1
Keith Lanser
Latin American Military and Society
Professor Hutchison
December 1st, 2010
Placing the Blame: Research on the Human Rights Abuses Committed During the
Guatemalan Civil War
Starting the in late 1970s, the Guatemalan military began a program of mass terror
and massacre against insurgents and suspected indigenous sympathizers. By the end of the
Lucas García regime in 1982, counterinsurgency policy seemed to become more precise, and
under President Ríos Montt, the new counterinsurgency policy, called Bullets and Beans,
sought to combine massacre with development as a means to eliminate guerrilla support.
Already proven to have orchestrated the 1954 coup of leftist President Árbenz Guzmán, the
United States was accused of aiding the military in its genocidal effort to destroy the
insurgency. The ensuing humanitarian crisis left over 400 villages destroyed, over 1,000,000
Guatemalans displaced, and over 200,000 dead. In 1999, The United Nations concluded that
the Guatemalan state was responsible for approximately ninety three percent of human rights
violations during the civil war.1
Written by anthropologists, historians, social studies scholars, and human rights
researchers, the five books reviewed in this historiography represent the development of an
area of scholarship focused on addressing blame for human rights abuses committed during
the Guatemalan Civil War. Starting in the mid-1980s, scholars attributed blame on the United
States and the Guatemalan military. On the one hand, scholars offered visions of the United
States as “empire”, determined to use Guatemala as a pawn in its continental Cold War. Thus,
the United States was seen as an instigator, willing to defeat communism by any means
1
Jan Rus, “Introduction,” Latin American Perspectives 26: 6 (November 1999): 7.
2
necessary. On the other, scholars endorsed themes of an irrational Guatemalan military, one
that repressed the indigenous populations in order to guarantee the interests of elites and
ensure forced labor. In their view, the military should be blamed for the human rights
atrocities because it unjustifiably massacred hundreds of thousands in order to protect the
status quo.
Starting in the early 1990s, scholars began challenging assumptions concerning the
motives and responsibility of involved parties. According to some, while evidence suggests
that the United States acted in Guatemala as an empire, it cannot be the only force to blame.
Scholars began to take the security assistance provided by other nations seriously, including
that of Israel and Taiwan. According to them, although the deeds of the United States are
clearly reprehensible, the human rights abuses would not have occurred without willing
Guatemalan allies. Other scholars began to question whether the Guatemalan military was the
only domestic force that incited massacre. In fact, some scholars argue that the military and
guerrillas are to blame, as they both forced the indigenous to choose sides. Moreover,
scholars began to view the military not as an irrational force massacring in the interest of
others, but as a self-interested institution that was willing to defend la Patria the way it saw
fit. Thus, the more recent literature concerning blame for these human rights atrocities proves
to be a truly dynamic scholarship, critically analyzing the roles of the many groups that
participated in the Guatemalan Civil War.
Before examining the literature, a brief discussion of the scholarly debate concerning
indigenous “solidarity” is necessary in order to more adequately analyze how the following
five scholars attribute blame. In 1993, David Stoll begins this debate with the publication of
his book, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala. In contention with Nobel
Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, Stoll challenges her claim that Maya peasants cohesively
and voluntarily supported the guerrilla movement, as detailed in her book, I, Rigoberta
3
Menchú. Not only does he doubt that the Maya uniformly supported the guerrillas, but he
contends that both the guerrillas and the military used forms of coercion to garner indigenous
support.2 Other scholars, such as Duncan Earle, began to question indigenous solidarity.
Analyzing Beatriz Manz’s book, Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of
Counterinsurgency in Guatemala, Earl writes:
Both the book’s title and the case studies suggest that the Guatemalan Mayas
were involved in a war, a position promoted by the unproven assumption of
large-scale support and involvement in guerrilla movements.3
This debate became so contentious that after the publication of Stoll’s Rigoberta Menchú and
the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, even the New York Times became involved in challenging
Menchú and solidarity scholars. Thus, this particular debate illustrates the movement to both
critically analyze the motives of all parties and appropriately place blame for the human
rights atrocities committed during the Guatemalan Civil War.
