requests for access to that documentation. He explained that the AHPN houses what amounts to eight longitudinal kilometers of documents made up of 80 million files covering the period from 1881 to 1997, year in which the National Police was disbanded. Of the 80 million documents, Meaño explained that 20 million have been archived, of which 13 million have been digitalized, the culminating phase of the archival process.
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Gustavo Meoño, National Coordinator of the Historical Archive of the National Police . Referring to the range of documents in which the AHPN has placed its focus, Meoño explained that ". . . it was necessary to adopt a criteria of priority derived from the conclusions of the reports of both the REMHI, which was headed by Monseñor Gerardi, and the Historical Clarification Commission, which established that the 11 years from 1975 to 1985 were the most terrible years of the state terrorism, of the genocide, of the human rights abuses committed in Guatemala." For this reason, all of the documents digitalized to date correspond to this period.
Graham Hunt |
Meoño clarified that both the 20 million documents archived and the 13 million digitalized to date correspond to the period 1975-1985, period in which, according to the reports of the Recuperation of the Historical Memory (REMHI) and the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), the majority of human rights abuses committed during Guatemala's civil war took place. The most important aspect of the archiving and digitalization of the 13 million documents, he underlined, is that they are all now available to the public. He informed that up to September 15, the Department of Information Access of the Archive has attended to 5,801 requests for information, providing a total of 82,705 documents containing 281,421 pages of information. "It is without a doubt the Department of Information access that has attended to the greatest number of requests and which, above all, has been able to provide the greatest amount of information," he affirmed.
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| Graham Hunt |
In reference to the parties that request the information, Meoño observed that "the users of this archive are, in the first place, family members of victims of human rights violations and victims who have survived such violations, who come in search of information about their loved ones and about themselves--many cases linked to the forced disappearance of individuals. For this reason we feel a great sense of responsibility. This sense also continually impels us to work more and more efficiently, more effectively, and above all, professionally."
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The product of a collaboration between the Museum of the Image and the Word and the Monseñor Romero Pastoral Center, both in El Salvador, as well as Guatemalan partners, the AHPN inaugurated an exhibition bringing together photos and posters commemorating the life and martyrdom of Monseñor Juan Gerardi, assassinated on April 26, 1998, two days after presenting the ¡Guatemala Nunca Más! truth commission report, as well as Monseñor Óscar Romero, assassinated by a death squad in San Salvador on March 24, 1980. The exhibition also included material commemorating the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, assassinated on November 16, 1989 by members of the Salvadoran armed forces.
Graham Hunt |
Meoño indicated that the entity that has made the most requests for information is the Public Ministry (MP), and revealed that since May of this year a permanent unit of the MP is installed and operating in the Archive, working in archival analysis corresponding to legal cases dealing with human rights abuses committed during Guatemala's civil war. He emphasized the fundamental importance of not only providing access to the information but also contributing the analysis necessary to understand it. "Experience showed us that it is not enough to provide the documents," he explained. "Because the logic of archival investigation is different. It's different—we even had some experiences in which the investigators, the plaintiffs and the lawyers didn't see the importance or the utility of the documents. And so we had to take a very important step, providing the service of archival analysis as well. We now have developed a team dedicated to archival analysis. And this led to something fundamental which is archival expert testimony, the technical expertise necessary in judicial processes."
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| Graham Hunt |
As an example, Meoño underlined the importance of archival analysis in the legal case underway in search for justice for the forced disappearance of Edgar Fernando García. In this case, it was the coincidence between two documents found in the Historical Archive that allowed authorities to establish the material authorship of police agents in the crime, as well as discovering the chain of command involved. The first document referred to the decoration of four agents belonging to the Fourth Body of the National Police for the apprehension of two "terrorists" in an operation carried out at 11 AM on February 18, 1980 near the El Guarda Market in Guatemala City. Said document did not make explicit reference to Fernando García. The second document, however, a writ of habeas corpus filed by the mother and the wife of the disappeared, Emilia García and Nineth Montenegro, respectively, exhibited an exact coincidence with the first. In the document, Meoño explained, ". . . the two women denounced that Edgar Fernando García had been captured by members of the National Police on February 18 at 11 in the morning just outside the El Guarda Market. Therefore, it even looked like [the police authorities] had taken the information—to propose the decoration—that they had copied it. In this way, these two documents, which carried the official seal of the Fourth Body, turned out to be fundamental."
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Julio Solórzano Foppa, filmmaker and director of the Asociación Arte y Cultura para el Desarrollo (Art and Culture for Development Association-ACUDE).
Graham Hunt |
During the press conference, Julio Solórzano Foppa, son of the poet Alaída Foppa, detained and disappeared in December of 1980, made reference to the significance of the physical structure in which the archival team of the AHPN carries out its work, a structure which was used by the National Police during the bloodiest years of the war. "In this place, which housed the Sixth Body of the Police—here torture was committed, disappearance, rape, with the object of obtaining information, etcetera. This was a center of repression," he emphasized.
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An ecumenical celebration was carried out to honor the detained and disappeared held at La Isla, a clandestine prison operated by the Sixth Body of the National Police, which en the early 1980s occupied the same building that today houses the AHPN. The ceremony also honored the 45,00 disappeared throughout all of Guatemala during the 36-year civil war.
Graham Hunt |
Foppa reflected on the inspiration that drives the work of the Historical Archive, declaring that ". . . we want to know what happened, and we want to know not just by personal stories or testimonies, but by documents. May this knowledge of the truth—which is the way memory is constructed—help this country to assimilate what happened, so that—as was put forth in the recommendations of the Historical Clarification Commission—we may begin to educate our children without fearing to say: 'In this country, these tragedies occurred.' We need to learn to live with what happened in this country, among other reasons, so that justice may be served, but also so that these crimes aren't committed ever again. It must be understood that this past must not be repeated, but this understanding must grow out of a process that helps us to understand that the violence and the impunity with which we live today in Guatemala also has an origin in the violence and impunity of those times."
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| Graham Hunt |
Foppa indicated that the murals being painted in the AHPN are inspired in two fundamental themes: memory and hope. "We are going to tell what happened, or how we see what happened, but we are also going to tell what we want: how we conceive of a country without violence, a country in which the happenings that led to this horrible situation will not be repeated, a situation in which, according to the REMHI and the Historical Clarification Commission, there was a terrible number of 200,000 victims, 45,000 of them disappeared."
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Graham Hunt
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| Graham Hunt |
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| Graham Hunt |
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