Guatemala's REMHI Project: Memory From Below
Ogle, Kathy
On April 26, 1998, just two days after publicly presenting the final report of the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) Project, Bishop Juan Gerardi, who headed the project, was...
...The which recruits were desensitized to humiliation and brutal physical punrho refused to comply, as one solealed: at he wanted to see blood...
...to Gerardi's assass The words of the soldiers who committed atrocities to take the report b constitute a blatant transgression of the military code workshops and dis of silence-a transgression which has undoubtedly with the process of contributed to the terror campaign unleashed in the building memorials...
...Testimonies provide accounts of the deliberate use of threats, kidnappings, disappearances, assassinations, torture and carefully The document, moreover, estaban population was specifically tary. rt also describes how the strategies rror were taught and implemented...
...What is so threatening about the REMHI report that it has provoked such a violent reaction...
...If the planned massacres...
...It REMHI project for was a huge gang rape...
...They took The final and pert her little boy away from her and they all raped her...
...fear is that the vict Volume II of the REMHI report, entitled "The Mecha- become the protagol C to tnisms of Horror," analyzes the strategies of massacres and torture, and exposes each one of the intelligence and counterinsurgency structures involved in the violence...
...She's a gift from the sub- deserves, however lieutenant...
...Its authors and protagonists are ordinary citizens once silenced by fear and now willing to speak...
...This may be such as "Family Consequences of the Vio- the real target of the recent lence" and "Violence Against Children," each wave of violence...
...Some victims project-bringing the report bac came forward individually and others came to the communities to stimulate tell their story in groups...
...All of them to tie him to a the men were afraid of being taped, fearing retribution days without eating from a security apparatus they believe still to be in place...
...33 VoL XXXII...
...A Accords, names some of the individuals responsible...
...Most of these crimes took place between 1980 and 1983, when Generals Romeo Lucas Garcia and Efrain Rios Montt ran the country...
...real target of the r Third, the REMHI report gives detailed descriptions threat to the army n of the military, paramilitary and police institutions The challenge to th responsible for human rights violations and, unlike the when the populatio official truth commission established by the Peace about its history...
...The REMHI report is less a collection of information and statistics as much as it is an anthology of the unmistakable words of Guatemalans...
...In every case, the men cried before they The captain said th could speak, and in four cases they were accompanied anyone hitting softl line...
...The real nay in fact not be the report itself...
...The Archdiocese launched the project in 1995 in an effort to support the work of any truth commission that might emerge from the Peace Accords...
...o the ways soldiers were educated "o participate in the violence...
...The report puts some statistics on paper-79% of all human rights violations committed during the 36-year civil war are attributed to the military and 9% to the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG...
...e power of the military will come n is no longer quiet or confused [hat the army and its allies really ims of the 1970s and 1980s will nists of the future...
...The bad about his death...
...Eight hundred parish workers participated in the training sessions to become interviewers for the project...
...days following the release of the report...
...Then they came and grabbed the girl...
...Testimonies like the following appear of the army as a pro throughout the report: in its noble mission We found a woman...
...In this context, the report llenge to the entire institution...
...We really did by their wives, who begged them to confess their sto- all broken open, al all broken open, ai ries so they could finally get on with their lives...
...If he saw y, that person would be the next in that poor son of a bitch in-he was nd on top of it the captain ordered tree, and he was left there for three or sleeping...
...I understand, my corporal," he told me undoubtedly under and he called the boys and said, "There's meat here, can be seen as a chal guys...
...No 2 SEPT/OCT 1998REPORT ON MEMORY languages and 39% in The final phase of the REMHI Spanish...
...Later I told them to kill the it is not over...
...The REMHI is an unprecedented effort led by the Catholic Church to document the atrocities committed during Guatemala's 36-year civil war...
...In fi woman before killing her son so she wouldn't feel so yet to begin...
...So what is different about the REMHI report...
...In addition to technical training on how to conduct the interviews, the participants-many of them victims of violence themselves-engaged in in-depth discussions about the value of testimony, the importance of preserving history and the mental-health implications of reviving painful memories...
...A close examination of the two available volumes yields several possible explanations...
...The REMHI report is not simply another high-level investigation conducted in secret and meant to be faxed out of the country...
...More than 6,000 interviews were conducted, 61% in indigenous 33 Kathy Ogle is co-coordinator of the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean (EPICA) in Washington D. C This article was reprinted with permission from Report on Guatemala (Summer 1998) which is published by the Guatemala News Information Bureau...
...I called a soldier and I told him, If the REMHI rep "Take charge of this woman...
...Church leaders were correct in assuming that an official truth commission would be limited in mandate and time, and they wanted to add to the data bank available to such a commission...
...On April 26, 1998, just two days after publicly presenting the final report of the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) Project, Bishop Juan Gerardi, who headed the project, was assassinated outside his home...
...nd its allies to have any political future, they must defend the image fessional institution that succeeded to rid the country of Communism...
...REMHI report is read widely, these testimonies will lishes that the civili be definitive evidence for the many Guatemalans who geted by the militar' have remained skeptical about the extent of the atroci- The REMHI repo ties committed against their compatriots...
...It was researched and written by Guatemalans for other Guatemalans rather than for the international community...
...Yet none of this information is new...
...and techniques of te Testimonies attest t second explanation for the violence following and broken down t the release of the report is the fact that it con- process through w tains testimonies from perpetrators of the violence included hi crimes...
...One church worker said that he had inter- ishment for those w viewed 16 perpetrators of human rights violations...
...maps most threatening aspect of the Guatemalan security forces is that act, its most important phase has plan, which is now on hold due ination and continuing threats, is 'ack to the communities, organize cussions around it and continue exhuming, burying the dead and This last phase may in fact be the recent wave of violence...
...While the report is ana- discussion over Guatemala's past lytical, covering themes has yet to begin...
...Since Gerardi's assassination, numerous participants in the REMHI project have received death threats and several homes and offices have been broken into...
...Only two talked of what they themselves had For the military done, while the rest spoke only about atrocities they currency in the near had witnessed...
...ort gets the wide circulation it r, their ability to do so will be mined...
...section is accompanied by the vivid and carefully recorded words of the survivors and witnesses...
...All dier's testimony rev of his interviews were extensive, lasting from two to 12 hours...
Vol. 32 • September 1998 • No. 2
