In early June Kyle Matthews of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies ventured to Guatemala upon an invitation from the International Field Initiatives and Forensic Training (IFIFT). The weeklong trip, sponsored by IFIFT and coordinated in collaboration with the Guatemalan Foundation of Forensic Anthropology (FAFG), provided Matthews the unique opportunity to observe firsthand the work of social and forensic anthropologists in Guatemala.

 

To fully comprehend the correlation between human rights and forensic anthropology in Guatemala one needs only look at the nation’s past. From 1960-1996 the country was scourged by civil war, which resulted in the loss of over 200, 000 lives. At least 669 massacres occurred during the conflict era, the vast majority being state orchestrated and directed towards indigenous communities.

 

An unknown amount of clandestine graves scatter the country’s highlands, remnants of the atrocities that occurred there. It is the job of anthropologists to gather testimony from survivors, locate unmarked graves, exhume the bodies of the dead, and give them back their identities.  The work of IFIFT and FAFG has provided closure to those who’ve lost loved ones, and a burden of proof that can, and has, been used to prosecute those responsible –as was the case with former president Efrain Rios Montt.