An enforced disappearance is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization. In case of a third party, it has the authorization of another state or political organization; it is usually followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate and whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.
Brigadier General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores was the 27th President of Guatemala from 8 August 1983 to 14 January 1986. A member of the military, he was president during the apex of repression and death squad activity in the Central American nation. When he was minister of defense, he rallied a coup against President José Efraín Ríos Montt, which he justified by declaring that the government was being abused by religious fanatics. He allowed for a return to democracy, with elections for a constituent assembly in 1984 followed by general elections in 1985.
General Fernando Romeo Lucas García was the 37th President of Guatemala from July 1, 1978, to March 23, 1982. He was elected as Institutional Democratic Party candidate. Elections for his presidency were fraud-ridden. During Lucas García's regime, tensions between the radical left and the government increased. The military started to murder political opponents while counterinsurgency measures further terrorized populations of poor civilians.
In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war that began in 1962 and ended in the late 1990s with United Nations-facilitated peace accords. The commission operated under a two-year mandate, from 1997 to 1999, and employed three commissioners: one Guatemalan man, one male non-national, and one Mayan woman. The mandate of the commission was not to judge but to clarify the past with "objectivity, equity and impartiality."
The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against civilians. The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues of unfair land distribution. Wealthy Guatemalans, mainly European-descended, and foreign companies such as the American United Fruit Company had dominated control over much of the land, and paid almost zero taxes in return – leading to conflicts with the rural indigenous poor who worked the land under miserable terms.
Los ricos también lloran is a popular telenovela produced in Mexico in 1979, starring Verónica Castro, Rogelio Guerra and Rocío Banquells. Castro also sang the theme Aprendí a Llorar, a song written by Lolita de la Colina. The telenovela was produced by Valentín Pimstein and Carlos Romero, it was directed by Rafael Banquells. The story was written by Inés Rodena and adapted by Valeria Philips.
Marisol is a Mexican telenovela produced by Juan Osorio for Televisa in 1996. Telenovela is a remake of the 1977 Mexican telenovela Marcha nupcial. Famous and beloved Enrique Álvarez Félix died after he finished his work in Marisol.
The Guatemalan genocide, also referred to as the Maya genocide, or the Silent Holocaust, was the massacre of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by successive US-backed Guatemalan military governments. Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilian collaborators at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965, and was a longstanding policy of the military regime, which US officials were aware of. A report from 1984 discussed "the murder of thousands by a military government that maintains its authority by terror". Human Rights Watch has described "extraordinarily cruel" actions by the armed forces, mostly against unarmed civilians.
A Wall of Silence is a 1993 Argentine drama film starring Vanessa Redgrave. The film concerns a turbulent period in Argentine history, the National Reorganization Process as well as the responsibility of artists in engaging and interpreting human stories from this period. It was directed by Lita Stantic and released theatrically in Argentina on 10 June 1993. It was also screened later that year at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was released as Black Flowers in some English territories.
In Brazil, the National Truth Commission investigated human rights violations of the period of 1946–1988 - in particular by the authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from April 1, 1964 to March 15, 1985.
The Policia Militar Ambulante was an elite paramilitary corp active in Guatemala during the Guatemalan Civil War.
Ramón Rosa Soto was a prominent lawyer, journalist, politician and liberal writer of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was the ideologue of educational changes of Liberal Reform in Guatemala and then in Honduras. He served as Principal Minister during the rule of his cousin, Dr. Marco Aurelio Soto and was associated with Soto's mining investments.
Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz was a Mexican journalist and photographer. He was murdered in February 2014 in Veracruz, which has been described as the most dangerous state for journalists in Mexico. He was at least the tenth journalist killed in Veracruz since Javier Duarte became governor 38 months earlier. At the time of Jiménez's murder, four additional journalists were missing in the state.
The Franja Transversal del Norte is a region in Guatemala delimited to the north by an imaginary line between Vértice de Santiago in Huehuetenango and Modesto Méndez Port in Izabal and in the south by La Mesilla in Huehuetenango and Izabal lake. It is composed, from west to east, of part of the Guatemalan departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Alta Verapaz and the entire department of Izabal. It extends roughly 15750 km2. During the Guatemalan Civil War, most of the massacres took place there due to the oil, mineral and precious wood reserves in the region. In the 21st century, there are projects to work in the region and a modern highway was built in 2010.
Alaíde Foppa was a Guatemalan poet, writer, feminist, art critic, teacher and translator. Born in Barcelona, Spain she held Guatemalan citizenship and lived in exile in Mexico. She worked as a professor in both Guatemala and Mexico. Much of her poetry was published in Mexico and she co-founded one of the first feminist publications, Fem, in the country. After her husband's death, she made a trip to Guatemala to see her mother and renew her passport. She was detained and disappeared in Guatemala City on 19 December 1980, presumed to be murdered. Some sources note the date of her disappearance as 9 December 1980.
Laureen Ann Rahn is an American teenager who vanished under mysterious circumstances from her home in Manchester, New Hampshire. On the night of her disappearance, Rahn was accompanied by a male and female friend at the apartment she shared with her mother, Judith, who was out on a date with her boyfriend.
Joan Kruckewitt is an American journalist and writer. Kruckewitt has reported on Latin America and Europe for ABC Radio, Pacifica Radio, RKO, Mutual, NBC, Monitoradio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and NPR. She is the author of The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua and has contributed to other books.
Iduvina Hernández is a Guatemalan journalist and internationally-known human rights activist. Her work has involved analyzing democracy and state security. Specifically, her research has focused on the violence which occurred during the Guatemalan Civil War and rebuilding the structures to support the country's democracy. In her childhood, her father was threatened by the National Civil Police and her husband was killed in 1984. She interrupted her education after his murder and moved to Mexico, living in exile there and working as a journalist until 1989. After her return to Guatemala, Hernández wrote articles focused on the war and counterinsurgency for Crónica magazine.
