Rights Action
June 15, 2021
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Thirty years after the mass grave exhumation process began in Guatemala, Rights Action is pleased to re-publish this report written by Grahame Russell, with Sarah Key & Ann Butwell, and published in 1996 by EPICA (Ecumenical Program on Central America & Caribbean) and CHRLA (Center for Human Rights Legal Action).
“Even if 30 forensic teams worked for 30 years,
that still wouldn’t be enough resources or time
to exhume all the mass graves in Guatemala.”
Fernando Moscoso
Unearthing The Truth covers the first years of work of the FAFG (Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala), then called the EAFG (Forensic Anthropology Team of Guatemala) – work that is on-going today. The vast majority of remains that have been exhumed and examined for age, gender, identity and causes of death, are Indigenous Mayan people.
“The earth has hidden horrible truths
about an infinite number of massacred Guatemalans.
Now the earth begins in speak.”
Miguel Angel Albizures
Mass grave exhumations of Indigenous children in Canada?
We re-publish this report at a time, also, when there is increased action in Canada to locate and possibly exhume (dig up) individual and mass graves wherein lie the remains of unidentified Indigenous First Nations children.
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More information
Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (www.fafg.org)
- “A forensic anthropologist who brings closure for the "disappeared", TED Talk, November 2014, https://www.ted.com/talks/fredy_peccerelli_a_forensic_anthropologist_who_brings_closure_for_the_disappeared
- “Guatemala’s Disappeared”, AL Jazeera Fault Lines film (25 minutes), https://www.aljazeera.com/program/fault-lines/2017/3/29/guatemalas-disappeared
- “The cold cases of Guatemala’s civil war were impossible to identify—until now”, National Geographic, December 19, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/bones-of-guatemala-disappeared-impossible-to-identify-until-now
- “The Secrets in Guatemala’s Bones”, New York Times Magazine, July 3, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-secrets-in-guatemalas-bones.html
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