March 3, 2009
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- A new government commission will organize and
declassify military documents that could shed light on torture,
disappearances and other atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil
war, President Alvaro Colom announced Tuesday.
Starting next week, the five-member panel will spend 10 months gathering
files from military bases and other institutions, Colom said. Once
organized, the documents will be released to the public.
''We are no longer at war. We have no reason to hide anything,'' Colom
told reporters.
However, the team of four civilian government workers and one Defense
Ministry official will determine whether any of the documents contain
secrets that could jeopardize national security, said presidential
spokesman Ronaldo Robles.
A U.N.truth commission in 1999 found
that 90 percent of the atrocities committed in the war were carried out
by former soldiers and paramilitaries. More than 200,000 people were
killed, mostly Mayan Indians.
The military has historically kept its documents under lock and key and
fought almost all public requests to see them. But army spokesman Juan
Francisco Loranca said the army was ''completely ready to obey the
orders of our commander in chief, the president.''
However, Carmen Aida Ibarra, of the human rights group Myrna Mack
Foundation, noted that Colom announced the creation of a similar
commission last year that has produced no results.
''It's not a matter of commissions. The president announced that the
files would be handed over in 2008 and the military always spins its
wheels,'' she said.
In January, the government filed 3,350 criminal complaints accusing
former soldiers, paramilitaries and others of human rights violations
against more than 5,000 civilians during the war. Alleged offenses range
from rape to forced disappearances and massacres.