INTERNATIONAL BLAME:
Heavily criticizing United States policy during the Guatemalan Civil War, Michael
McClintock’s The American Connection: Volume 2 State Terror and Popular Resistance in
Guatemala serves as an initial investigation as to the role of the United States during the
Guatemalan Civil War. McClintock, a leftist human rights researcher affiliated with Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch, develops his thick history by beginning with the
origins and background of the Guatemalan Civil War and concluding with the state of the war
during the mid-1980s. McClintock’s research proves to be broad and varied; indeed, Volume
2 is rife with primary sources including archival research from the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Congress of the United States House of Representatives, the
2
David Stoll, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala (New York: Columbia University Press,
1993), 19-20.
3
Duncan Earle, “Review: Measuring the Maya Disconnection: Violence and Development in Guatemala,”
American Ethnologist , 18: 4 (November 1991): 798.
4
United States Department of State, the Guatemalan military, human rights organizations, and
numerous periodicals, journals, and newsletters from Guatemala and the United States.
Volume 2 details the various forms of involvement by the United States throughout
the Guatemalan Civil War, specifically focusing on the forms of communication, training,
and security assistance provided by the United States to the Guatemalan government. Three
parts of this book are of particular importance. The second part of the book, called “CounterInsurgency Emerges”, describes how the Guatemalan government implemented
counterinsurgency doctrine almost precisely according to the recommendations of the United
States. According to McClintock, the goal of the United States’ doctrine used by the
Guatemalan military was to guarantee that the war would be carried out without being
confined by domestic and international law, because as he notes, “guerrilla ‘terror’ could be
defeated only by the untrammelled use of ‘counter-terror’, the terrorism of the state.”4
McClintock explains that the United States government heavily funded the Guatemalan
military. According to him, agencies like the United States Military Assistance Program
(MAP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided
monetary assistance that was often used to provide the weaponry and training of Guatemalan
military and paramilitary forces.5 Moreover, McClintock explains that the United States
developed Guatemala’s intelligence and communications capabilities in order to both help
modernize the Guatemalan security system and connect Guatemala with the United States
security network in the Panama Canal Zone.6 He concludes, saying that the United Statessponsored communications network served as the “center of command directing covert state
4
Michael McClintock, The American Connection: Volume 2 State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala
(London: Zed Books, 1985), 54.
5
Ibid., 55-56, 102.
6
Ibid., 70.
5
terrorism.”7 Thus, the United States’ assistance served as a mechanism by which the
Guatemalan military could eradicate communism and insurgency.
The third part of the book, “Guatemala: 1970s to 1980s”, and the fourth part, “Into the
1980s: Mass Counter-Terror and Resistance”, discuss the decision of the United States to
revise security assistance. McClintock argues that although the Carter administration seemed
to outwardly desire to reduce assistance to Guatemala because of apparent human rights
abuses, monetary assistance continued to flow8. Moreover, the concealment of collaboration
between the United States and the Guatemalan government appeared to deteriorate under the
Reagan administration.9 Additionally, because the Guatemalan government was able to
diversify its sources of security assistance to include aid from other nations, principally from
Israel, it was able to ensure the continuation of its military project.10 McClintock concludes
by declaring that the United States-backed counterinsurgency systematically destroyed entire
communities, specifically targeting Indians as an ethnic group because they were “judged to
have been infected by subversion.”11 According to him, this systematic extermination should
be treated as genocide; consequently, while the United States viewed the atrocities committed
by Guatemala to be “totally repugnant”12, the United States should be held partly responsible
for assisting Guatemala with its quest.13
Greg Grandin’s The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War
represents a more modern work that mirrors McClintock’s conclusions, while simultaneously
building upon this widely accepted body of knowledge. Writing as a historian affiliated with
New York University, Grandin relies on personal interviews and archival research from the
United States and Guatemala. Although focusing this work on the period between the 1954
7
Ibid., 75.
Ibid., 191.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 192.
11
Ibid., 258.
12
Ibid., 281.
13
Ibid., 258, 281.
8
6
ousting of President Árbenz Guzmán and the 1978 Panzós massacre, Grandin certainly adds
to the body of scholarly work concerning the role of the United States in assisting the
Guatemalan military to commit human rights atrocities.
