Introduction
Description of the Database Project
In the framework described above, the project has used two basic sources of information for its study:
1. Documents containing written information, such as documents and publications obtained from the archives of human rights organizations, the press, and public libraries.
2. Oral or testimonial sources: specifically, witnesses to violations who had never had the opportunity to share what they experienced or witnessed. The inclusion of these testimonies of political violence as an information source became a fundamental component of CIIDH’s work.
The analysis presented in this study comes exclusively from the testimonial sources.
Methodology and Teams for Data Collection and Processing
Based on an analysis of the human rights situation in the country, the project’s first task was to design a format for the computerized data base in order to record the information in a uniform manner. For this, concepts and definitions were adopted that allowed the essential elements of each case considered to be documented, no matter what the source.
Operationally, teams were formed to conduct data collection and processing in order to construct the data base.
Two work areas for data collection were established in the data base design, one for each type of source -written and oral testimony. In the first case, a team of researchers was assigned to obtain information from written sources, beginning with a systematic review of the five major daily newspapers published in the country from 1960 to the present.
In order to process information extracted from oral testimony, an interview form was designed to be filled out for every case recounted by witnesses. The format and content of this instrument were determined based on the definitions and concepts adopted by CIIDH, the experience drawn from a series of test interviews, and samples of questionnaires used by other organizations.
Testimony is collected by regional teams of interviewers who travel to communities throughout the country, visiting the witnesses’ places of residence. The procedure varies by area depending on various factors including fear of reprisals by the army, military commissioners, or civil self-defense patrols (PAC, hereafter: "civil patrols"), the degree of local organization, and the levels of awareness, willingness, and trust people have to describe the events that so affected and transformed their lives.
In general, CIIDH coordinates the interviews with local members or leaders of grassroots organizations so that interviewers gather testimony at the appropriate place and time. All of the interviewers are bilingual which enables them to conduct interviews in the native language of the victims and later fill out the forms in Spanish.
To date, five teams have been formed and have conducted interviews in different regions of the country. Geographic divisions were drawn based on criteria to facilitate the logistics and work coordination, and the possibilities for access to witnesses in different areas. The regions that were identified for the study were the West, the Southern Coast, Alta and Baja Verapaz, El Petén, and Guatemala City. The study will be extended to other regions such as the Ixcán and some refugee camps in Mexico beginning in the second half of 1996.
Map 1
CIIDH Study
Regions
Source: CIIDH
Data Processing and Analysis Team
All of the raw data from the field research -- both oral interviews and written information -- that are received by the CIIDH offices are coded based on the Data Base design. The Data Processing and Analysis Team is responsible for this task which includes classifying the information by separating the data into the different files that constitute the data base. The information is then revised and finally, a computer operator enters the cases into the data base, revising them once again.