Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala Paperback 3

V.Sanford

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 200000 civilians murdered. 83% of the victims were Maya the indigenous people of Guatemala. Buried Secrets brings these chilling statistics to life as it chronicles the journey of Mayan 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 highranking military officers guerrilla combatants and government officials. Buried Secrets traces truthtelling and political change from isolated Maya villages to national political events and provides a unique look into the experiences of Maya survivors as they struggle to rebuild their communities and lives.

9781403965592

English

Palgrave MacMillan

313

Victoria Sanford is Professor and Chair of Anthropology and Founding Director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York, USA. She is a member of the anthropology doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University where she studied International Human Rights Law and Immigration Law at Stanford Law School. She was a Bunting Peace Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard University.

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