Backstory
In 2005, a massive amount of documentation belonging to the former Guatemalan National Police was discovered. The archive contained information on systematic human rights violations committed during the country’s civil war from 1960 to 1996. These archives were the subject of “From Silence to Memory: Archives and Human Rights in Guatemala and Beyond,” a symposium that took place October 24 on the UO campus. The symposium featured the release of a new documentary by CLLAS board member Gabriela Martínez—Keep Your Eyes on Guatemala—and of Carlos Aguirre and Kate Doyle’s English translation of a Spanish-language report on the archives— From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional.

The translation and film are the result of a collaboration between academic units at the UO and Guatemala’s Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN). With funding support from the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC), and other campus units, Carlos Aguirre (professor of history and director of the UO Latin American Studies Program) and Gabriela Martínez (associate professor, UO School of Journalism and Communicaton), headed up the projects for the UO.