Guatemala National Police Archives
[In 2011], after more than five and a half years of arduous work, there is a topographic inventory that allows us to pinpoint the location of the documents in the AHPN, which have finally been identified, preserved, classified, ordered and described. An archival system is being implemented which meets the highest international regulatory standards in this field. The AHPN has a group of highly qualified people with the skills necessary to identify, process, and analyze documents containing information relating to events that constitute human rights violations. It also possesses cutting-edge technology and know-how that allows the digitization of documents at a rate of two million, eight hundred thousand pages a year.[1]
In July 2005, in an abandoned warehouse in downtown Guatemala City, Guatemala, delegates from the country's Institution of the Procurator for Human Rights uncovered, by sheer chance, a vast archive detailing the history of the defunct National Police and its role in the Guatemalan Civil War.[2] Over five rooms full of files containing names, address, identity documents, were brought to light.[3]
The store of documents measures nearly five miles in linear length, and contains records dating back as far as the late nineteenth century (1882) and as recent as 1997.[4] Since the discovery, forensic teams have been carefully archiving the files they have found, with the help of specialized organizations like MARTUS[5] and BENETECH/HRDAG.
In December 2009, the AHPN achieved legal certainty through the Inter-Institutional Cooperation Agreement between the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Culture and Sport.[4] By the end of 2013, more than 15 million documents (about 20% of the roughly 80 million total sheets) had been digitized.[6]
References
- ↑ AHPN 2013, p. xxix.
- ↑ AHPN 2013, p. xxxiv.
- ↑ "The Guatemalan Police Archives". National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 170. National Security Archive. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 AHPN 2013, p. xxxv.
- ↑ http://www.martus.org/concept/project_update.shtml
- ↑ Kinzer 2013.
Bibliography
- Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (2013). From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the AHPN. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Libraries. ISBN 978-0-985-82041-1.
- Kinzer, Stephen (2013). "Glimmers of Hope in Guatemala". The New York Review of Books 60 (19).