Introduction
CIIDH's Collaboration with other Organizations
With the goal of making information from the data base available to diverse grassroots, academic, human rights, and other institutions and organizations, CIIDH will produce, beginning with this study, a series of reports analyzing the socio-political context in diverse regions of Guatemala during different periods of its recent history, and data collected from the field about human rights violations against different sectors of Guatemalan society. One criteria used in conducting this research is that of incorporating the input of various organizations with which CIIDH has collaborated to collect field data, as a way of acknowledging the work and effort they invested to obtain the testimonies that constitute the foundation of this data base.
For this first report, CIIDH worked in conjunction with the GAM whose members conducted a portion of the field work in various municipalities around the country, including Nebaj, Rabinal, and Santo Domingo Suchitepéquez.
GAM is a human rights organization composed of relatives of those detained and disappeared by the Guatemalan government under its counterinsurgency policy. GAM emerged in 1984 during the military regime of General Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores. For the past twelve years, its objectives have focused on the struggle against impunity and the search for truth and justice, as well as the construction of a broad, pluralistic, and representative democracy.
GAM carries out public events to demand full respect for human rights. It also promotes programs to defend all of those individuals or sectors whose individual and collective rights and freedoms have been breached.
In addition to these activities, GAM is involved in reporting, education, and research focused on increasing public awareness of legal instruments in order to foster public participation and social organization.