The Archive That Never Was: State Terror and Historical Memory in Guatemala* the Archive That Never Was: State Terror and Historical Memory in Guatemala

TitleThe Archive That Never Was: State Terror and Historical Memory in Guatemala* the Archive That Never Was: State Terror and Historical Memory in Guatemala
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsW. George Lovell
JournalGeographical Review
Volume103
Issue2
Pagination199-209
ISSN00167428
Abstract

Between 1961 and 1996, more than 200,000 people in Guatemala lost their lives as a result of state-orchestrated acts of terror denied still by the national security forces who committed them. A U.N. Truth Commission was repeatedly obstructed by army and police personnel from gaining access to official records, being told that no documentation of the type sought existed. Bureaucracies do not work that way, even ones with good reason to destroy or conceal evidence of an incriminating nature. It was nonetheless of startling import when an attorney working for Guatemala's Human Rights Office stumbled upon an archive recording the deeds of the National Police. Known now to contain an estimated 80 million documents, the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional is a cabinet of atrocities that reveals conspiracy and complicity on the part of police officers engaged in a ghoulish network of surveillance, intimidation, abduction, torture, and murder.

URLhttps://libproxy.cc.stonybrook.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=87017597&site=ehost-live&scope=site
DOI10.1111/gere.12009
Short TitleThe Archive That Never Was