Customer Reviews

Guatemala: Never Again!

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This book is a summarization of a human rights report presented in Guatemala in 1998. Through eye-witness testimony, it outlines the military atrocities committed during Guatemala's Civil War and the effect the war has had on Guatemala's indigenous population.

This edition has been edited from the original lengthy report but retains important testimony in smaller quotes where relevant and offers the reader stark evidence of the massive violence as well as the psychological warfare that was perpetrated on the citizens of Guatemala.

The author of this report was killed two days after it was published. His assailant has not yet been brought to justice. This report is a must read for anyone interested in Human Rights, Native cultures, or the history of Guatemala.

I highly recommend this book for a number of reasons.
If you are just starting to delve into the knowledge about Guatemala's tragic civil war this is the place to start. What this is is an abridged version of the Human Rights report on the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan army. This book is made up of two things: analysis and then personal testimonies from the victims.

What it does for you is reveal that these crimes committed against the indigenous population went far beyond simply stated genocide and ethnic cleansing. There was far more to the army's tactics than massacre and physical torture.

The crimes against the Mayas were highly psychological and I think that this report reveals that and puts it clearly. This book takes what you might already know about the horror and brings you in deeper. By the time you're done you will have a more clear, more concise, more accurate picture of what was done by the army to not only affect these people but to also keep them in silence about a war that not too many people know about.

It also shows why Guatemala is still so devastated by this war, and what it's going to take to ensure that this history doesn't repeat itself. It's difficult in some places to read, but I think you need to. As you sit in your comfortable house reading it, I think it will change your perception on life. It did mine anyway.

This review is for the Orbis Books (Maryknoll) oversize paperback edition, 1999. It is the English language summary of the four volume REHMI report on human rights atrocities during the four-decade internal conflict in Guatemala between the wealthy oligarchy backed by the army and most everyone else, but particularly the indigenous Mayan Indians. Bishop Juan Gerardi, architect of the REHMI project, presented the REHMI report on April 24, 1998. Two days later he was brutally murdered, which led to an unprecedented prosecution, lasting nine years, of Guatemalan Army officers and a priest who were complicit in his death.

As agreed in the Guatemalan Peace Accords of September 1996, a similar study would be created under the auspices of the United Nations. That work, known as the CEH report, was completed in February 1999 with findings similar to the REHMI report. The government forces and their allies were responsible for 90-93% of the atrocities, whereas only 3-5% were attributed to the Guerillas.

Language is one of the reasons for the Archdiocese pursuing the REHMI study. The tribes comprising the Mayan Indians speak 23 tongues and dialects. Presumably, the predominately foreign investigators under UN auspices would not have the linguistic resources to interview the rural indigenous, whereas the Archdiocese had access to native speakers. As a result, the REHMI interviews were predominately in rural areas where they documented, with the names of the victims, around 29,000 deaths and forced disappearances and another 23,000 victims of human rights abuse. (The general estimate is that 200,000 persons perished in 36 years of conflict.)

The four volume REHMI study, available on line in Spanish and French, is a five star report of immense social importance about the atrocities inflicted upon rural Guatemala by the army and their associates. This English language summary, however, is useful only for excerpts from the testimonials and the abbreviated statistical tables, and for lack of criteria on the conduct of the survey, that usefulness is minimal for serious research.

Aside from the testimony and statistics, GUATEMALA, NEVER AGAIN contains 100 pages of "background" that attempt to explain the Guatemalan military and political structure during the conflict. That text is desert dry, convoluted and at times contradictory. For an engaging read about the political/military background, and the murder of Bishop Gerardi, I highly recommend The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?.