Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (review)

This is an extraordinary book that deserves a wide readership. At a time when there is much interest in democratic transitions in Latin America, this profound study vividly illuminates how difficult it will be to come to terms with and eventually transcend a violent authoritarian past. Sanford makes a compelling case in support of the thesis that truth-telling (for which survivor testimony is essential), community healing, and justice are indelibly linked and are essential elements of a successful transition to a more peaceful and democratic society.

Sanford's study is impressively rigorous despite its eclectic use of methodologies. She convincingly refutes the criticism that survivor testimony is too "anecdotal" to be of great analytic utility. She shows, on the contrary, how the bizarre and warped logic of genocide can be laid bare by combining survivor testimony with the forensic data derived from the exhumation of mass graves. Her study is supported by the testimony of more than 400 survivors of army-perpetrated massacres. Those testimonies were taken in conjunction with the exhumation of mass graves in cemeteries whose existence was denied by the army but well known to the survivors, and also in the context of community demands to rebury the dead and gain closure. The result is a narrative that is gripping and deeply affecting, while also inspiring when considered from the standpoint of the will to survive and the courage to confront injustice displayed by the inhabitants of the ravaged Maya communities. Those who carried out the Guatemalan army's "scorched earth campaign" want the dead to "lie in peace." Sanford shows why this cannot be allowed if Guatemala is to overcome its violent past and begin to take the rule of law seriously.

In the context of Guatemala's peace process a number of studies and reports have appeared detailing human rights violations committed under military rule. While drawing on these reports, her study adds richly to them by focusing an exceptionally sharp eye on a particular set of massacres (in Pánzos, Rabinal, and the Ixil Triangle). In turn, we learn about these grotesque abuses of power from the perspective of those who were subjected to them. Sanford allows survivors to tell their own stories at great length. Their testimonies do far more than recount the violence. They show startling insight into army perceptions of the Maya people, and of the army's analysis of the problem to be addressed. Sanford presents these testimonies in a manner that reveals how the army not only murdered thousands of noncombatants, but also forced a whole population into a "life of flight" intended to bring them under complete political subjugation by destroying their will to resist. To a considerable degree the army succeeded through its scorched earth campaign, program of Model Villages and Civil Patrols. Once its military and political objectives were achieved, the army demanded silence and forgetting. Even as the Guatemalan state undertakes to implement the peace accords, a campaign of intimidation is carried on to assure such silence. Nevertheless, the sources upon which Sanford draws demonstrate that the army failed in this objective, and that indeed it must fail if the goals of the peace accords are to be realized.

This book is much too complex and Sanford's argument much too subtle to summarize in a brief review. Her study is grounded in what she refers to as the "phenomenology of terror," which traces the whole dynamic of state-sponsored genocide and draws persuasive generalizations as to the common features of army massacres across time and space. She leaves no doubt that each massacre cannot be treated as a discrete event, but rather must be understood as part of a calculated state policy. The book concludes with a thoughtful discussion of the interrelationships among truth telling, the search for justice, and the reconciliation that may be necessary if trust in...