“From behind protective masks, almost two hundred, mostly young people look through and clean stacks upon stacks of papers and documents at long tables in a cold and run down building in Guatemala City. The mountains of folders are one… Read More ›
Justice
“The palm has more right to water than us”
The psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that humans have a hierarchy of needs, from the most basic, required for our very survival, to what he called the need for self-actualisation. These needs are often visualised as a pyramid, with the most… Read More ›
Jesus Tecu Osorio wins the 2010 Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award
You may have noticed that we put up a call for letters of support for Jesus Tecu Osorio as a nominee for the Baldwin Medal. Over the years GSN has had a great deal of contact with Jesus and we… Read More ›
Recognition: Yes, Reconciliation: Maybe, Justice: No
GSN volunteer Sam, who is currently in Guatemala working as an international accompanier recently sent us this report from a symbolic trial of those accused of perpetrating mass rape as a weapon of war during the armed conflict. On the days… Read More ›
‘Our lives can be cut short at a stroke’
‘This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke’. So titled an article by Danilo Valladares for Inter Press Service. As… Read More ›
Guatemala has the justice it pays for.
Recently, Barbara Schieber in The Guatemala Times, published a piece which again highlighted the contradictions in Guatemala around state responsibility and state ability to tackle the endemic violence affecting that country. The Association of Bi-national Chambers of Commerce (ASCABI) has… Read More ›
Interamerican Court finds against Guatemala in Dos Erres Case
After fifteen years of waiting for justice to be done in Guatemala the survivors and relatives of victims of the Dos Erres massacre have however received a favourable verdict elsewhere: the Interamerican Court of Human Rights found the state of… Read More ›
Historic first sentence against former member of Guatemalan military for crime of forced disappearance
On the evening of Thursday 3rd December, a court in Chiquimula made history by sentencing former army colonel Marco Antonio Sánchez Samayoa and three former military commissioners, José Domingo Ríos, Gabriel Álvarez Ramos and Salomón Maldonado Ríos to 40 years… Read More ›
Awaiting sentence in forced disappearance case
It is anticipated that the judges’ verdict will be delivered in the very near future in the case of El Jute – the case of the forced disappearance of eight inhabitants of the rural community of the same name in… Read More ›