Grandin builds upon McClintock’s arguments concerning blame. While he agrees that
the United States should be held responsible for the deaths of more than 200,000
Guatemalans, Grandin believes that it should not receive all of the blame. Like McClintock,
Grandin recognizes the role of countries other than the United States in the transfer of
expertise and security aid to Guatemala, specifically highlighting Israel, France and South
Africa.14 Moreover, he asserts, “the U.S.-exported counterinsurgency campaign could not
have succeeded without willing allies and versatile ideologies within Latin America.”15
Additionally, Grandin recognizes conservative Guatemalan agency. While different domestic
groups appeared to have varying degrees of influence throughout the war, Grandin offers
visions of an internal anti-communist crusade against changes to the status quo.16 For
example, he points to a coalition of “insurgent counterinsurgents,”17 defined as radical
Catholics, anti-communist students, and middle class soldiers, who supported the CIAbacked ousting of President Árbenz Guzmán and the succeeding Castillo Armas military
junta.
Grandin attempts to explain why the United States would support the Guatemalan
army. Citing United States support of the Guatemalan military before, during, and after the
Carter administration’s assistance revisions, he argues that not only was the United States a
principal patron of the post-Árbenz Guzmán military governments, but Guatemala’s
“counterrevolutionary terror was inextricably tied to empire.”18 Beginning with the success of
14
Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, 1st ed. (Chicago: University Of
Chicago Press, 2004), 13.
15
Ibid., 75.
16
Ibid., 110.
17
Ibid., 11.
18
Ibid., 188.
7
the October Revolution and the perceived communist infiltration of the Guatemalan
government, Grandin sees the United States as trying to combat the threat of communism in
Latin America.19 Hence, he views the United States’ intervention to remove President Árbenz
Guzmán as the first of many planned Cold War-related interventions in this region.20 Grandin
argues that the United States viewed Guatemala as a vital Cold War battleground; in other
words, if Vietnam was as a failure, Guatemala was a success.21 Additionally, he agrees with
McClintock’s assessment that the United States was in a state in denial. Specifically, Grandin
believes that the United States removed itself from blame, institutionalizing what he calls
“official amnesia.”22
DOMESTIC BLAME:
Manz’s Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in
Guatemala examines the forms of human rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan
military, what she calls “the hemisphere’s worst human rights violator,”23 primarily through
the investigation of the Guatemalan refugee situation of the mid-1980s. Manz, a professor of
Anthropology affiliated with Harvard University, relies on research from personal
observations, interviews, information from international refugee agencies, and documents
from the Guatemalan government and military. To support her conclusion, Manz uses
ethnography to create case studies from three areas of northern Guatemala. She provides a
great deal of information related to the background of the human rights crisis, analysis of the
Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico, and information concerning how the Guatemalan
military conducted war against indigenous communities during the late 1970s through the
19
Ibid., 10.
Ibid., 4.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid., 101.
23
Beatriz Manz, Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of the Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 8.
20
8
mid-1980s. That said, critics often criticize Manz for failing to adequately provide specific
references of the indigenous plight as suffered by the Indians themselves.24
Manz places a great deal of blame on the military for the violence that “left thousands
dead and resulted in the displacement of an estimated one million people.”25 She argues that
during the period of mass terror under President Ríos Montt, the Guatemalan military waged
an excessive dual war against insurgents and unarmed civilians.26 Manz sees the era of mass
terror during the early 1980s as a transformation of the policy to destroy grass roots
organizations that began in the late 1970s. Thus, according to her, the army began attacking
the indigenous population as a whole in order to destroy the insurgent’s base of support.27
Manz estimates that during this time there were approximately 250,000 rural Guatemalans
supporters of the insurgency.28 As a response, the Guatemalan military murdered entire
families, raped women with impunity, and leveled hundreds of communities.29 Manz
contends while the threat of the several thousand armed insurgents was correctly perceived to
be real, the dual war against insurgents and civilians was excessive: “the actions taken
violated universally accepted rules of war let alone the most elemental concepts of human
decency.”30 According to her, mass terror led to over 200,000 Guatemalans seeking refuge in
Mexico during the mid-1980s.31 Although less pronounced than McClintock and Grandin,
Manz criticizes the United States for its support of the Guatemalan military, concluding that
its support is “particularly ironic given the increased U.S. pronouncements about freedom and
democracy within the region.”32
Piero Gleijeses, “Review: [untitled],” Journal of Latin American Studies, 21:1 (February 1989): 180.
Manz, Refugees of a Hidden War, 7.
26
Ibid., 167.
27
Ibid., 17.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid., 37.
