Dealing with the legacy of gross human rights violations in Guatemala: grasping the mismatch between macro level policies and micro level processes

Abstract

This article addresses the important nexus between macro level responses and micro level processes when dealing with the aftermath of gross human rights violations. It focuses on the case of Guatemala and the issue of financial compensation for people affected by the internal armed conflict. One of the key mechanisms of the horror of the counter-insurgency war was the forced mass involvement of the civilian population through the imposition of the Civil Defence Patrols in rural indigenous communities. This raises the thorny question of who is victim in a micro reality of blurred lines between victims and perpetrators. Several socio-political parameters ensured that two distinct compensation programmes were created: one aimed at compensating the ex-civil patrollers; and a National Reparations Programme for the victims. Ethnographic accounts from Maya Q'eqchi' victims and ex-civil patrollers reveal that these two state initiatives expose frustration and incomprehensiveness among the beneficiaries towards both programmes and reveal a mismatch between macro initiatives and micro reality, which undermines the fragile process of rebuilding community trust.