30
Ibid., 167.
31
Ibid., 147.
32
Ibid., 167.
24
25
9
Additionally, Manz provides a brief analysis of the mechanisms by which the military
sought to control indigenous communities. The Guatemalan military developed and
maintained three central institutions in order to more effectively maintain the status quo and
control the opposition: development poles and model villages, civil patrols, and
Interinstitutional Coordinating Committees.33 According to Manz, the development poles and
model villages were meant to incorporate the indigenous communities into the national
economy and ensure that the indigenous population could be easily controlled.34 However,
she believes that development pole residents were unable to become economically selfsufficient. Indeed, Manz notes that such villagers often had little access to land and few
opportunities to develop cottage industries.35 She contends that although the civil patrol
system was formally intended to enable residents to defend themselves against the guerrillas,
it seemed to actually allow the military to focus elsewhere while patrollers were forced to
monitor their own communities and use violence against their neighbors.36 Moreover, Manz
emphasizes many negative features of the civil patrol system: forced service, extreme
punishments for refusing to serve, violence stemming from personal conflicts, and abuses of
power.37 Finally, she identifies the Interinstitutional Coordinators as an institution that
allowed the military to mastermind all forms of development.38 Coordinators ensured that
only certain projects would be implemented within a given community. Additionally, Manz
highlights the importance of psychological warfare as a way to control indigenous
communities. She contends that the many forms of psychological warfare were intended to
indoctrinate the villagers into considering themselves to be part of the Guatemalan nation,
33
Ibid., 21.
Ibid., 43.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid., 38-40.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., 43.
34
10
convince the indigenous population to blame the guerrillas for their hardships, and
disseminate anticommunist propaganda.39
Stoll’s Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala is a revisionist text that
challenges the assumption that the military was the sole author of indigenous plight. Field
research was completed during 1988-1989 in three Maya communities of the Ixil Triangle,
where the army brutally implemented its counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s. As
an anthropologist affiliated with New York University, Stoll employs guided interview in
order to portray the Ixil Maya as rational actors, forced to choose sides. Between Two Armies
is indeed controversial. Stoll challenges the broadly accepted assumption that the indigenous
population supported of the insurgency en masse. While acknowledging that the military
leveled hundreds of villages and massacred indiscriminately, Stoll, a self-identified member
of the left, seeks to critique human rights organizations and academic supporters of Maya
solidarity by placing some blame on the guerrillas themselves. Critics often find fault in
Stoll’s conclusions, arguing that he supports his conclusion with inadequate testimony.40
Contrary to human rights organizations and academic supporters of solidarity, Stoll
argues that military repression in Maya communities began principally as a reaction to the
presence of guerrilla activities. According to him, the first Ixils to support insurgent
organizations, like the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), were not poor indigenous
plantation workers, but instead merchants and labor contractors “who wished to enlist the
guerrillas in the bitter political feuds of their town.”41 Stoll contends that the insurgents were
willing to offer their services because the “EGP was setting up the population for reprisals.”42
Stoll illustrates this phenomenon by referring to his field research in the town of Chajul,
where the EGP enlisted the support of Chajuleños “by appealing to them as small proprietors
39
Ibid., 36.
James Painter, “Review: [untitled],” Journal of Latin American Studies, 27: 1 (February 1995): 253.
41
Stoll, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala, 68.
42
Ibid., 81-82.
40
11
rather than as semiproletarians.”43 After gaining support, “guerrillas killed three soldiers on
the road to Juil, brought their bloodstained weapons to town to show the people, and advised
the latter to organize, as the army was certain to retaliate against them.”44 According to Stoll,
where the insurgents worked to organize resistance, the military would destroy entire villages
in order to defeat support for the guerrillas; consequently, the indigenous population was
forced to support the EGP in order to save themselves from massacre.45 Moreover, only after
the insurgents retreated from Ixil communities after July of 1982 did indiscriminate rural
violence begin to decrease. 46
Stoll contends that the Ixils were forced to support either the insurgents or the
Guatemalan military, what he refers to as being “between two fires.”47 According to him,
while the military required the indigenous population to demonstrate support, the EGP forced
the Ixils into becoming “de facto participants.”48 As the indigenous population began to
support the EGP in order to defend themselves against indiscriminant military massacre, the
EGP proved to lack the capacity to adequately defend new recruits.49 Thus, Stoll argues that
Ixil support for the insurgency began to wane because it was in their interest to appease the
military; in fact, “what they wanted most was to be on the stronger side.”50 In other words,
the indigenous populations believed that they were being abused by both sides, but by
appeasing the military, the indigenous could maintain “a semblance of their prewar
existence.”51
In agreement with Manz, Stoll contends that the indigenous population was forced to
prove their loyalty by joining civil patrols. However, Stoll does not believe that the civil
43
Ibid., 80.
Ibid., 81.
45
Ibid., 87, 4, 97.
46
Ibid., 110.
47
Ibid., 20.
48
Ibid., 83.
49
Ibid., 126.
50
Ibid., 125.
51
Ibid., 95, 126.
44
12
patrols came to be simply because of military coercion. While the patrols were unpopular,
Stoll argues that by joining the civil patrol, the indigenous population could prevent guerrillas
from finding support in their communities. By doing so, according to Stoll, the Ixil Maya
could preclude army massacres.52 Moreover, this tendency to be part of the civil patrol is just
one expression of what he calls the Maya “deep-seated neutralism.”53 Similarly, he points to
the increasingly popular conversion to evangelical Protestantism as a way for indigenous
populations to “distance themselves from the conflict, rather than positioning themselves as
partisans.”54
Jennifer Schirmer’s The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy
historicizes the human rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan military during 19821996. Representing a more recent dynamic work, Schirmer critically analyzes the roles of the
many groups that participated in the Guatemalan Civil War. Through two decades of
anthropological, anthropological, and historical research, The Guatemalan Military Project
proves to be a groundbreaking work that includes interviews of more than fifty Guatemalan
military officers, including former Minister of Defense General Héctor Gramajo Morales, a
leading architect of the counterinsurgency plan called Bullets and Beans. In contrast to Manz,
Schirmer, also an academic affiliated with Harvard University, does not explicitly denounce
the Guatemalan military; instead, she historicizes the military’s attempt to protect Guatemala
from communism.
With the advantage of having published The Guatemalan Military Project in 1998,
Schirmer builds upon Manz’ and Stoll’s arguments by effectively outlining the military’s
goals from the point of view of the officers themselves. In agreement with Manz, Schirmer
explains that one of the primary goals of the military was to eliminate the guerrillas and
control the indigenous population through their updated counterinsurgency plan. Schirmer
52
Ibid., 128.
Ibid., 121.
54
Ibid., 168.
53
13
uses her interviews with General Gramajo in order to extensively analyze this plan, called
Bullets and Beans, which began under General Ríos Montt. According to Gramajo, thirty
percent of the war effort was to be dedicated to destroying insurgents and sympathizers, and
seventy percent was aimed at maintaining allegiance through development.55 The interviews
provided by Gramajo precisely detail the mechanisms by which the counterinsurgency plan
would be completed. According to Gramajo, Bullets and Beans was completed in five phases:
the pacification campaign (called Victoria 82), the establishment of Civil Patrols and the
Shelter, Work, and Food program (called Firmeza 83), the development of Model Villages
and Poles of Development (named Re-Encuentro Institucional 84), the intensification of
programs and the presidential elections of 1985 (named Estabilidad Nacional 85), and the
1986 transition to democracy (called Avance).56
Schirmer agrees with Manz and Stoll that the Guatemalan military sought to eliminate
the conditions that stimulated support and sympathy for the insurgency. Like Grandin,
Schirmer contends that the military began using massacre as a counterinsurgency tool
beginning with the Panzós massacre.57 Echoing Manz, Schirmer mentions that prior to the
implementation of Bullets and Beans, there were approximately 250,000-500,000 indigenous
supporters of the insurgency.58 She attributes the support not due to the success of the
guerrillas, but the widespread terror that “created far more resistance than it destroyed.”59
Moreover, like Stoll, Schirmer argues that despite offering hope and dignity to the indigenous
populations, insurgent groups soon became unable to retain support because they were unable
to defend their supporters from the military.60 Thus, with the implementation of Bullets and
55
Jennifer Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 23.
56
Ibid., 23-24.
57
Ibid., 39.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid.
60
Ibid., 40-42.
14
Beans, the military forced the indigenous population to choose sides, what Stoll and Schirmer
refer to as being “between two fires.”61
Schirmer argues that the military eliminated guerrilla support through the
implementation of the civil patrols, techniques of disinformation and psychological warfare,
and the execution of the National Plan of Security and Development. In agreement with
Manz, Schirmer contends that the civil patrols were formally intended to serve two purposes:
provide the indigenous with a form of self-defense from guerrillas and force the population to
support the military.62 Moreover, she concludes that the civil patrols both served as a form of
human intelligence that enabled the military to more precisely identify guerrillas, and they
enabled the military refute claims that the indigenous population was not their side.63 Also in
agreement with Manz, psychological warfare and disinformation techniques were used to
convince the indigenous not only that the guerrillas forced the military to destroy their
villages, but the indigenous themselves were to blame for their plight, as they let themselves
be “deceived (engañado) by false promises of the insurgency.”64 Finally, Schirmer contends
that the military’s National Plan of Security and Development was intended to offer the
indigenous population a semblance of development “within a context of rational and effective
security” through the implementation of model villages and poles of development.65 Schirmer
agrees with Manz that the model villages were an economic failure, but she argues that they
were considered a political success because they forced the indigenous population to become
dependent upon and committed to the Guatemalan military and government.66
Echoing themes of impunity as detailed by Manz, Schirmer reveals why the military
would want to transfer power to a democratically elected president. Through evaluating
61
Ibid., 81.
Ibid., 81, 97.
63
Ibid., 81.
64
Ibid., 265.
65
Ibid., 25.
66
Ibid., 72.
62
15
decree laws and Gramajo’s Thesis of National Stability, Schirmer argues that the military
viewed liberalization as necessary in order to ensure stability, deflect blame, and guarantee
that the military could continue its project with impunity. She contends that prior to the
construction of Bullets and Beans, the military sought to distance itself from the corruption of
the Lucas García regime and strengthen itself against the oligarchy.67 Additionally, the
international community began to react negatively to the doctrine of massacre and mass
terror, as expressed by United States aid revisions. Thus, according to Schirmer, the military
believed not only was its project in jeopardy, but the military as an institution was in danger;
accordingly, only by committing to democracy could it regain international sources of
legitimacy and destroy the guerrillas.68 Furthermore, Schirmer argues that in order to both
affirm their independence from the oligarchy and the United States and shift accusations of
human rights abuses away from itself, Gramajo placed blame on the entire Guatemalan
population in his Thesis of National Stability: “We will not feel guilty… because we are not
responsible for it. Every Guatemalan is.”69 Finally, Schirmer maintains that the military
sought to constitutionalize counterinsurgency so that it could continue its project after the
return of democracy.70 Hence, the military issued a series of decree laws that fomented a
counterinsurgent constitutional order.71 Upon creation of the 1985 Constitution, the military
was granted a constitutional mandate to continue the counterinsurgency, while subversives
and dissenters were considered outside the law.72
CONCLUSION:
The five books reviewed here represent the development of scholarship concerned
with addressing blame for the human rights abuses committed during the Guatemalan Civil
67
Ibid., 32.
Ibid., 30-32.
69
Ibid., 238.
70
Ibid., 130.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid., 136-137.
68
16
War. The authors of these works range greatly in point of view and methodology.
Researchers of human rights and scholars from the disciplines of Anthropology, History, and
social studies attempt to reveal how the genocidal massacre of hundreds of thousands of
Guatemalans occurred in the late twentieth century. They employ methodological approaches
ranging from the anthropological tools of ethnography and case studies to the more
journalistic approaches of interview and archival research. Scholars like Stoll and Schirmer
appear to be centrists, while Manz and Grandin seem to represent a more leftist point of view.
Additionally, the academic vigor employed in this literature has been questioned; indeed,
peers have heavily criticized Manz and Stoll, while Schirmer and McClintock have been
lauded for their precision. Moreover, it is clear that this literature has been rife with debate.
Scholars have profoundly disputed the nature of the Guatemalan Civil War, the agency of all
parties involved, and which groups should be held accountable for the human rights atrocities
committed during this time. Evolving from a literature that focused blame on the United
States and the Guatemalan military, more recent scholarship has proven to be dynamic. In
conclusion, recent scholars critically analyze the roles of the various groups that participated
in the Guatemalan Civil War as a way to more precisely place the blame.
17
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